Acid Mothers Temple
April 8th, 2016
Comet Ping Pong
Washington, DC


Source:
(audience) Roland Edirol R-09 (onboard mics, low-cut on, AGC off) >
(SBD) Roland Edirol R-09HR (SBD feed, low-cut off, AGC off) >

Audacity (tracks combined, levels balanced, slight edits made to preserve synchronicity - if only slight edits to Synchronicity preserved the Police!) > WaveLab (Puncher (high density, 75% effect, 0% output gain) + SL-1 StereoExpander (90%) > Audacity (levels normalized, DC offset (if present) corrected, Limiter: +1dB input gain to each channel, limited to -7.0dB, 10ms hold, make-up gain applied) > CDWAV (tracks split and saved as .FLAC level 8 ) > foobar2000 (ReplayGain + tags)

Location for audience:
First song (Dark Stars): House rear-right, held in hand, occasionally < 3 inches from some dude's shoulder blade.
Rest of show: House right-rear, on top of a cage full of hipster beers.

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


SOUND QUALITY: Is "uhh" a letter grade? Part of me wants to give it an A+ because it recorded, despite what's become a hair-trigger connection in the SD card input of the R-09. That said, it took a lot of work to get this one to sound listenable. I'll say B-/C+ for Dark Stars, B+ but-oh-so-fuzzy for the rest of the show. The SBD gives this one some vocal clarity that's usually lacking, and some nice synth details, but there's also a lot of distortion (if I had to wager a guess, I'd say one of the vocal mics is getting beaten up by the bass amp) and an overall "boxy" sound.


THE BAND:
Kawabata Makoto : guitar, synthesizer, speed guru
Higashi Hiroshi : synthesizer, noodle king
Tabata MItasuru : guitar, guitar-synthesizer, maratab
Satoshima Nani : drums, another dimension
S/T : bass, space & time

NO LONGER WITH THE BAND BUT WE WON'T FORGET THEM:
Shimura Koji: drums, latino cool
Tsuyama Atsushi: monster bass, voice, cosmic joker

TRACK LIST:
01. Dark Stars in the Dazzling Sky [14:53]
02. The Wizard [15:02]
03. tuning [0:26]
04. Pink Lady Intro [1:26]
05. Pink Lady Lemonade [9:48]
06. IAO Chant [5:36]
07. Pink Lady Lemonade [5:56]
08. The Flying Teapot [8:02]
09. Another Nanique Dimension [8:46]
10. Cometary Orbital Drive > Speed Guru [10:24]

Notes:
Track 04 could probably be considered part of track 05, but back in the day these intros tended to really wander and explore, so while I shan't be granting it "Reflections" status, I shall likewise not be omitting the track split. I have also deferred to Crashingbeat's naming of track 06, which I previously called by the "Om Riff" monkier. I have likewise deferred to Crashingbeat's naming of the track previously referred to as "Cometary Orbital Intro", but in a display of sheer teenaged anarchic rebellion and cheeky what-for-ness, I have persisted in considering track 10 a medley of Cometary Orbital Drive and Speed Guru, rather than merely a performance of the former.


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:
Only managed to see one show this tour - yes, I know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! If an entity must be blamed, I request it be whichever force resulted in the Acid Mothers not playing a Richmond show this tour, despite drawing tremendously energetic crowds in previous years.

This recording has been held up by an amazing series of unforeseen and unrelated hardware failures that claimed my earphones (they were working, got up to pop the SD card of the audience recording into the computer, sat back down, and all of a sudden the left channel was totally gone), possessed my mouse (left to its own, it will occasionally start jiggling the cursor for no reason yet known to mankind), and have my keyboard on its last legs (the slightest bump will cause it to disconnect - hence what promises to be a relatively-brief set of "show notes" for this one).

The show was incredible. The bass is kind of buried in the mix here, so it's hard to really evaluate how S/T compares to the Cosmic Jokin' Master himself, but he clearly holds his own, and the new rhythm section has infused the band with a fresh drive (of the Cometary Orbital variety). The synth noises are off the charts here, and the harmonica interludes in The Wizard remind this humble listener of the days of Tsuyama's flute/bass one-man-shows.

Tabata has really, really come into his own by now - I remember when he was a fresh-faced rookie, smiling almost timidly as he relieved Hagashi of his guitar burden. Now he's almost a bona-fide Senior Ranking Member, or at the very least the pivotal bridge between the Moustache Petes on guitar and synth and the upstart Young Turks of the rhythm section, stepping with confidence (and a flamboyant assortment of head and eyewear) into the Cosmic Joker shoes vacated by Tsuyama, and broadening the band's sonic spectrum with the almost-surreal noises he gets out of his guitar synth.

And speaking of synth, I was unable to see if it was him or Higashi making all those bloops and beep-boops, but I love it. Sounds like some sample-and-hold action complimenting the standard frequency sweeps during IAO Chant.

And speaking of IAO Chant, highlight of the night: Kawabata has a true Garcia (or Lou Reed, or Robert Fripp, or Thurston Moore, take your pick!) moment at the end, unleashing a ninety-second blast of feedback at the conclusion that left the audience absolutely stunned. I'm not taking any liberties there. I have seen the band many times. I have seen the band come back to the Pink Lady Lemonade riff many, many times, after whatever madness they stick in the middle of Pink Lady Lemonade. This is, to my recollection, the only time where the return to the Pink Lady Riff is not drowned out in a swell of applause - in fact, listening to it, one would think the band was playing for a deserted venue. While your intrepid reporter DID spot a small handful of aural weaklings desert the crowd in the midst of the sonic attack, rest assured that the venue was still plenty packed at that quiet moment. The Dynamite Children of D.C. simply aren't the least bit gun-shy about taking a moment just to quietly take stuff in. It's what we do. That, and cheer rambunctiously for tuning.

411 words, 2340 characters starting from "The show". I think that constitutes "relatively-brief".


REQUESTS & REMINDERS:
Do not sell this recording. Do not buy this recording. Do not sell this recording, then buy it from yourself. Ilmoalwikad, Iwyclttot.


CREDITS:
Dynamite Children - Decibel Confusion

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