PUCKER UP FLAMING LIPS' WAYNE COYNE FINDS ART - AND LUCK - IN EVERYDAY LIFE.

Byline: Sandra Barrera Staff Writer

WAYNE COYNE of the Flaming Lips is walking along a busy highway, where about one hour south of Salt Lake City his band's tour bus has broken down.

The bus was en route to the next stop on the Lips' joint venture with Beck, whom the Oklahoma City group has been supporting as both opener and back-up band.

With the exception of mechanical troubles, the tour has gone better than expected, says Coyne, the Lips' 41-year-old singer-songwriter/guitarist. But that's usually how things go for him.

He describes himself as an adventurer at heart, whether he's backing a pop sensation like Beck, creating his art or taking advantage of being stranded on the road somewhere between Utah and Arizona.

``I kinda feel like Woody Guthrie,'' Coyne says with a laugh as the noise of traffic swishes past him on the highway. The Lips join Beck at the Long Beach Terrace Theater tonight, and Sunday they take part in KROQ-FM's ``Almost Acoustic Christmas'' benefit concert at Universal Amphitheatre.

Critics have responded favorably to the pairing at every stop along the way. The Boston Globe wrote, ``Country music and techno never seemed so oddly related as in the hands of these particular musicians, and it was a sound - and a sight - to behold.''

The strange part of it is that before going on tour in October, the Lips hardly knew Beck outside of his ironic brand of pop music. Whenever they did see each other at the occasional festival in Europe, they were cordial.

``He'd say, 'Hey, Wayne,' and I'd say, 'Hey, Beck,' '' Coyne says. ``But that's not really knowing someone. So when we showed up early September to start rehearsal for this tour, it was really like two people getting to know each other.''

Early on, Coyne says he found Beck a bit insecure - especially when it came to combining his heartbreaking new material off ``Sea Change'' with smug songs like ``Loser.''

``I didn't feel it was my place to tell him in the beginning, 'Yeah, you should do the whole variety,' '' Coyne says. ``But as time went on, I did. To me, the best thing about doing a show is you can control the atmosphere. You can transform people that were gleefully jumping up and down, screaming about naked women one minute, and the next minute you can have them crying about the meaninglessness of love.''

For Coyne, this isn't limited to the stage.

He has stirred the emotional pot while recording, as when he conceived ``Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots,'' the Lips' latest release.

Again, it just worked out that way.

``Sometimes people think that you arrive at a concept and then pursue it through your art - and really, in a lot of ways, I found that it's just the opposite,'' Coyne says. ``Something will happen to you and you just interpret it because you're an artist.''

Case in point: ``Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Part 2,'' the looping instrumental riff that inspired the theme for the rest of the album.

Coyne named the song after the woman heard screaming in the track as it plays.

``It sounds like she's having sex with a machine or engaged in some sort of battle,'' Coyne says. ``So, immediately I thought, 'Damn, that sounds like some kind of crazy, futuristic cartoon adventurer theme.'

``I love that about music,'' he adds. ``It builds this atmosphere and builds these moods that impact people.''

Coyne has found that he gets the same satisfaction from filmmaking.

Last year, he began shooting a sci-fi movie about scientists living on Mars and how they come to celebrate Christmas, a holiday in which none of them believes, all because of a benevolent alien. He calls it ``Christmas on Mars.''

``It really has a wonderful white Christmas ending to the whole thing,'' Coyne says, explaining, ``It's comparable in look and mood to say, David Lynch's first film, 'Eraserhead.' It has an element of disturbing-ness about it but hopefully it comes across as human, and not some silly sci-fi invention.''

Coyne is still filming the project, which stars everybody in the band as well as their friends and family. But he hopes to have it out on DVD by next year.

BECK WITH THE FLAMING LIPS

Where: Long Beach Terrace Theater, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach.

When: 8 tonight.

Tickets: $35. Call [phone] or www.ticketmaster.com

KROQ ALMOST ACOUSTIC CHRISTMAS 

Who: Beck, the Flaming Lips, Coldplay, Creed, Dashboard Confessional, Jimmy Fallon, Good Charlotte, Jack Johnson, Jurassic 5 and the Vines.

Where: Universal Amphitheatre, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City.

When: 5 p.m. Sunday.

Tickets: Sold out.

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Photo:

The Flaming Lips: Steven Drozd, left, Wayne Coyne and Michael Ivins.