Customer Reviews

The Day They Shot a Hole in the Jesus Egg - The Priest Driven Ambulance Album, Demos and Outtakes

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I got turned onto the Lips not too long ago, and have been searching for all of their stuff, now I've come to this collection. Included is the "Priest Driven Ambulance" LP, and many bonus tracks. The 1st disc is the album, the second the bonus stuff. And I stand up and say "Yeah". Great early stuff. A lot of it is drugged out, yes, but it's still worthy Lips. Some of the bonus tracks are more raw, as they should be. A cd purchase this year which I don't regret in the least. That's important. I wish more bands produced that response from me. Definitely a must for a Lips fanatic, and it's even a good start for a newbie, since the album and the extras are equally good. Hope this helped.

I was expecting a collection of rare masterpieces, but I got exactly what was advertised (Out takes and demos). After the initial disappointment faded I discovered some lovely gems of harebrained sophistication. I recommend this for any Lips fans, and if you do not own In a Priest driven Ambulance I highly recommend this instead. There is no better way to face universal indifference. Above all, Wayne's illustrative inscriptions and the beautiful packaging make this a must have.
Battle on!

The first time I listened to this album, it sounded like a bunch of lo fi noise. But once I sat down with a nice pair of head phones and just listened, I was able to appreciate what a mature, gorgeous album this is.

Yes, there is a lot of guitar noise. But the noise is not an end in itself. It is a tool that the Flaming Lips deploy with surgical precision. In this album's best moments, feedback effects laden guitar riffs alternate with periods of unsettling quiet to create a heightened sense of dramatic tension. This tension, which is sustained for most of the album, turns what would otherwise be a bunch of very catchy country and blues inspired melodies into an edgy psychedelic masterpiece.

It may take a few listens to really appreciate what the Lips are doing here; but, in my opinion, the reward is well worth it.

"In A Priest Driven Ambulance" was actually a bit of a strange album through the first two or three listens. The pallete seemed oddly straight-forward as compared to "Oh My Gawd!!!" or "Hit To Death In the Future Head". But after a few listens I found a new sence of craftmanship and the album seemed much greater as they had excelled to a new level from the previous. From the frequent acoustic guitar riffs to the psychedelic atmosphere and effects, I saw what was "hidden" below, this journey. The demo disc contains some great material, including a demo of "There You Are" which in my opinion showed the way for the psychedelic-prog proggressions that the band would use, and even though the demo was recorded instrumental (except for the aahs and oohs for soaring vocal harmony)the demo at first listen enlightened me to the opinion that it should have actually made the album cut instead of the version that did! Overall the album (for creativity, packaging, and photos) deserves 4 stars.

Ben.
the 15 year old.

The Flaming Lips. To know them is to love them... or at least to acknowldge that they're a band like no other. And the two-disc set "The Day They Shot A Hole In The Jesus Egg," a compilation of early work, outtakes and demos from 1989 to 1991, is a must-have for the die-hard Lips fan.

"The Priest-Driven Ambulance" starts off with a faint beeping that blossoms into a perfect bass line. It's a seamless mix of swirling psychedelic rock ("Unconsciously Screaming," the garage-rock-style Sonics cover "Strychnine," the beautifully weird "Take Meta Mars") and melodious slower songs ("Rainin' Babies," the haunting "Ma I Didn't Notice"). An unexpected bonus is the slow-paced, fuzzy-edged cover of "What A Wonderful World."

It's a good compilation of early Lip-work, with the heavier sounds and greater reliance on guitar and bass that marks their more rock-oriented songs. The psychedelic edge is still quite there, with the swirling melodies, distorted echoes and surreal lyrics. Even "Wonderful World" (originally meant to be an ironic cover) is viewed through a warped funhouse mirror, and is all the more interesting for it.

"The Mushroom Tapes" is a bit less engaging than "Priest-Driven Ambulance." It opens with a thumping, crude, charmingly open version of "Take Meta Mars," and includes two versions of "Five Stop Mother Superior Rain" (one is squeaky and rather painful, the other ethereal and piano-driven) and two "Unconsciously Screamin's" (one distorted, one insanely catchy). Other songs are patched in between them, like the slow-burning "She's Gone Mad," low-key "Stand in Line," and the likably random "God's a Wheeler Dealer."

It's a collection that lacks the polish and and smoothness of "Priest-Driven Ambulance." It feels like what it was -- a patched-together collection of demos and alternative versions. Coyne's voice is harder to find in all the noise, rather than standing out as it normally does; the instrumentation feels clumsier and cruder. As a result, this is of interest to Lips fans mainly as a way of showing how their music has evolved and progressed over the years, or how different some songs could have been.

But even in the demos and distortion, the unmistakable Flaming Lips feel is there. Faint crickets, spoken comments, laughter and musical patchwork (jazz?) are all there, the sort of stuff that catches your attention and makes you wonder if you really heard that. Wayne Coyne's flawed voice is occasionally swamped, but most of the time he's in good form.

"The Day They Shot A Hole in the Jesus Egg: The Priest-Driven Ambulance Album, Demos and Outtakes" is a mixed musical bag from the Flaming Lips, but ultimately a rewarding one.

Is my 5 star rating biased because I'm a big lips fan? Of course! Still, this is great stuff. Jesus Egg is a companion release to the collection Finally The Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid, and between the two of them comprise ALL of the Lip's pre warner bros material. Both are essential buys for collectors. For more casual fans looking to delve into the Lip's past though, this is the one to get first. The highpoint of Jesus Egg is the first disk, containing the complete album 'In a Priest Driven Ambulance' and a handful of extra tracks. It was on 'In a Priest Driven Ambulance' that the Lips really started to find their sound, and were able to catch the attention of warner bros records. In fact, Wayne himself considers this to be their first really great album. The 2nd disk is admittedly less exciting, containing mostly alternate versions of priest driven ambulance songs and some low quality demos. Still, there's fun stuff to be found, and given the price of the collection you're basically getting the 2nd disk for free. A classic Lips album together with a pile of bonus material, you really can't go wrong.

This is an incredible collection of Lips early stuff. The other companion collection, "Finally The Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid", discs 1-3, are the first recordings by the Flaming Lips, and it is very good. If you are a huge fan of the Flaming Lips like I am, both of these are good to have for historical purposes. The Flaming Lips have a rich history of inventive music and if you just start at The Soft Bulletin, arguably where they are roughly at stylistically, and have the three most recent recordings, that one and Yoshimi, and At War With The Mystics, then wouldn't you be a bit curious as to how they arrived at this point?

I was curious, and I live in the area where they grew up in central Oklahoma, and pretty much ignored them up until about a year ago. Now I have all of their CDs except for one of them.

You should be curious if you consider yourself to be an explorer of artistically viable music. The Flaming lips have obvious influences from the classic/acid-rock era including Pink Floyd, the Beatles, and many others. But this collection reveals how they developed their ideas from a Punk Rock Acid Rock perspective, and, depending on your frame of mind, and how receptive you are to noise/Acid/punk and their newer musical ideas, you should find The Day They Shot A Hole In The Jesus Egg rewarding--I did.

Disc one includes the "Preist Driven Ambulance" album, which was their last pre-Warner Bros. album, and also their last album without Steven Drozd on the drums. It is looser, and much more guitar driven than their recent recordings, although all the recordings prior to Soft Bulletin are more guitar/noise driven. There are plenty of mind-blowing ideas and many beautiful songs. The bass is more prominent in the mix. The rawness is there but the punk-influenced Acid sound is there and it plays very well. Some of the stand-out songs from disc one are played again as out-takes, different versions and they are on Disc Two, the Mushroom Tapes. This disc took me a few plays to enjoy but I now listen to it more than the others. There are some songs that are beautiful, such as the Stones-influenced Five Stop Mother Superior Rain, with its slide guitar work, harking back to Stones Wild Horses, or Pink Floyd.

Anyway, I won't go into the details. Listen and experience this collection on your own. With an open mind, you'll be richly rewarded.

The first cd of this double album is the album "in a priest driven ambulance", with some bonus tracks. It's said this band didn't really fully get going till the major label debut, and this is pretty much true, as most of the albums before it were hit and miss. However, this is easily the best of their pre-warner brothers albums, and if it doesn't meet the quality of things like the soft bulletin and hit to death in the future head, it certainly comes close. The whole thing basically alternates between gorgeous acoustic ballads and noisy but catchy pop rock, and this time around they've written some really great melodies (although vocalist Wayne Coyne is more than a little off key on most of them), and some brilliantly odd recording tricks, like the eerie experimental jazz sample in "stand in line" or the ambient cricket sounds and passing trucks in "there you are" that are actually present because the band recorded the song on acoustic guitars in the middle of the night in the parking lot of a grocery store near a highway. Highlights include "five stop mother superior rain", "unconsciously screamin'" and the cover of "what a wonderful world". The bonus section features a few noisy punkers more reminscent of their earlier material, a pretty epic ballad called "ma I didn't notice", a pop song called "let me be it", and a wonderfully garage rocking medley of the sonics' "strychnine" and Nick Lowe/Elvis Costello's "peace love and understanding".

The second cd features a set of demos for the album known as "the mushroom tapes". While this really only contains a few unreleased gems like chainsaw kittens cover "she's gone mad", it's a very intriguing look into the band's creative process, from a slide guitar jam that later developed into "there you are" to two versions of "five stop mother superior rain", one filled with feedback drones, the other with a lovely piano line, to a few spontaneous noise jams. If you're a fan of the band, it's an interesting glimpse behind the scenes, and besides there's just something charming about Wayne laughing his way through the first verse of "take meta mars", or realizing how sonic youth sounding the "agonizing" jam sounds and muttering "...sounds like something Lee Ranaldo would do" in the middle of the song.

Though ho-hum at first, I now consider this a masterpiece.

They should remaster this stuff, and get rid of the hiss on some of the outtakes. They are gems, with trippy and noisy guitar.

-- Todd

She's Gone Mad is a song by the Chainsaw Kittens, from Norman Oklahoma. It was the last cut on their Violent Religion album, and as a beautiful ballad is utterly unlike any other Chainsaw Kittens song. It's been my favorite song of theirs ever since I first heard it, almost 20 years ago. You may wonder why I would mention this here? Who cares, right? Get this cd, which has the excellent In A Priest Driven Ambulance, single b-sides, demos from the era, etc. It is an excellent cd. However, you might never notice the song She's Gone Mad on here. It's hard to catch. But.... it is worth the effort. I would suggest that you put the song on repeat and listen to it a few times to get the jist of the recording: it is not a mere cover version, it is a total epic, and a tribute to the excellent Tyson Meade, songwriter and singer for the Chainsaw Kittens. That is my interpretation anyways. Prepare some herbal tea.... So the song starts out as a story with sound effects. I guarantee you will drift off and forget to listen to the second half. But that's OK, that's why you put it on repeat, remember? So you wander back to the stereo, try to catch the drift of the story, and you wander away again, doing dishes or whatever. Eventually, you will realize that there is a song there too. It sneaks up on you, and then there it is. You can listen to it! (If you remember) But you will forget. I guarantee you will! But you should not forget, because it is the coolest version of this song imaginable. Hopefully it will make you want to check out the Chainsaw Kittens' first album, because She's Gone Mad is on there, (remember?) It is not a rock song, it's a touching thing and nicely done by the Lips and Wayne. Epic, it is.....