The Flaming Lips is an American rock band formed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1983. Instrumentally, their sound contains lush, multi-layered, psychedelic rock arrangements, but lyrically their compositions show elements of space rock, including unusual song and album titles—such as "What Is the Light? (An Untested Hypothesis Suggesting That the Chemical [In Our Brains] by Which We Are Able to Experience the Sensation of Being in Love Is the Same Chemical That Caused the "Big Bang" That Was the Birth of the Accelerating Universe)". They are also acclaimed for their elaborate live shows, which feature costumes, balloons, puppets, video projections, complex stage light configurations, giant hands, large amounts of confetti, and frontman Wayne Coyne's signature man-sized plastic bubble, in which he traverses the audience. In 2002, Q magazine named the Flaming Lips one of the "50 Bands to See Before You Die."
The band is best known for its associations with 1960s and 1970s psychedelic subculture, with elements of this culture permeating the group's instrumentation, effects, and composition. Coyne's lyrics, in particular, both reference and embody the fascination with the science fiction and space opera genres of fiction that were popular during the golden age of psychedelic subculture. His lyrical style tends to use the imagery and plot conventions of space opera to frame more abstract themes about the unfolding cycles of romantic love, highlighting its vulnerability while delving into its metaphysical implications.
The group recorded several albums and EPs on an indie label, Restless, in the 1980s and early 1990s. After signing to Warner Brothers, they scored a hit in 1993 with "She Don't Use Jelly". Although it has been their only hit single in the U.S., the band has maintained critical respect and, to a lesser extent, commercial viability through albums such as 1999's The Soft Bulletin (which was NME magazine's Album of the Year) and 2002's Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. They have had more hit singles in the UK and Europe than in the U.S. In February 2007, they were nominated for a 2007 BRIT Award in the "Best International Act" category. By 2007, the group garnered three Grammy Awards, including two for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.
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Stardeath and White Dwarfs is an experimental rock band from Norman, Oklahoma, formed in late 2004. The band has released two albums, one single ("Toast & Marmalade For Tea" on Half Machine Records) and an EP, as well as contributing to The Flaming Lips' 2009 remake of The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd.
The band consists of Dennis Coyne, Casey Joseph, Matt Duckworth and Ford Chastain. Lead singer Coyne is the nephew of Flaming Lips lead singer Wayne Coyne.
They released the "That's Cool" EP in 2005. They released their first full-length album, entitled The Birth, on vinyl (with digital download) on May 19, 2009 and on CD on June 9, 2009, on Warner Brothers.
Stardeath and White Dwarfs have toured with Deerhoof, British Sea Power, Band of Horses, Starlight Mints, Explosions in the Sky, Tame Impala, and The Flaming Lips. They have opened for The Flaming Lips at the Tulsa, Oklahoma D-Fest Festival 2007, on their New Year's Eve shows in 2007 and 2008, and during a brief tour in 2009. They also played the 2008 Wakarusa Festival.
In the fall of 2012, Stardeath and White Dwarfs began playing shows with New Fumes, Linear Downfall, and Spaceface. Around the same time, they collaborated with The Flaming Lips, along with New Fumes, Linear Downfall and Spaceface, to do another song-for-song cover of an album. This time, it was the classic debut of King Crimson, In the Court of the Crimson King. They called it Playing Hide and Seek With the Ghosts of Dawn, and released it in November 2012. In 2013 they contributed to "The Time Has Come to Shoot You Down... What a Sound," a reworking of the Stone Roses debut album, also with The Flaming Lips, New Fumes and friends.
Henry Rollins (born Henry Lawrence Garfield; February 13, 1961) is an American musician, writer, journalist, publisher, actor, motivational speaker, television and radio host, spoken word artist, comedian, and activist. He hosts a weekly radio show on KCRW, and is a regular columnist for LA Weekly and Rolling Stone Australia.
After performing for the short-lived Washington, D.C. band State of Alert in 1980, Rollins fronted the California hardcore punk band Black Flag from August 1981 until mid-1986. Following the band's breakup, Rollins established the record label and publishing company 2.13.61 to release his spoken word albums, and formed the Rollins Band, which toured with a number of lineups from 1987 until 2003, and during 2006.
Since Black Flag disbanded, Rollins has hosted numerous radio shows, such as Harmony in My Head on Indie 103, and television shows such as The Henry Rollins Show, MTV's 120 Minutes, and Jackass. He had recurring dramatic roles in the second season of Sons of Anarchy, in the final seasons of the animated series The Legend of Korra as Zaheer, and has also had roles in several films. Rollins has campaigned for various political causes in the United States, including promoting LGBT rights, World Hunger Relief, and an end to war in particular.
As of 2013, Rollins is the host of the educational history television series 10 Things You Don't Know About, joining the show for its second and third seasons. New episodes air weekly on H2 in the U.S.
The peach (Prunus persica) is a deciduous tree native to the region of Northwest China between the Tarim Basin and the north slopes of the Kunlun Shan mountains, where it was first domesticated and cultivated. It bears an edible juicy fruit called a peach or a nectarine.
The specific epithet persica refers to its widespread cultivation in Persia, whence it was transplanted to Europe. It belongs to the genus Prunus which includes the cherry, apricot, almond and plum, in the rose family. The peach is classified with the almond in the subgenus Amygdalus, distinguished from the other subgenera by the corrugated seed shell.
Peach and nectarines are the same species, even though they are regarded commercially as different fruits. In contrast to peaches, whose fruits present the characteristic fuzz on the skin, nectarines are characterized by the absence of fruit-skin trichomes (fuzz-less fruit); genetic studies suggest nectarines are produced due to a recessive allele, whereas peaches are produced from a dominant allele for fuzzy skin.
The People's Republic of China is the world's largest producer of peaches.
