Flaming Lips Set to Headline Washington, DC Earth Day Festivities

The Flaming Lips will go from spending Christmas on Mars to Earth Day in Washington, DC when they perform a free concert at the city's National Mall on April 19th. Other bands will take the stage in 10 cities nationwide as part of this year's Earth Day Network & Green Apple Festival Day. Joining the Soft Bulletin band in the Nation's Capitol will be moe., Los Lobos, DJ Spooky and emcee Chevy Chase. The 2008 Earth Day concert in DC drew 200,000 people.

The 10-city festival, which "emphasizes environmental volunteerism in solidarity with the new administration's 'call to service,' " according to an official press release, is jam band-packed this year, with artists like Galactic playing in Atlanta, Soulive & Friends in Boston, Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk in Denver and Deep Banana Blackout at New York City's Bowery Ballroom. Additionally, Cracker will take the stage at Chicago's Metro, the Cary Brothers head to Los Angeles and Travis Tritt & Friends will perform on Austin, Texas on April 20th.

If you can't make it down to the District of Columbia in time for the Lips' performance, you can stream the festivities on your computer from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Green Apple Festival's MySpace page… even though you should have your computer off and conserve energy on Earth Day. Besides coming to the aid of trees around the world, Wayne Coyne and crew will save ears around the world when they release their 12th studio album this summer. For more on the new disc from the Flaming Lips, check out our Spring Music Preview.

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Song Stories

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell | 1974

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.

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