Smoking Section

After Coldplay's sound check in Oklahoma City, frontman Chris Martin and guitarist Johnny Buckland jumped into the green Ford F-150 owned by hometown hero Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, report our friends at The Smoking Section. "They just got in the back of the truck," Coyne tells the Smoking Section. "I really didn't know what they wanted to see.

"So Coyne took them on the grand tour, hitting the Long John Silver's where he worked for eleven years, the Blue Note (site of the Lips' first gig), his mom's house, and introducing C'play to a local trannie crack whore. "She-he is about six feet four and talks like a man," says Coyne. "He reminds me of Miss Jay on America's Next Top Model." Says Martin, "We could suddenly understand why the Lips sound the way they do. Life there is extraordinarily weird and fantastic."

That night, in front of 20,000 fans, Martin repeatedly made shout-outs to Coyne, likening him to greats such as Cash, Presley and Guthrie. "Those guys are just naturally sweet," Coyne says of Coldplay, adding that the Lips are looking forward to gigs this summer with Sonic Youth and opening back-to-back European dates for the Who and Bob Dylan. (Imagine Dylan walking by the Lips' animal costumes backstage.) Coyne is psyched to hang out with Pete Townshend and wants to ask Bob if it "freaked him out when that Soy Bomb guy was dancin' up to him." Why are we telling you all this? Because we're obsessed with the Lips' At War With the Mystics -- if you don't have it, go buy the shit!