Xingolati: Flaming Lips Apparently Don’t Sink Ships

These concert cruises are becoming all the rage — Jam Cruise, Rock Boat, Blues Cruise are a few of the more prominent — and now we have “Xingolati, (pronounced Zîng-gō-läh-ti) – Groove Cruise of the Pacific,” headlined by the tuneful and mysterious Flaming Lips, fresh off their piratical SpongeBob soundtrack appearance.

Xingolati will feature:

· The Flaming Lips (review here)

· G Love and Special Sauce

· Medeski Martin and Wood (interview with Billy Martin here)

· John Popper Project Featuring DJ Logic (Blues Traveler review)

· Slightly Stoopid Acoustic

· The Everyone Orchestra featuring Vince Herman, Rob Wasserman, Joe Craven, Jamie Masefield and Jamie Janover conducted by Matt Butler

· Particle (reviews here and here)

· Tea Leaf Green

· DJ Greyboy

· R.E.D. featuring Rob Wasserman and members of Particle

· The Mutaytor

· DJ Laird

· Rob Cantrell from NBC’s Last Comic Standing

· Perpetual Groove

· Delta Nove

· That One Guy

· Soul Rebels Brass Band

· Lowpro Lounge

The three day, three night cruise from Los Angeles to Ensenada, Mexico will depart on October 14, 2005 and feature the comforts of a cruise vacation aboard the Carnival Cruise Lines’ ship Paradise. (take a virtual tour here) The ship has several venues that will showcase live music and DJs as well as performance art, character exaggerations and circus theatrics. In fact, the call is out for artists who want a free trip: “We have reserved a number of spots on Xingolati for performance artists, magicians, showman, exaggerated characters or just plain gems of society. We want you to share your gifts with our community. All you have to do is send us an email with photos, videos and a short description of what you bring to the event. In return for your passage, we ask that you make a special effort to be generous with yourself and everyone aboard Xingolati.”

For civilians, reservations range from $599 to $2299 per person.

“The Flaming Lips take this event to the next level. They capture the excitement and creativity we want to bring onboard the ship,” said Neal Turley, co-founder of Who is Guy Grand, the company that is producing Xingolati. “This event is something entirely different and I think they see the vision and the possibilities of a circus at sea. The Lips are not touring right now so this will be one of the band’s only performances of 2005.”

Between the Lips, the groovy acoustic hip-hop blues of G Love, a slimmed-down John Popper, the jamming neo-disco of Particle, and all the other music, bells and whistles, this should be quite amusing for you Left-Coasters.