Wayne Coyne, frontman for Oklahoma’s psychedelic finest, The Flaming Lips, is At War With The Mystics after invoking the ire of the powers that be over at Instagram, who have deleted the frontman’s account.

Nearly two years of posts, totalling over 12,000 images, have been lost in the deletion of Coyne’s popular social media account, presumably removed because of his tendency for sharing images that breach Instagram’s conditions against “sexually suggestive” material, as Stereogum reports.

Those familiar with Coyne’s twitter and Instagram accounts already know that he’s not shameful about sharing some cheeky NSFW imagery.

Some high profile examples include demonstrating the more revealing side of Mrs. Coyne, or angering forthcoming Bluesfest 2014 act and the Queen of Soul Erykah Badu, who made Coyne the target of a very pointed and public spat last year after a video collaboration went foul.

There’s been no official word from Instagram over kicking Coyne off his original account, but the Lips mouthpiece has wasted no time in mourning over lost lewdness, he’s already started a new Instagram account and gotten right back into where he left off in posting psycho-sexual, behind the scenes shots of the ‘Womb Juice’ art gallery project. But would you expect anything less from the leader of a band who regularly appear on stage by ‘birthing’ themselves through a giant vagina?

The Instagram shutdown also has Flaming Lips fans up in arms, with fan site The Future Heart starting a petition to have the frontman’s account, and its “treasure trove” of archival material and art, reinstated.

The petition urges that Coyne’s account “be treated the same as other celebrities who have posted photos violating your terms of use yet remain active (i.e. Tyler, The Creator, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Chrissy Teigen, Heidi Klum, Miranda Kerr).”

The fan movement also defends that “the vast majority of [Coyne’s] 1,227 posts are concert photos, behind the scenes images of his band’s projects, shots with other musicians, rock posters, art, and playful selfies in good standing with [Instagram] policies.”

The petition has also found celebrity favour from electronic artist Moby, who recently palled about with Coyne in mariachi costumes with a fantastical mengarie in the music video for ‘The Perfect Life’ (taken from Moby’s new album Innocents, released this month). “There’s no place for censorship in a free society,” tweeted Moby in reference to the online petition, as FasterLouder points out.

Additionally, touring keyboardist for The Flaming Lips Jake Ingalls has thrown his support behind the frontman, posting on the petition that while Coyne does share “occasional suggestive pictures, Wayne uses this account to help out other struggling artists and musicians by keeping everyone updated on who he’s working with.”

“All of his posts come only from a place of love and it makes no sense that you can’t just remove the one offensive photo, especially if you’ve given other artists said privilege,” adds the keyboardist. “To remove his whole account seems like a move to inhibit a community of artists, rather than slap a man on the wrist.”

Will the Flaming Lips overcome Instagram’s authoritarian dictatorship the same way that the pint-sized martial artist Yoshimi did the invading Pink Robots from the band’s landmark 2002 album?
Maybe, maybe not. Either way, don’t expect it to stem the band’s love for the outlandish. You can catch up on all the spread-eagled alien, mannequin-groping, womb-humouring action over at Wayne Coyne’s new Instagram account.

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