Arts & Entertainment

Gawker: Drummer was fired for criticizing headdress photo shoot

Friday, May 2, 2014

Christina Fallin appeared in a headdress for a photo that was posted, then later removed, from Instagram. She's drawing additional fire for recent performance in Oklahoma.

The drummer for the Flaming Lips was fired for criticizing a fake headdress worn by Christina Fallin, the daughter of Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (R):

On March 6, Christina Fallin—Mary's daughter and the lead singer of the band Pink Pony—proudly posted a photo to Instagram that showed her wearing a headdress, seemingly unaware that it might anger scores of people in her mother's state, which is still 9 percent American Indian. In response to social media blowback against that picture, Fallin, who is 27, released a statement along with her band, asking Oklahoma's native community to "forgive us if we innocently adorn ourselves in your beautiful things."
On March 22, the Flaming Lips played a show without Kliph Scurlock, who had drummed with the psych-rockers since 2002. On April 2, a commenter on the indie rock blog Brooklyn Vegan wrote that legendary frontman Wayne Coyne had fired Scurlock from the band, and that Fallin's headdress stunt was to blame:
Kliph wasn't fired for calling Wayne out on his midlife crisis b.s. (although if anyone in that band had the nuts to bring it up to Wayne, it would be Kliph!) He was fired for taking a stand against Wayne's new buddy - the daughter of OK's tea-bagging, homophobe governor Mary Fallin - when she donned a Native headdress for a racist publicity stunt. When Kliph called her out on social media for being a shithead to the Oklahoma Native community who complained about her headdress publicity stunt, she tattled on him to Wayne. Wayne actually told Kliph he was fired for insulting Fallin publicly.

Get the Story:
How the Flaming Lips Lost a Drummer Over Native American Appropriation (Gawker 5/1)