My current favorite song

Can't wait til the new Beanie ... uh... drops? Hits? Comes out? Dec 11th! This narrowly beat out the Jimmy Dean sausage complaint call. If only Randy Taylor had R. Kelly rapping about Scotch girls, alas. UPDATE: Looks like The Solution has been leaked! Dig that "War Pigs" sample! Seriously!

Kevin Dubrow RIP

Holy crap! Quiet Riot's Kevin Dubrow is dead. Wow.

Acid Mothers Sunday Vol 2

These two jams are spaced out overload as only the firing-on-all-cylinders 2002 Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Parisio UFO could deliver. This is still my fave tour, the Magical Ministry tour. Once again Cotton Casino was still a huge part of the band. Her chanting, singing, smoking, drinking, shoes, synth playing, vibe... everything was even more out there than even this bunch of super tall timeless spacemen. And they played the Khyber twice that year! Both shows were a wonderful smoked out haze, but the October show was particularly awesome. These two songs are from the Empty Bottle in Chicago on October 20th, 2002. Not sure who taped it, but it is a good audience recording, but I am not super picky about stuff like that like. Both songs are kinda rare on the live Acid Mothers shows floating around. "Soleil De Cristal et Lune D'argent" was the main piece on their then current album Univers Zen Ou De Zéro A Zéro. The slow bouzouki fractal riff intro features Cotton chanting from another dimension as she rides her space synth in and out of time. The whirling dervish jam that follows is massive; you can hear Kawabata ditch the bouzouki for his electric guitar and take the already spiraling groove to a higher plane. Hard hitting spastic drummer Uki Eiji locks in with Hiroshi, Tsuyama and Cotton and sub-Sabbaths the place up. And this is how they opened the show!




"Loved and Confused" is from the Electric Heavyland album. Absolute riff destruction, the closest Acid Mothers Temple ever got to Mainliner, and this definitely coulda been on a Mainliner La Musica cassette, no doubt. Cotton punks it up while Kawabata grinds the main riff into a spaced out free jazz skronk. Jagged blasts of wah wah'd guitar circling the drain as flying saucers land in the background. And Bill Ward eats Art Blakey. After a slight pause to huff glue, the backwards, been-strangled riff returns to drag its knuckles and cause a fuss before finally flopping over in a pile of beer and limited edition CDrs. So yeah! The whole show can be downloaded here. These pics are from the same tour, the Khyber in Philadelphia, October 18 2002.

Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Parisio UFO- Soleil De Cristal et Lune D'argent (Live Empty Bottle, Chicago Oct 20 2002)

Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Parisio UFO- Loved and Confused (Live Empty Bottle, Chicago Oct 20 2002)

Philly Rules, One Day Only!

Congrats to Jimmy Rollins, the National League's MOST VALUABLE PLAYER! And way to time it on the release date of the new Freeway CD too!

Flower Travellin' Band- Otoko, How Many More Times

While reading Julian Cope's JAPROCKSAMPLER, I was happy to see my favorite Flower Travellin' Band release mentioned, From Pussies Til Death in 10,000 Years of Freakout. I snagged the vinyl LP on Apex Records a few years ago from Eclipse. It seems to be a bootleg and as far as I can tell these pre Satori recordings (recored in 69-70) have never been issued/reissued. The back cover states:

These were crazy sides recorded before the golden dawn of the Flower Travelling Band. Extreme suites of lead-molten guitar, poured with pain and beautiful psychedelic wonder into the mouth of the round eye cow.

Ok, so there you go. The front cover is credited to Flower Traveling Band, while the back is credited to the pre FTB Flowers. There are four tracks on the LP. The first track, "I'm Dead," is divided into two parts, the first taking up the whole first side of the LP. In JAPROCKSAMPLER "I'm Dead" is described as a work commissioned by composer Toshi Ichiyanagi (who had plans to record a rock band with a symphony orchestra but decided to let the Flowers jam out) with his only stipulations being it clocked in at over 20 minutes and was called "I'm Dead" after one of Tadanori Yoko'o's most famoust paintings. "I'm Dead" is free form instrumental freak-out with deep space reverb notes flying from the outer reaches of stonerdom, to heavy duty noise blur scariness. As the jam wound down, the tape machines kept rolling and recorded "Otoko," the second song on From Pussies Til Death.... Another instrumental, this one features a simple, upbeat bass lick being flooded by a spastic drummer and two (I think?) tracks of blazing guitar soloing all over the place. Almost like a distilled and more 'mersh version of "I'm Dead!"

The other tracks on the LP are covers of "Stone Free" and "How Many More Times." The blog Cities on Flame With Rock and Roll devotes a post to the cover of "How Many More Times" here with a substantial Julian Cope quote on the song. Definitely one of the most frenzied cover versions ever, my favorite Led Zeppelin track gets ground up and destroyed in a most perfect fashion. Crazy.

In a recent post on the Acid Mothers Temple mboard about JAPROCKSAMPLER, Kawabata said "...my friend who is Japanese also knows about 60s & 70s Jap Rock very much said there were many mistakes and misunderstanding, when he read this book... but also he said anyway it would be a good guide for beginners of Jap Rocks..." I am curious to hear anything regarding From Pussies Til Death... from anyone with an inside knowledge of the release. According to Cope's book

...for the Flowers, for Yuya Utchida, for Toshi Ichiyanagi, for the entire Japanese rock'n'roll underground, "I'm Dead" was nothing short of R E V E L A T I O N!

I can't tell if "I'm Dead" was ever actually released in Japan, and if so, on what. Anyone with any inside knowledge on this or exactly how far reaching "I'm Dead" was, please post in the comments!

It seems this LP is currently out of print, hopefully someone will reissue it, etc. some day. Insane and youthful, the all out assault on these tracks is fercious, a very different animal from the disciplined cold brutality of Satori.

Flower Travellin' Band- Otoko

Flower Travellin' Band- How Many More Times

UPDATE: Ok, after some more research it seems that "I'm Dead" was released on Toshi Ichiyanagi's Opera from the Works of Tadanori Yoko'o. Also, "Otoko" was released on the fourth volume of the Love, Peace and Poetry series.

Lucy! Well, her dad actually...

I am such a sucker for the few episodes of Lucy, Daughter of the Devil that I have seen, but holy crap, this ups the ante! Ahh!

yearly "MBV R Back, For Reals!" story...

...but with some Svenonius connection this time around! Ok, now lets get those "Loudest band I ever saw..." threads going, right?

Acid Mothers Sunday!

Since I am such a fan of those awesome "Breakfast with the Beatles" radio programs, I figured I would steal the general idea and post a live or rare Acid Mothers Temple (or related) mp3 every other Sundayish.




For this inaugural edition, I am gonna post "Pink Lady Lemonade" from Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Parsiso UFO's second Philadelphia performance. They played the Upstage (or is it Upstages? I never knew. Located in the building that used to house Revival) seven years ago today, November 11, 2000. This version of AMT included Cotton Casino, Kawabata Makoto, Tsuyama Atsushi, Higashi Hiroshi and Ozawa Ryo (on his only US tour with AMT to date). "Pink Lady Lemonade" is kind of their "Dark Star," in that it's opening riff stays essentially the same while the main body of the song can go all over the place. It is cool to hear how different they play this song these days, it is still a mainstay of Acid Mothers Temple setlists and the only song that both The Melting Parisio UFO and the Cosmic Inferno versions of the band play.




At this point the fantastic Cotton Casino was still in AMT and providing ethereal, cigarette and beer fueled vocals to the band. While I definitely miss Cotton a lot, the core unit of Kawabata, Tsuyama and Higashi just keep getting better and better. This song was recorded by Matt Suib via the soundboard, though the guitar is a little quiet, I think you get the idea. Needless to say they were fantastic that night and blew a lot of minds. Here are some pics from that night, too. The full show can be downloaded here.

Acid Mothers Temple are currently on tour in the UK and Europe and are due to return to the USA in March 2008.

Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Parisio UFO, live Nov 11 2000 Upstage Philadelphia PA- Pink Lady Lemonade (approx 18 minutes)

DTO last night

Went to see DTO (Doomed to Obscurity) at the Khyber last night for their record release show.


Lots of old heads and Lancaster folks including Punk Haus alumni Roast and Kitschchao drummer Dave, and the twins, Melanie and Rebecca! Alas, no Dan Gill, though. Awesomely great class of '93 vibes for sure. And DTO were a ton better than the only other time I saw them; they are now a totally right on ROCK band. Chris and Jason are totally slamming guitar players and that singer dude, Billy (who was on a crutch because he fell off a roof), has really fit into their sound great.

Olde City is just so fucking great these days, I mean, yeah, no shit, but really. So awes. As I was walking back to my car I witnessed a spiraling out of control fight that almost wound up in the street. Luckily a nice constable stopped by and produced his tazer just as things were getting a tad scary. Which is ok, because I don't think I would have had my camera ready in time anyways.

Here are some DTO pics from the show. You can get their CD and Tshirts through their myspace, I assume? I will post more pics on the regular Nice Pooper photo page in the next week.

UP-TIGHT tour canceled. Argh.

From a message on UP-TIGHT's website:

...we are very very very sorry to inform you that
UP-TIGHT member were rejected to enter the US on 9th from immigration office.
We had no way but back to Japan.
We are now in Japan and we can't play at the US.

We have no words to express our feeling
and we don't know how we should applogy you for your deeed for us this time.

Again, we feel very sorry for this happening.
Hope to see you soon.

Such terrible news... I feel so bad for UP-TIGHT and the time and money they have spent organizing this tour. I hope they decide to return to the states sometime, but if not, I certainly understand. Ughhhhh.

UP-TIGHT @ the Vacuum Nov 16

The awesome and depressing dark psych (what?) UP-TIGHT are coming to Philadelphia. They are playing the Vacuum on Nov 16. Haven't been to the venue before, the area looks a bit bleak, which should suit UP-TIGHT. Then again, I am thinking of Cecil B. Moore Ave. in like 1995, so... who knows. Bardo Pond, Paul Metzger and Kohoutek also on the bill.

UP-TIGHT are definitely my faves of the new deal "dark psych" scene in Japan that seems heavily influenced by Les Rallizes Denudes, Fushitsusha and Okami No Jikan. Long jams of distorto guitar mixed with some 3rd LP Velvetsness. Kinda. I am so excited to actually see them live!

Here are some UP-TIGHT jams. Enjoy

UP-TIGHT- At 2:00 AM, I Am Waiting For Someone (from the Five Psychedelic Pieces CD)

UP-TIGHT- Key of Assesion (from the Live 2003 CDr)

Ruling

Though the singer looks more like Ian Brown to me.

And that ain't no shit!

Wow, Yahowha reunion!

And it does give me a chance to mention my 2003 email interview with Djinn Aquarian!

Am I yelling?

First Post/DTO @ the Khyber Nov 10

Ok, so yeah, I said I hate blogs... but I really want to hear that Satoh Masahiko "Amalgamation" CD that is written up in Julian Cope's JAPROCKSAMPLER book, so I figure if I have a music blog, I will get more in the know regarding other music blogs and when they post stuff to download and won't be stuck looking at year old links to Rallizes stuff. So yeah, if you have access to "Amalgamation," lemme know!

That said, yes this is the blog for the 90s to 2001 Philly zine, Nice Pooper. I will be posting various mp3s and babbling about said mp3s and maybe posting old Nice Pooper stuff (though some is available at the Pooper website).

Since Nice Pooper will be forever tied to Kitschchao, I should mention that guitarist Jason Clouser's post KC band, DTO are playing the Khyber on Nov 10 2007. Dudes from the Red Paint People (and Wicked Finger!) and Underagga are also in the band. Class of 1993, y'all.