Related Music question-dark

Versions - Different performances of the song by the same artist

Compilations - Other albums which feature this performance of the song

Covers - Performances of a song with the same name by different artists

Song Title	Versions	Compilations	Covers
"Space Ritual Jam"
"Hello Johnny Brenda Children"
"Have You Seen..."
Chinese Flying Saucer
La Novia
"Tsuyama Flute Interlude"
Pink Lady Lemonade
Cometary Orbital Drive > Speed Guru
Audience & Tuning
"Tsuyama's Oral Jungle"
Dark Stars in the Dazzling Sky (incl. La Le Lo)

Notes

Acid Mothers Temple
April 13th, 2011
Johnny Brenda's
Philadelphia, PA


Source:
Roland Edirol R-09HR (SBD feed) > Goldwave (pop/click filter @ 750 tolerance across entire show to remove some particularly jarring pops and clicks possibly caused by the PA's AGC) > WaveLab (Puncher (hard density, 75% effect, 0% output gain)) > CDWAV (tracks split and saved as .FLAC level 8 ) > foobar2000 (Tags + ReplayGain)

Location: The sounds are coming from INSIDE THE PA!!

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

SBD man: Matt
Lighting operator: Paul (not actually heard on this recording, but anyone who's been to a show at Johnny Brenda's knows just how fun the lighting is)

SOUND QUALITY: A for *Asterisk* (shows at Johnny Brenda's always sound FUCKING GREAT, and I've never pulled a bad audience recording from here, despite my dedicated efforts to the contrary. The soundman's job, first and foremost, is to make the concert sound good for the people in the room, and let it be said that Matt - and every other sound operator at J.B.'s that I've heard - does a fantastic job of making that happen. That said, this is a funky house mix that goes hand-in-hand with the venue's funky layout. For whatever reason, the left channel in this recording has a lot of reverb, while the right channel is completely dry. I left the stereo image as-is rather than widening it as I usually do - as it stands, it's not TERRIBLY distracting, but those who feel like it may want to tinker with their balance knobs a little, or rearrange their speakers so the right speaker is in front of them while the left speaker brings up the rear. Go nuts. There's a fair amount of line-hum in places, and the auto-faders create odd moments that sound almost like micro-gaps, particularly noticeable in Dark Stars. I've run a pop/click filter to hopefully remove most, if not all, of these moments, but I cannot guarentee that this recording is completely pop-free. Don't let these issues put you off too much, though - this is a DAMN fine recording, with PLENTY of Kawabata in the mix)


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 [39:23]
01. "Space Ritual Jam" [6:55]
02. "Hello Johnny Brenda Children" [0:52]
03. > "Have You Seen..." [0:43]
04. > Chinese Flying Saucer [11:02]
05. La Novia [19:51]

CD2 [61:33]
06. "Tsuyama Flute Interlude" [5:31]
07. > Pink Lady Lemonade [30:36]
08. > Cometary Orbital Drive > Speed Guru [12:11]
09. "Pure Digital Silence" [1:00]
10. Audience & Tuning [1:02]
11. "Tsuyama's Oral Jungle" [1:08]
12. Dark Stars in the Dazzling Sky (incl. La Le Lo) [8:45]

Notes: Track 09 is, as the name implies, silence. Apparently the entire PA system was shut off while the band left the stage. The silence is left in to make this recording more congruous with the AUD recording, which will be posted at a later date.


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:
After taking a week off from the road to get reacquainted with home living and upload a few shows, it was time once again to pack up my plastic bag and brave the motorways - this time, without the gentle chatter of the fondly beloved LqStuart, who evidently had more interesting things to do than go see the AMT along their mid-Atlantic run. The mind boggles.

I-95 was as it always is - a tedious stretch of asphalt with confusing signage (no, I do NOT want I-295 to Philadelphia, I want I-95 to Trenton) where nobody, not even the lifers, can use cruise control. If it weren't for the even-worse capital beltway that precedes it, it'd probably be utterly unbearable for all but the most devoted of drivers. The less said about I-95, the better.

Johnny Brenda's is such a fucking great little venue. Crowded and cramped, but in the good way, with bare wooden stairs that just beg to have drinks spilled on them to render them a hazard to life and limb, friendly bartenders and equally friendly door staff - and let's not forget the Philly fanatics who come to see the Acid Mothers. Of the venues I've been to, there's absolutely no contest for which city features the most pumped-up bunch of ragtag audience misfits - and the Acid Mothers really seem to thrive on this eclectic, electric, claustrophrenetic energy. Johnny Brenda's really knows how to put on a show, giving the audience a psychedelic smorgasboard of dazzling light effects and smoke machines running on overdrive - at times it was nearly impossible to see the stagefront audience from the balcony due to the thick plumes of presumably non-carcinogenic haze. While the crowd may sound a bit quiet and standoffish on this soundboard recording, rest assured that they were quite the raucous bunch. Tsuyama's introduction to Chinese Flying Saucer drew not just cheers, but outright out-loud laughter from the out-there - and when he used the start of his flute introduction to pantomine smoking a cigarette (in reference to the byproducts of the aforementioned smoke machines), he practically brought the house down.

Tonight's show was a sell-out, with several fans left bummed out and Temple-less on the streets outside. I was fortunate enough to get in (though I'm reasonably sure that denying a man entrance after driving four hours on I-95 would be considered a capital offense in any given jurisdiction), and the sound man was generous and gracious enough to let me perform my duties for all those who couldn't make it. Absolutely no complaints from this Penguin whatsoever - even the bartender was sweet when I asked for the cheapest beer on the menu. I guess Philly just saves its shitty moods for its sports teams!

As for the music played, this was - musically speaking - the WEIRDEST of the 2011 shows I attended. Pink Lady Lemonade, in particular, is ridiculously dissonant in places - check out that completely off-kilter Tsuyama vocal loop in the middle. Something this downright crazy runs the risk of completely destroying the mood created by Kawabata's spacey guitar solo (starts off as one of the jazzier numbers I've heard from him - sounding a lot like a three-way cross between Frank Zappa, Carlos Santana, and Al DiMeola before melting into Fripp/Belewesque sai-bow explorations), and yet here it just serves to kick the intensity of the song - and the show - up a notch, from 11 to DAAAANGEROUSLY FREAKY. In no other live show has the needle of Kawabata's prog-metal-psych continuum been quite so stuck on the "prog" side of the scale. The crowd was divided into two camps - either headbanging and slamdancing, or standing there wide-eyed and slack-jawed.

Were it not for my fears that my audience unit would slip from my sweaty palm to hit Kawabata square on the head, I probably would have joined the former group.

Pretty much any given touring band seems to have a "hometown", be it their actual place of formation or just a dot on the map that seems to, for whatever reason, bring out the absolute best in them. If the Acid Mothers' hometown was decided by the concerts they played, I'd put their hometown as Wilmington, DE - nearly right in the middle between Johnny Brenda's and the Ottobar.


REQUESTS & REMINDERS:
Do not sell this recording. Do not buy this recording. Do not sell this recording, then buy it from yourself. It would be hard not to dedicate my Philly recordings to the Philly Temple Phanatics and the staff of Johnny Brenda's - so let's give this soundboard recording dedication to the staff, and reserve the audience for the PTP.


CREDITS:
Matt - psychedelic freak-out sound wrangling
Paul - psychedelic freak-out lighting effects
The Philly Temple Phanatics - psychedelic freak-out slamdancing and sweatmops

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