At the end of May and beginning of June the state of Oklahoma faced a series of devastating tornadoes that left many dead and billions of dollars in damages. In order to raise money for Oklahoma storm victims, a number of the state’s most famous rockers and others looking to help with come together for a concert dubbed “Rock For Oklahoma” on July 23, at Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma natives Kings Of Leon and the Flaming Lips will headline, with Jackson Browne and Built To Spill also aboard. Event organizers say additional acts will be added. “We couldn’t be more proud to lend a hand to our home state. We were all devastated by what happened there….we have family and friends that were affected by the tornados….this is the least we could do,” said Jared Followill of Kings of Leon in a statement. Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips added, “Shakespeare said ‘It is not enough to help the needy up, but to support them after’ and in our small way we are trying to not just be here at the moment of immediate need, but to stay and help with the rebuilding. After all, this is our home and they are us and we are them.”

Tickets will cost $35 and $50 and go on sale this Friday at 10AM local time. Organizers will deliver all proceeds to central Oklahoma community organizations and charities, via local charities.

The Flaming Lips visited NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night, where they not only performed Try To Explain off their new album, The Terror, but front man Wayne Coyne also sat in on a game of Pictionary with fellow Fallon guests Julie Bowen and Demi Lovato.

As if that wasn’t enough, The Flaming Lips performed a triumphant cover of David Bowie’s 1977 gem Heroes as a web exclusive. Watch the Lips’ impressive cover…

And here’s video of Try To Explain and Coyne playing Pictionary…

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The always colorful Flaming Lips will visit David Letterman on Wednesday night in support of their new album, The Terror, which comes out Tuesday. The Lips will also once again tackle Music Festival Season head-on with appearances set for the Beale Street Festival in Memphis, the Bottle Rock Festival in Napa, The Great GoogaMooga in Brooklyn and the Brighton Festival in England, among others.

[Photo by J. Michelle Martin Coyne]

Monday, April 1 [All Times ET]

• Paul McCartney: Good Evening New York City [AXS 4:20PM]
• The Band Perry on David Letterman [CBS 11:35PM]
• Goo Goo Dolls on Jay Leno [NBC 11:35PM]
• DJ Jazzy Jeff on Jimmy Fallon [NBC 12:35AM]
• Ringo Starr: Ringo at the Ryman [AXS 2AM]

Tuesday, April 2

• Ben Harper: The Making of Get Up [Palladia 11AM]
• von Grey on Conan [TBS 11PM]
• Cold War Kids on Jimmy Kimmel [ABC 11:35AM]
• Deerhunter on Jimmy Fallon [NBC 12:35AM]
• Pete Wentz on Carson Daly [NBC 1:35AM]

Wednesday, April 3

• Dave Matthews Band: Weekend on the Rocks [AXS 4PM]
• Darius Rucker on Conan [TBS 11PM]
• The Flaming Lips on David Letterman [CBS 11:35PM]
• Gloriana on Jay Leno [NBC 11:35PM]
• Bonnie Raitt on Craig Ferguson (R) [CBS 12:35AM]

Thursday, April 4

• B.B. King: With Special Guests [AXS 1:10PM]
• Fleetwood Mac: Live in Boston Pt. II [AXS 2:10PM]
• Macklemore & Ryan Lewis on Conan [TBS 11PM]
• Tyler the Creator on David Letterman [CBS 11:35PM]
• Ryan Bingham on Jimmy Fallon [NBC 12:35AM]

This morning Memphis In May organizers have announced the lineup for this year’s Beale Street Music Festival which is set to take place from May 3 to 5 in Memphis. Among the 60+ acts set to play Tom Lee Park over the three days are Alice in Chains, Hall and Oates, Bassnectar, The Black Keys, ZZ Top, The Roots, Mavis Staples, Patti Smith, The Smashing Pumpkins, Flaming Lips and Phoenix.

There are plenty of HT faves aboard besides the bands already mentioned including Gov’t Mule, Charles Bradley, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, Cracker, The Black Crowes, Gary Clark Jr. and Deer Tick. The promoters have also enlisted legendary performer Jerry Lee Lewis and rap legends Public Enemy.

Here’s a look at the full lineup broken down by date…

May 3: Alice in Chains, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Bassnectar, Charles Bradley, The Deftones, Sheryl Crow, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, Heritage Blues Quartet, Yngwie Malmsteen, The Wallflowers, Mimosa, Louise Hoffsten – Sweden, Shannon McNally, The Joy Formidable, Jimbo Mathus & The Tri-State Coalition, Don Trip, Brad Webb, Marcus James & Kinney Kimbrough

May 4: The Black Keys, ZZ Top, The Roots, Coco Montoya, Dwight Yoakam, Gov’t Mule, Big Boi, Ronnie Baker Brooks, Patti Smith, Mavis Staples, Gavin DeGraw, Will Tucker, Cracker, Jerry Lee Lewis, Pickwick, Zac Harmon, Star & Micey, Jake Bugg, James Super Chikan Johnson, Ryan Bingham, Blind Mississippi Morris, Matt Isbell

May 5: The Smashing Pumpkins, Flaming Lips, Phoenix, The Black Crowes, Royal Southern Brotherhood, Three Days Grace, AWOLNATION, Gary Clark Jr., Lucero, Davy Knowles, Papa Roach, Vintage Trouble, Deer Tick, Louise Hoffsten, Public Enemy, The Slide Brothers, Al Kapone, River City Tanlines, Kingston Springs, Barbara Blue, Brandon Bailey, Kenny Brown

Single-day tickets and three-day passes are available now through Ticketmaster.

Yesterday we brought you the news of a Levon Helm Tribute at Auditorium Shores in Austin as part of next month’s SXSW Music festival. Today, SXSW organizers have revealed the Friday, March 15th show at Auditorium Shores which will feature the Flaming Lips, Jim James and Divine Fits.

The Lips will likely preview material from their new album The Terror, while James is expected to focus on material from Regions of Light and Sound of God. As with other Auditorium Shores SXSW shows, this event is free and open to the public.

It’s been a busy week in the weird and wacky world of The Flaming Lips. This past Sunday, the psychedelic-rock act was featured prominently in a Super Bowl commercial for the Hyundai Santa Fe, while on Wednesday they revealed that they were hard at work putting their indelible stamp on a full album cover of The Stone Roses’ 1989 self-titled debut. A few days back Wayne Coyne & Co. uploaded a video of their oft-played cover of Queen’s signature song, Bohemian Rhapsody, to their YouTube channel.

The tune first appeared on Queen’s 1975 release Night at the Opera, and is the United Kingdom’s third best selling single of all-time. While Wayne certainly doesn’t have the singing voice of Freddy Mercury, the Lips do a dutiful job with it by not straying too far from the original, but certainly drag the song through their acid-drenched freakiness. Let’s check out this very NSFW video…

The Flaming Lips – Bohemian Rhapsody

It’s no secret that we’re huge fans of AV Club’s Undercover series. Launched back in 2010, they’ve gotten an impressive array of indie-rock bands to come into their Chicago office and tackle songs from the likes of Wilco to Sufjan Stevens to Kenny Loggins to Adele. The pop culture site recently polled its readers to help formulate a new list of 25 tunes for an upcoming edition, offering up 68 song choices broken into categories like Ladies of the ’80s, Whistling Songs and We Used2 Like U (pre-1985 U2). Earlier this week, the site revealed the results with the likes of Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start The Fire, Tom Jones’ What’s New Pussycat and Third Eye Blind’s Semi-Charmed Life all making the cut. This year’s edition will kick off on March 19, and will take two breaks, one for a some baseball songs and another to celebrate summer.

If we were to make one request, we’d love to see Phish be invited to come so they could tackle Sleater-Kinney’s You’re No Rock N’ Roll Fun, as a way to say thanks to Carrie Brownstein for her embracing the band’s music a few years back. Here’s the full list of what to expect…

Heart, “Barracuda” / Billy Ocean, “Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car” / Backstreet Boys, “I Want It That Way” / Blackstreet, “No Diggity”/ Paul Simon, “Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard” / Billy Joel, “We Didn’t Start The Fire” / Talking Heads, “Psycho Killer” / Faces, “Ooh La La”/ Cheap Trick, “Surrender” / The Supremes, “Come See About Me” / Tom Jones, “What’s New Pussycat?” / U2, “New Year’s Day” / Third Eye Blind, “Semi-Charmed Life” / Rollins Band, “Low Self Opinion” / New Radicals, “You Get What You Give” / Frank Ocean, “Thinkin Bout You” / INXS, “Need You Tonight” / Nine Inch Nails, “Down In It” / Sleater-Kinney, “You’re No Rock N’ Roll Fun” / Dinosaur Jr., “Not You Again” / Weezer, “Undone—The Sweater Song” / Modest Mouse, “Third Planet” / Eddie Money, “Shakin” / Robyn, “Dancing On My Own” / Radiohead, “Just”

As always, we’ve got fresh linkage for you to enjoy…

• List Time: Top 10 Douchiest Guitarists Of All Time
• Grantland’s The Winners’ Rock & Roll History series examines Metallica
• Cover Alert: Puscifer tackles Queen
• Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show Live is the best rock movie ever says Will Sheff
• Download This: Pearl Jam – The Academy – New York, NY – 1992-12-31
• Rilo Kiley to release a compilation album of unreleased tracks, B-Sides and rarities

Finally, over the last few years, The Flaming Lips have taken to recording covers of full albums. The group put their indelible spin on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon and King Crimson’s In The Court Of The Crimson King. Up next for the Oklahoma City-based band will be the 1989 self-titled debut from The Stone Roses, a band who dumbfounded many when they were announced as one of this year’s Coachella headliners. According to a series of Tweets from the Lips front man Wayne Coyne, the band has invited a number of their friends to join them in the studio to help out on the project, including Star Death and White Dwarf, HOTT MT, New Fumes and Depth & Current.

We’ve been enthusiastically touting the music of Rodriguez since his lost classic debut Cold Fact was re-released by Light In The Attic back in 2008. Last year, the singer-songwriter’s remarkable story got a major boost thanks to the fantastic Oscar-nominated documentary Searching for Sugar Man, which has earned heaps of accolades and has again revived interest in not only his recordings but also as a live act. Yesterday, Rolling Stone broke the news that the now 70-year-old Rodriguez will likely head into the studio for the first time in over 40 years and team up with Steve Rowland who produced his 1971 sophomore album Coming From Reality, when he wraps his upcoming world tour that includes a high profile appearance at Coachella and gig at New York City’s Beacon Theater.

• List Time: 16 Best Albums Released By Musicians After They Died
• Amoeba Music has launched a digital download service of rare and out-of-print vinyl
• Cover Alert: Dirty Projectors tackle Usher
• Duane Allman’s legacy will be celebrated with a massive 7-CD box set
• Download This: Townes Van Zandt -Minneapolis, MN – 1973
• Dogfish Head has recruited Bonnie “Prince” Billy to record a song for their new beer

Finally, normally you wouldn’t think that The Flaming Lips and football could be uttered in the same sentence, but come this Sunday the psychedelic-rock act will be featured prominently in an ad for the Hyundai Santa Fe during the Super Bowl. Earlier this week the Oklahoma City-based band, who will release their new studio album The Terror on April 2, dropped the non-album track Sun Blows Up Today, which soundtracks the irreverent commercial called Epic Playdate. Check it out…

Once YouTube upped its limits allowing users to upload videos of any size, the portal has been filling up with many exceptional clips containing entire shows from nearly every band you can think of. We want to show our readers these videos and we’ll do so every Friday moving forward. Tomorrow we’ll be introducing a new weekly feature called Full Show Friday in which we’ll hip you to a killer video featuring a full concert from some of our favorite acts.

As a pre-cursor to tomorrow’s launch of Full Show Friday, we’ve prepared a list of 10 amazing, full-show videos from the past seven months featuring the likes of Wilco, MMJ and Radiohead.

1. Tenacious D @ Rock am Ring 2012

Here’s pro-shot footage of The D’s set at Germany’s Rock am Ring festival from June.

00:00 Rize of the Fenix
06:00 Low Hangin’ Fruit
09:25 Senorita
13:00 Deth Starr
17:30 Roadie
21:30 Throw Down
25:00 Saxaboom
26:40 Kielbasa
30:10 Kickapoo
34:40 The Metal
38:35 Beelzeboss (The Final Showdown)
44:50 The Who Medley
47:55 Fuck Her Gently
50:30 Tribute
56:00 Double Team

2. Move Me Brightly – A Tribute to Jerry Garcia

READ ON

With Record Store Day, or “Waiting in Line for Limited Vinyl Day” as I like to call it, right around the corner, this week’s B List features my Top Five picks for RSD 2012. Now in its fifth year, the impressive list of limited edition, largely vinyl releases continues to grow. Get to your local independent record store early Saturday if you want to have a chance at getting the wax you really want. At this point, I’m hoping to get even one of the entries on my list.

I tend to flock toward LPs rather than 45s and releases that are particularly exclusive to RSD. Reissues and compilations are cool, but I get most excited for new music and first time on vinyl product over stuff you might find elsewhere.

1. Phish – Junta (5,000 copies)

Phish stepped it up big time this year with the remarkable Junta 3-LP set. Their first proper studio album getting its first proper vinyl release, it’s one of the most extensive releases of any for RSD this year. Let’s hope these end up in the hands of fans before making it to Ebay.

READ ON

Yesterday an official video featuring all of the Flaming Lips’ epic 17-minute take on I Want You (She’s So Heavy) by The Beatles, on which they were joined by Wilco guitarist Nels Cline, surfaced on YouTube. The clip was filmed on New Year’s Eve in Oklahoma City and contains all of the elements we love from the Lips, namely confetti, dancers and a ridiculous light show. Take a look…

Flaming Lips w/ Nels Cline – I Want You (She’s So Heavy)

I’ll admit it, until about two weeks ago, I thought this was a Elvis Costello original. Often times a cover can be so well known that people often mistake if for the original, but in the case of Nick Lowe’s (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding, there is an extra wrinkle in the mix – Elvis Costello actually recorded his cover under the name of Nick Lowe & His Sound. Talk about confusing. Anyways, it’s a frequently covered song and we’ve narrowed it down to six must-hear covers this week. Have a listen and place your vote for the best at the bottom of the piece.

The Contestants:

Artist: A Perfect Circle
Album: Emotive
The Skinny: If you’re familiar with the band A Perfect Cirlce then this cover is going to sound exactly how you think it would – which is really quite a unique reading of the song.

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READ ON for more covers of (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding by Nick Lowe.

Those holding out for the availability of single-day tickets for the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival – which is scheduled to take place from August 12 – 14 in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park – will be pleased to know that a “limited number” of single-day ducats go on sale this Wednesday, July 13, at 10AM PDT via the event’s website.

Also, the single-day lineups for Outside Lands are now available.

Here’s a batch of fresh links straight out of the HT link generator…

• Umphrey’s LD Jeff Waful interviews Phish LD Chris Kuroda for Relix
• Producer Ross Hogarth has glowing things to say about Van Halen
• Glasto founder Michael Eavis has some dire predictions for fests
• Liam Gallagher “heartbroken” over brother Noel’s “lies” about split
• Free tickets for Virgin Mobile Freefest to be given out on Friday
• Pearl Jam announces a rare tour of South and Central America

In other news, Weezer and the Flaming Lips have announced that they will share “side-by-side” headlining sets during previously announced shows at the PNC Bank Arts Center (July 28) and Jones Beach (July 29). Both bands gear will be set up allowing them to “trade off songs back and forth for the entire length of the concert.” It’ll be very interesting to see how that plays out.

Over the last few years, the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, which boasts an impressive array of celebrities buried within its grounds, has played host to a series of unique concerts. The latest batch of artists to sign on to perform amongst the tombstones include Explosions In The Sky, James Blake, Mark Lanegan and Flaming Lips. The psychedelic-rock act, who will play the cemetery for two nights and one morning on June 14 and 15, will seize the opportunity by performing their 1999 breakthrough album The Soft Bulletin in its entirety as well their interpretation of Pink Floyd’s seminal classic Dark Side Of The Moon. Ticketing information and further details about these shows are still forthcoming.

As an added Tour Dates bonus, you can click through to see the full NSFW poster for the Lips run at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

If can’t make it out to LA for these special shows, then maybe you’ll be able to hit one of these recently announced tours…

• of Montreal take their psychedelic pop circus out on the road
• The lovely Emmylou Harris lines up dates both here and abroad
• Archers Of Loaf to head out for their first tour in over 13 years
• Former Blips act Jukebox The Ghost hit the road for a club run
• Steve Earle puts together a lengthy cross-country summer tour
• Dickie Betts & Great Southern to play a handful of NE July gigs

Finally, influential live music website Daytrotter has announced the details for their 4th annual Barnstormer Tour. The five show tour will run from April 26-30, hitting actual barns in Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan and Iowa, and will include performances from site alums Sondre Lerche, Guards, The Romany Rye, Hellogoodbye, ARMS, Keegan DeWit, Mike & The Moonpies and Hands.

War Pigs is the first track on Black Sabbath’s 1970 release Paranoid, their best-selling album. On a personal note, I have two distinct early memories of this song. 1) Listening to my brother’s Faith No More CD and initially thinking it was their tune. 2) Later, at the age of 17, seeing Gov’t Mule destroy this song at BankBoston Pavilion as part of Summer Sessions (there were also sets from Galactic, SCI and moe.) Covers by both these bands will of course be included. Let’s have a listen.

The Contestants:

I know what you were thinking. You’re going to lead off with the version with all the trombones right? Yes, we are – thanks Bonerama. Audio Source: 2-13-2008

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READ ON for more covers of Black Sabbath’s War Pigs…