At war with the mystics drummer

When the news broke that drummer Kliph Scurlock had parted company with the Flaming Lips, I joked that it might be "to spend more time chastising his parents for causing him the hassle of having to repeatedly spell out his first name". As it turns out, the truth - or the truth according to Scurlock himself, at least - is pretty bizarre: he was apparently sacked by Wayne Coyne for having the nerve to challenge the racist behaviour of one of Coyne's friends.

There are two sides to every story, of course, and it would be interesting to hear Coyne's perspective, but his subsequent tweet suggested he's keen to forget the whole situation and move on: "Fools take a knife and stab people in the back. The wise take a knife, cut the cord, and set themselves free from the fools."

Needless to say, this spat doesn't seem to have distracted Coyne and the remaining Lips from continuing to match up to their reputation as one of the best live acts going - according to a friend who saw them in Edinburgh this week. Apparently they've circumnavigated the difficulty of trying to get songs from last year's brilliant album The Terror to work in a live environment simply by ignoring most of them, and wrapped up with their cover of 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds'. Miley Cyrus didn't show up to contribute, unless she happened to be inside one of the giant inflatable aliens...