Oklahoma gets 'School of Rock' taught by The Flaming Lips

By Tara Hall / LiveDaily Contributor

Britain's Academy of Contemporary Music has opened a satellite location in Edmond, OK, and members of local act The Flaming Lips will get involved with students.
Scott Booker, The Flaming Lips' longtime manager, has been appointed CEO of the Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma.
The new program, which got underway Monday (8/17) for 160 students, offers two-year associates degrees in performance and music production, and takes place in a 12,000 square-foot facility that includes a recording studio, a computer lab and classrooms equipped with guitar, bass, drum and vocal instruction.
Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne and drummer/multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd--as well as Lily Allen, producer Greg Kurstin and Warner Bros. Records General Manager Tom Biery--are teaching master classes during the school's inaugural year, according to a press release.
Informally known as the School of Rock, ACM @ UCO will focus primarily on rock music, according to Booker, because that's what the students are most interested in.
"This first semester, they'll be learning songs by The Who and The Eagles and The Flaming Lips and The Strokes and Spoon," Booker said in a recent interview with NPR. "We got the Eagles, so we got a bit of country rock in there."
More information about the program, including costs and instructions on applying, is available at the school's website.