The Flaming Lips Alley dedicated

Confetti was shot from guns, big balloons soared, and fans in alien and Santa costumes mingled with business-suited civic leaders Thursday as the city officially recognized the Flaming Lips as a part of its cultural landscape.

“Welcome to the greatest dedication we’ve ever had in this city,” master of ceremonies and Bank of Oklahoma Vice Chairman Burns Hargis said, laughing as a Bricktown crowd cheered at an event to honor Oklahoma City’s Flaming Lips.

The event resembled a scaled-down version of the band’s mad multimedia concert extravaganzas more than a formal dedication ceremony, as Mayor Mick Cornett presented lead singer Wayne Coyne with a street sign bearing the name Flaming Lips Alley.

“As this alley has sort of been christened this week, everybody has asked me, ‘Wayne, why do you think it took so long for Oklahoma City to recognize you?’” Coyne said to an audience of nearly 400 people gathered on the plaza of the AT&T Bricktown Ballpark.

“We made our first record back in 1983,” Coyne said.

“Even way back then, all the artists and musicians from around the city, even around the state, always appreciated us and always told us how much it meant to them that we not only did our music, did our art, did it our way, but did it also living here in Oklahoma City. So I reminded them that we felt appreciated more than 25 years ago. It doesn’t mean we don’t think it’s pretty ... cool to have an alley named after you, though.” To the amusement of the crowd, the curly-maned rock star used the F word twice in expressing his earnest gratitude for the honor.

The Oklahoma City Council voted in December 2006 to name an alley rather than a street after the Lips, a playful gesture reflecting the band’s underground status and the nonconformist, experimental and often whimsical nature of its music. The alleyway runs from the railroad tracks on the west side of Bricktown to Joe Carter Avenue on the east.

The dedication ceremony Thursday was held in front of the Mickey Mantle ballpark entrance a few hundred feet south of the alley, complete with a stage and an arching video screen flashing images of mirror balls and rainbows. A tall, winged, crown-wearing caterpillar and a chubby yellow sun strolled through the confetti-showered crowd, enhancing the fanciful atmosphere.

The honors

State Treasurer Scott Meacham presented Coyne with a commendation from Gov. Brad Henry praising the Flaming Lips for “the great and numerous contributions you have made through the moving tool of music over the decades. Oklahoma’s history has been brightened through the gift of your work. It is our honor to commend Oklahoma’s native musical sons and your many accomplishments, including today’s dedication of the Flaming Lips Alley.”

Greater Oklahoma City Chamber President Roy Williams presented the band with a giant, custom-made “snow globe,” containing the likenesses of Flaming Lips members Coyne, Steven Drozd and Michael Ivins above the Oklahoma City skyline.

“At the chamber we always like to recognize our members,” Williams said. “And maybe you all don’t know this, but the Flaming Lips are a member of the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber. I don’t know how many other chambers can claim they have Grammy Award-winning rock bands as members, and we’re certainly proud of it.”

‘Coolest city in America’

After Cornett officially announced the alley’s new name, Coyne, Ivins and the mayor held the commemorative street sign over their heads and another salvo of confetti and streamers rained down.

“I think it’s the most marvelous spot in all of the city,” Coyne said of the alley.

“To have that as our secret little passage, I would say it would be a little stretch of street that any artist anywhere in the world, if they felt somehow disheartened or discouraged or wondered if anybody ever cared, I’d say, ‘Well, come to Oklahoma City and walk down Flaming Lips Alley,’ and even though it has some Dumpsters, and maybe some trucks unloading beer in the back, I think it would really encourage them to know that we never demanded anybody give us anything like that, but little by little it was the people of Oklahoma City that believed in us, and even the people in the city government.

“And I say we’re on the way to becoming, I think, the ... coolest city in America,” he said.

Since forming nearly 25 years ago in the central Oklahoma City area known as Classen 10-Penn, the Lips have risen steadily from independent-label obscurity to major-label status, building an international following and winning three Grammy Awards since signing with Warner Brothers Records in the early 1990s. Their songs have been heard on several major motion picture soundtracks as well as national TV commercials for Range Rover and Ford Sync Technology.

With his wife, Michelle, Coyne still lives in the neighborhood where he grew up.