Acid Mothers Temple April 18th, 2009 Johnny Brenda's Philadelphia, PA Source: Roland Edirol R-09 (on-board mics, low cut on & AGC off, saved as 16 bit 44.1khz .WAV) > WaveLab (SL-1 Stereo Expander @ 100% > Puncher (soft density, 70% effect, 0% output gain)) > CDWAV (tracks split and saved as .FLAC level 8 ) > foobar2000 (Tags + ReplayGain) Location: Balcony, house right, before the first bend. Taper: ZaPenguin (pjzyhfz02(AT)sneakemail.com or http://db.etree.org/ZappaPenguin) SOUND QUALITY: A- (I was unable to secure the Perfect Spot here, so I ended up being closer to Kawabata than last year. Result: Very little bass) THE BAND: Tsuyama Atsushi: monster bass, voice, cosmic joker Higashi Hiroshi: synth, guitar, voice, dancin'king Shimura Koji: drums, latino cool Kawabata Makoto: guitar, voice, speed guru TRACK LIST: CD1 [48:52] 01. Soundcheck [3:41] 02. "Are We Experimental?" [2:07] 03. > Experimental Intro Jam [6:46] 04. Dark Stars in the Dazzling Sky [21:09] 05. "Are the Phillies Experimental?" [0:47] 06. Eleking the Clay [5:51] --> 07. > "Is Love Experimental?" Jazz Fusion Jam [4:12] --> 08. > Holy Rock N' Roll Bible (q: Crossroads) [4:21] [time of suite: 14:23] CD2 [65:35] 09. La Novia (acoustic) [6:21] --> 10. > Pink Lady Lemonade [17:42] --> 11. > Cosmic Soul Death Disco [8:12] --> 12. > Pink Lady Lemonade [5:56] --> 13. > "Is 'The End' Experimental?" [3:56] --> 14. > Cometary Orbital Drive > Speed Guru [17:46] [total time of suite: 59:52] 15. audience 16. "Is Japanese Folk Music Experimental?" Note: D2T5 is a cover of the Doors' "The End". D2T8 probably has another, better, more-official name. 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 SETLIST: "Are We Experimental?" intro jam, Dark Stars in the Dazzling Sky, Eleking the Clay > "Is Love Experimental?" jazz-fusion jam > Holy Rock N' Roll Bible (q: Crossroads), La Novia (acoustic) > Pink Lady Lemonade > Cosmic Soul Death Disco > Pink Lady Lemonade > "Is the End Experimental?" (The End) > Cometary Orbital Drive > Speed Guru E: "Is Japanese Folk Music Experimental?" SHOW NOTES: Fucking damn, what a show. See, I tend to use previous info.txt files as templates for the new ones. It's an easy way of lending a bit of structural continuty to these oftimes lengthy diatribes, while ensuring that if I happened to forget a section at one point, said forgetting will occur multiple times, thus allowing the omission to be passed off as some form of artistic, you know, THING. Anyway, the gist of it is that I led off the info.txt file from last year's Philly show with that line, and reusing that line saved me the ten seconds of my life it would take to type said line again, for the low "down payment" of this xxx word paragraph carefully explaining said process. In the interests of trying to finish this file before it's time to get to the next show, how about some brief, disjointed notes? Opening act will definitely take some getting used to. Sorta aimless, though impassioned. Very loud - an excellent way to level-check, if nothing else. "Are We Experimental?" is the theme of the tour. Tsuyama is Pheeleeg So Good. The opening jam seems a lot more "open" than in 2008 - more room to, well, experiment. Dark Stars is fucking beautiful - starting off with some Tsuyama vocalizations, then gradually falling into a very haunting, almost delicate version of the main riff - I'm no Doctor of Music Science, but this seems to be at about quarter-time (that is to say, 50% slower than half-time, which is of course 50% as fast as normal speed) - which eventually kicks into the Dark Stars in the Dazzling Sky we're so familiar with. Eleking the Clay is a brand-new song to these ears, and oh my goodness it's nice. The band really aggro'd it up here - the studio version is desert trance, this version is mosh-pit punk rock, with hyperactive Kawabata stylings and out of control synth trills. Elkeing gives way into a mellow jazz-fusion bit, with Tsuyama reminiscing about sitting on his face before going into the manic countoff that begats the Holy Rock N' Roll Bible - three-odd minutes of house-band punkrock, with some Crossroads thrown in for good measure. The real highlight of the night, of course, is anything touching Pink Lady Lemonade - this includes the fantastic La Novia (played as a delicate acoustic piece here, with only the sparest of synth trills accompanying Tsuyama's solo acoustic guitar), which serves as the prelude to Pink Lady Lemonade. The first section is the Pink Lady we all know and love, typically fantastic basswork from Tsuyama (eat this, Les Claypool), "out there" guitar from Mr. Kawabata, and Shimura's Latino cool serving the thankless task of keeping meter around the aforementioned extrapolations - oh, and, of course, Higashi's rhythm guitar is, as usual, barely audible in the house mix. Pink Lady gives way to some spooky noodlings, which lead into the Cosmic Soul Death Disco - I'm just glad I didn't bang my head against the mics while, er, enjoying this number. Back to the double-time PLL coda (absent for much of the shows on the 2008 tour, due to-- well, I'm getting ahead of myself), which, after some inspired guitar, gives way to... a very Experimental version of one of the silliest songs in the history of rock, "The End" - Father, take me to the baseball game... Mother, give me a (toy? Autograph?). Anyway, this leads into the song that was the reason for the absence of the double-time PLL coda (whew, glad I caught up) - now called Cometary Orbital Drive, slightly stylized but still very recognizable as the "Krautrock coda". Segue into Speed Guru, audience begging for more, then an experimental folk song which turns into heavy metal. The entire PLL suite (including La Novia and Cometary Orbital Drive) clocks in at a stunning fifty-nine minutes, fifty-two seconds. Superb. Getting out of Philly was an utter breeze this time. Apparently, Frankford avenue leads to paradise in the form of I-95. Girard, on the other hand, leads directly to oblivion and tears. RECORDING NOTES: I wish I had secured my sweet spot, but I was lazy and napped at a table and when I woke up there were people with the unmigitated audacity to steal what was clearly my place along the balcony. The resulting recording lacks low-end. Still very listenable, if a bit boxy in places. REQUESTS & REMINDERS: Do not sell this recording. Do not buy this recording. Do not sell this recording, then buy it from yourself. Girard's a tard. Frankford's a friend. 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 App\Http\Controllers\Api\FileDownloadController::download(): Return value must be of type string, none returned