Acid Mothers Temple
April 18th, 2013
Johnny Brenda's
Philadelphia, PA


Source:
Roland Edirol R-09 (onboard mics, low-cut on, AGC off) > WaveLab (Puncher (low density, 75% effect, 0% output gain) + SL-1 StereoExpander (100%) + levels normalized) > CDWAV (tracks split and saved as .FLAC level 8 ) > foobar2000 (ReplayGain)

Location: Top floor balcony, right by the stairs.

Taper: ZaPenguin (zappa.penguin(AT)gmail.com or
http://db.etree.org/ZappaPenguin)

SOUND QUALITY: B+. Evidently there's a new soundboard at Johnny Brenda's which only offers XLR out. Lacking XLR cables, I was forced to stick with an old-fashioned audience recording. Despite being in the same general position which has yielded excellent recordings at Johnny Brenda's in the past, I'm not altogether pleased with the sound here. Maybe I'm just being too harsh on it, one of those "producer/product" relationships (see also: Dearest, Mommie). It's not unlistenable, just somewhat claustrophobic and suffers from a bit of fuzz if you listen closely. I'm sure someone might trade this to me as an A/A- and I wouldn't lose my cool over it. It may even partially be due to the soundman still working out the kinks of the new sound system at Johnny Brenda's - a friend talked about indistinct vocals at a different show he saw at Johnny Brenda's, which hardly sounds like the Johnny Brenda's mix I'm used to hearing at Johnny Brenda's. Johnny Brenda's.


THE BAND:
Tsuyama Atsushi: monster bass, voice, cosmic joker
Tabata Mitsuru : guitar, maratab
Higashi Hiroshi: synth, guitar, voice, dancin'king
Shimura Koji: drums, latino cool
Kawabata Makoto: guitar, voice, speed guru


TRACK LIST:
CD1 [73:20]
01. Intro Jam [7:39]
02. tuning [1:21]
03. New Song [18:22]
04. Kawabata's Pink Reflections [3:10]
05. Pink Lady Lemonade [13:04]
06. Om Riff (Gong's "Master Builder") [10:39]
07. Pink Lady Lemonade [6:30]
08. Cometary Orbital Drive > Speed Guru [12:36]

CD2 [15:14]
01. audience [1:37]
02. Play the Guitar, Johnny Brenda [0:38]
03. Dark Stars in the Dazzling Sky [12:58]

Notes:
CD2 is what would be referred to in the disc-swapping world as "a filler-fanatic's (not to be confused with Philly PHanatic) dream" - you could fit two 20-minute shows on this disc, or even a typical hour-long opening set.


MINI BIO:
"Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. (and subsequent offshoots) is a Japanese psychedelic band founded in 1995 by members of the Acid Mothers Temple soul-collective. The band is led by guitarist Kawabata Makoto and early in their career featured many musicians but by 2004 the line-up had coalesced with 4 core members and frequent vocal guests.

The band have a reputation for phenomenal live shows, and releasing frequent albums on a number of international record labels, as well as the Acid Mothers Temple family record label which was established in 1998 to document the activities of the whole collective."
- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia which every 14 year old has edited.


BAND PAGE:
http://www.acidmothers.com


SHOW NOTES:
Another year, another performance of the Acid Mothers at Johnny Brenda's!

The crowd wasn't quite as densely packed this year as it was for the past two years - possibly due to events three-hundred miles to the north, or possibly just due to the particular placement of finals week this year (this last possibility is pure guesswork on my part). Certainly far from "empty" or anything - but one could actually move around this year if one was so inclined.

Several regulars were spotted in the crowd, including a dead-ringer for Bandana Bob of years past - though without his namesake head apparatus, and without the wild gyrations of the Real McBob.

The new song is a real warhorse, almost a coming across as an homage to Dark Stars in a way, definitely knee-deep in the "feel" of that time-honored Acid Mother Warhorse, with some opportunity for Tabata's guitar synth - lovely and strange as always - and a real powerful Sabbath-esque stoner metal riff towards the end that I really hope to hear soundboard of someday! Hopefully this song sticks around for a while - or at least that final stoner metal riff, because damn!

Really lovely Pink Lady intro tonight by Kawabata - reminds me of the acapella guitar solos Frank Zappa occasionally performed during the 1977 European tour (one of these was officially released as "Lather Goods" on the Lather album). Very quiet and delicate, with lots of echo effects and a gently mutating main riff.

And how can a man type "gently mutating main riff" without talking about Pink Lady Lemonade for a bit? Decent version tonight, if a tad bit unassuming. No "double-time echoplex" section tonight (that bit really does seem to spontaneously appear and disappear regardless of tour), but we do get a nice Om Riff section.

By now I've grown to accept the untangling of Cometary Orbital Drive from the Pink Lady tour-de-force. It definitely gives Kawabata some new stomping ground - his pre-song wanderings now have more to do with the Cometary theme than the Pink Lady theme.

Tsuyama's vocal explorations are as grin-inducing as ever, and for an encore we get Dark Stars - sort of a "single edit" version, well under 15 minutes in length - by Dark Stars standards, blink and you'll miss it!

While the show is a bit on the brief side and the recording isn't as crystal-clear as I'd like, I can't complain. Johnny Brenda's is always a great vibe and the Acid Mothers always seem happy to play there.


REQUESTS & REMINDERS:
Do not sell this recording. Do not buy this recording. Do not sell this recording, then buy it from yourself. Real Men Use XLR.


CREDITS:
The Philly Temple Phanatics - psychedelic freak-out dancing
LqStuart - psychedelic freak-out driver

Torrented by the taper: ZaPenguin

email - zappa.penguin(AT)gmail.com
web - http://db.etree.org/zappapenguin (always woefully out of date)

Band page: http://www.acidmothers.com