Mopar Mountain Daredevils
April 15th, 2011
The Ottobar
Baltimore, MD


Source:
Roland Edirol R-09HR (SBD patch) > WaveLab (Puncher (hard density, 75% effect, 0% output gain) + SL-1 StereoExpander (75%) + levels normalized to a peak of -0.5dB) > CDWAV (tracks split and saved as .FLAC level 8 ) > foobar2000 (Tags + ReplayGain)

Location: The sounds, once again, are coming from INSIDE THE PA!!

Fill source:
Roland Edirol R-09 (onboard mics, low-cut on and AGC off) > WaveLab (Puncher (medium density, 75% effect, 0% output gain) + SL-1 StereoExpander (100%) + levels normalized to a peak of -0.5dB) > GoldWave (volume adjusted to 70% of original to better match SBD levels, crossfaded with SBD source at 1:02.205)

Fill location: "ZaPenguin's Ottobar Taping Table", about ten feet back-left of soundboard

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

SBD man: Brian

SOUND QUALITY: A+/A (if the center-channel synth was swapped with the left-channel fuzz guitar, and Cotton's vocals brought down a little bit, this could be mistaken for a studio release. Not much crowd or room ambience in the mix)

PATCH QUALITY: A/A- (drums a little echoey, a tiny bit of low-end distortion, but very very listenable)


THE BAND:
Cotton Casino - vocals, synth, mystical convulsions
Bill Turney - guitar, vocals
Bob Sweeney - bass, vocals
Derrick Hans - drums
Rob Girardi - guitar, giving me a soundboard patch for AMT in 2010
"El Suprimo" - synth

(also credited on Cotton's MySpace but not mentioned on "El Suprimo"s site: dave litz (vincent black shadow). Not credited on Cotton's MySpace but credited on "El Suprimo"s site and was definitely playing at this show: Rob Girardi)


TRACK LIST:
CD1 [24:19]
01. soundcheck [0:32]
02. Mopar Bloody Mopar [3:43]
03. Untitled [7:28]
04. tuning [0:30]
05. Yeti Stomp [6:06]
06. Breathe [6:01]

(setlist straight from Mr. Suprimo himself)
(soundcheck and first 0:30 of Mopar Bloody Mopar from AUD source)

MINI BIO:
"The way Baltimore’s Mopar Mountain Daredevils have set up their debut EP, Mopar Bloody Mopar (El Suprimo! Records), it’s like a trip that keeps going further out. Emitting four rays of molten, swirling stonerdelia each more lysergic than the last, the 25-minute collection offers the listener a gradual expansion; from the comparatively unassuming opening title track to nine-minute closer “Tiger’s Pause,” which deforms and oozes concepts over a canyon of reverb."

- http://theobelisk.net/obelisk/2009/03/25/mmdreview/


BAND PAGE:
http://web.mac.com/elsuprimo/Site/Home_Page.html


SHOW NOTES:
An incredible performance by Cotton Casino's new band - twenty-five minutes that feel absolutely timeless. Forty-five seconds of dead air in the middle, the rest is wall-to-wall fuzz-psych at its finest.

In 2007, the Acid Mothers Temple were touring with a lady by the name of Kitagawa Hao on theremin and vocals, and while I thought the sounds she made with her theremin were great, I have to admit that I found the vocals clashing with the music to a degree - and not in the peanut-butter-and-chocolate, pineapple-and-anchovy, Lennon-and-McCartney way that leads to A Better Place; but rather the milk-and-pickles sort of way that just leads to a sense of subconscious unsatisfaction and occasional queasiness - or worse. Cotton's vocal stylings are much in the same style as Ms. Kitagawa's, but in Mopar Mountain Daredevils I daresay that they blend together perfectly - even when the demands of a house mix do everything in their power to make them dominate the music, as the mix here does.

The band delivers a fine performance tonight, with the crunchy ZZ-Top-Goes-To-Burning-Man guitar riff of Mopar Bloody Mopar serving as my vote for the catchiest moment of the night. The seven minute untitled song (or song titled "Untitled") is probably the most avant-garde of the four songs played, with an almost gentle, ethereal vocal (and probably the most discernable, even conventional-sounding lyrics of the night) playing "Red Light, Green Light" with a lurching, slowly-building, unbalanced-sounding guitar riff (think "Black Sabbath jams with the Melvins, the jam is recorded on an old BASF audio cassette, which is then played back on a beat-up Walkman with dying batteries being shaken vigorously by a flair bartender at the MGM Grand", except slightly more wobbly-sounding). Yeti Stomp is definitely the night's crowd-pleasing, head-banging, Heavy Metal Moment, with Cotton's frantic, paranoid vocals set to a riff that wouldn't sound out of place on a Kyuss album. Breathe sets the weirdness back on 11, throwing out all the stops and doing everything in its power (if songs with one guitar solo are good, and songs with two guitar solos are better, then what about a song with two guitar solos... AT ONCE?) to leave the listener with an impression - any sort of impression at all, take your pick.


REQUESTS & REMINDERS:
Do not sell this recording. Do not buy this recording. Do not sell this recording, then buy it from yourself. When in Fells Point, check out El Suprimo! Records, located on scenic, upscale Aliceanna St.


CREDITS:
Brian - Board ops
The Ottobarbarians - Dancing & Dialogue, Mirth & Mayhem

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://web.mac.com/elsuprimo/Site/Home_Page.html