The Flaming Lips just released its 12th album, At War With The Mystics, after 20 years of recording and touring. Chicago Sun-Times writer DeRogatis, author of the wonderful Lester Bangs biography Let It Blurt, manages to draw a line, albeit a wiggly one, from the band's beginnings as enthusiastically atonal punk rockers in Oklahoma City to their present day success as world renowned art-rock visionaries. DeRogatis tells the story simply, with testimonials from past and present band members, friends, family, fans, collaborators and others. He's thorough and exhaustive, though I did detect a few minor factual anomalies. Wayne Coyne, the Lips' leader, emerges as an archetypically relentless innovator whose near-heroic discipline belies a practical and whimsical approach to art and life. It's almost too bad there's already a terrific documentary on the band (The Fearless Freaks) but Staring At Sound stands as one of the best band bios of all time.

• Louie Louie: Me Gotta Go Now. Dick Peterson. Authorhouse. 394 pages. $19.95.

There could be a hell of a story here, but it's entombed within a rambling memoir by Peterson, drummer of The Kingsmen, the Portland, Ore., band that recorded the legendary hit Louie Louie in 1963. With details of interest to few, Peterson recounts his life story beginning with childhood, reconstructing conversations between parents, band members, recording engineers, record execs and a host of other characters, revealing everything anyone ever wanted to know except the one thing everyone asks them: ''What are the real words to Louie Louie?'' Though Peterson's good-natured story offers a classic slice of rock and roll Americana, without the lyrics, the book is a big disappointment.

RICHARD PACHTER