Acid Mothers Temple
April 25th, 2014
Strange Matter
Richmond, VA

Source:
Roland Edirol R-09 (onboard mics, low-cut on, AGC off) > WaveLab (SL-1 StereoExpander (100%) + EQ-1 (441.0 and below reduced -6.0dB) + levels normalized) > CDWAV (tracks split and saved as .FLAC level 8 ) > foobar2000 (ReplayGain)

Location: Gradually moving from house rear-center to house left-center next to soundboard during Kawabata's Reflections.

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

SOUND QUALITY: A-/B+ - -6.0dB of EQ turned this recording from a horrid, boomy, borderline-unenjoyable C+ into the relatively fine specimen now available. As much as I hate giving the same grade to two recordings that sound as different as this and the D.C. recording from the night before, I have to say that overall an A-/B+ is as correct as I can get. Still some low-end fuzz and a LOT of crowd, but it's fun fuzz and sincere enthusiasm for the most part.

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

SPECIAL GUEST:
Cotton Casino: synth, wild dancing on all songs

TRACK LIST:
01. Kawabata's Pink Reflections [8:46]
02. Pink Lady Lemonade [10:32]
03. Om Riff [7:50]
04. Pink Lady Lemonade [4:18]
05. Cometary Orbital Drive > Speed Guru [12:15]
06. "holy shit" [1:15]

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:
The most frustrating of times, the most rewarding of times.

Frustrating: Weather, weird scheduling, and the infamous northern Virginia traffic conspired to create a partial recording. Sure, the website clearly said "Show: 8pm", but there was an additional local opener and since when in the history of rock music has a rock concert ever - EVER - started at the publicly-announced start time? If it had been typical Venue Time Zone of "8pm 'show', 8:35pm first act actually starts making music, 9:15 second act, 10:20 headliner" I would have been there within minutes of the opening jam.

Rewarding: It's as if fate was looking over my shoulder as I complained about the altogether-too-brief Pink Lady from the D.C. show. One of the bass amps was behaving strangely, and as a result we were rewarded with an ultra-extended eight minute "Reflection", which I consider part of the Pink Lady Extravaganza. The band also returned to Pink Lady after the Om Riff, which allowed the Council of Determining What's Part of the Pink Lady Suite determine that the Om Riff was part of the Pink Lady Suite, and resulted in a Pink Lady Suite over twice as long as the D.C. affair.

Frustrating: Being that I was late to the venue, I had difficulties scoping out a Suitable Recording Spot, and to make matters worse, a bit of a technical snafu resulted in about one to two minutes of the extended Reflections being lost to the fates - perhaps a karmatic donation? I had low, low hopes for the audibility of this recording, especially consider the venue was jam-packed with extremely giddy, excited, and of course chattering Acid Children.

Rewarding: Despite the venue being packed shoulder-to-shoulder, enough space opened up that I was able to migrate to a pretty nice spot, pretty free of Bottle Clatter and Idle Chatter.

Frustrating: Not wanting to set off another technical snafu, I rested the R-09 on a table near the soundboard, which resulted in the low frequencies being ultra-boomy.

Rewarding: A "Hail Mary" on the EQ-1 worked leagues better than I was expecting it would, and the recording is not only listenable, but enjoyable.

Frustrating: Despite a mega-mondo-super-pumped crowd chanting "holy shit!" for over a minute, the band declined to perform even a token Speed Guru-style encore.

Rewarding: Some incredible, amazingly hospitable fans gave this humble taper crash space and wonderful pancakes, thus ensuring the journey to North Carolina would be a smooth and easy ride. Southern hospitality exists, and is real.


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


CREDITS:
Richmond Rabblerabids: Raucousness
Dimitri, Bailey, and Hunter: Crash space, conversation, pancakes.

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