THE GREAT GADFLY:

Holy Crap!

Don'tcha love it when you're begrudgingly on the way to work in the morning, you're in the nauseatingly dull throes of pre-clocking-in dread, and you discover, much to your surprise, that a band you love is playing right in front of your building?

The robots. The animal suits. The pink see-thru drum set.

That's right, I just spent the morning watching The Flaming Lips run through a live performance for the local morning Fox News. Apparently I was on television, so if you live in Chicago and happened to catch it, I was the sickly looking guy in the too-big black jacket and the contented grin.

And if you missed it, don't worry - I took pictures.

It never occurs to me that it's possible to equate the business drone factory farm that is downtown Chicago with anything even remotely resembling pleasure. Shows what I know.

I tend to prefer these guerilla concerts much more than an actual show with tickets and wristbands - I love watching the bemused faces of casual onlookers, and the "what the...?!" energy of it all. Of course, this morning, I was feeling just a touch proprietary as I shot threatening scowls to anyone who dared walk past me with a wrinkled nose or a cocked eyebrow aimed at the band.

I also love how these televised live appearances are required to operate on a strict timeline - there's no star-fit business of coming on an hour or two late, and there's no langorous guitar-tuning action allowed between songs. It's gotta be tight, it's gotta be on time, and there's only one chance to get through it. And more often than not, after bopping along to a couple of songs at 8:30 in the morning, I'm good to go on about my day.

If this happened every day, I wouldn't need coffee.

Well, okay - I wouldn't need AS MUCH coffee.

OH!

By the way, have a nice, juicy slice of Friday Five:

1. Name one song you hate to admit you like.

Well, there was a brief, ugly phase where the only two songs I wanted to listen to were Heart's "All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You" and the Divinyls' "I Touch Myself." I don't know the reason behind this fascination - I blame it on the cassingle.

2. Name two songs that always make you cry.

Ain't one damn song that can make me break down and cry. Except for "Spiritual" by Johnny Cash, maybe.

3. Name three songs that turn you on.

"Darling Nikki" by Prince & the Revolution, cuz even without the lyrics, it's the skankiest song alive; Bowie's version of "Wild Is The Wind", simply because it's so gorgeously overwraught; and just about anything from The Cramps' "Stay Sick" album, because they make me feel dirty.

4. Name four songs that always make you feel good.

Right now, that would mean songs that are like sonic Narnias - music I can crawl into and explore and leave behind the boring ridiculousness of the everyday world. A good example would be Radiohead's "Paranoid Android", though most of the noodley psychadelic on-and-on jams I like to crawl into are songs whose names completely escape me.

5. Name five songs you couldn't ever do without.

Du jour: "Nothing Can Stop Us Now", Saint Etienne; "Ace of Spades", Motorhead; "Mountains", Prince; "Ball and Biscuit", White Stripes; and any random song from Beck's "Sea Change" album.