Acid Mothers Sunday Vol 4

Ah, the holidays and a slight cold have kept me from doing much updating, but I am hoping to get a bunch of new stuff in the mail for review here (including two new Acid Mothers titles from Essence Music in Brazil, a new JPT Scare Band recording and some CDs from Suzuki Junzo).




But for now, here is Volume 4 of Acid Mothers Sunday. This time around we are going with the current 2007 version of Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO. I am posting a track from their just-completed "Crystal Acid Motherly Love Tour" of Europe. I downloaded 3 shows, all with pretty decent to great sound quality and the band sounds as full on as they have ever been. Mostly sticking with the live staples "Dark Star Blues," "Pink Lady Lemonade" and "La Le Lo," they still totally bring new ideas and jams to these oft heard tracks. It is mind blowing how Kawabata still comes up with new freak out solos and jams, the "Pink Lady Lemonades" from this tour have had this awesome spiraling out of control delay jam that is like hearing trails. Anyways, here is a great version of "Dark Star Blues" (aka "Dark Stars in the Dazzling Sky") from November 22nd, 2007 in Basel, Switzerland. That heavy thud bass riff gets pulled apart and they kinda hit their most stoner rockness, totally hypnotizing and head bobbing for almost 20 minutes. This show also featured a fantastic "Pink Lady Lemonade->La Le Lo-> Pink Lady Lemonade" that clocked in at around 45 minutes! Unfortunately it was too huge to post for now, but hopefully in the near future. And remember, Acid Mothers Temple are coming back to the states in March 2008!

Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO- Dark Star Blues (Live November 22 2007 Basel, Switzerland)

Quick pre xmas wrap up

Not much time to write this week, what with the holidays and such.

Went to see Carpenter Ant's last show with Eric and Beth on Friday at Jan's Room in Allentown. It was pretty fun, rad to see folks pitting it up, singing along and jumping around, etc. The vibe wasn't quite as insane as Jeff the Pigeon, alas. Still great to see E&B (and Wheat the cat) and Greg from Chumpire. And Brad the Fat Kid in action, of course. Best part was the singer giving Eric a shout out for "Still going to shows... still part of the scene... doing it for years... skipping school to go to shows (?)..." so awesome! I gotta go up to the LV more often, a nice fella I didn't even know helped me cross the very icy sidewalk on the walk back to my car.

Here is a video Eric shot of the last song:



Some pics from the show here.

In other news, does anyone have the Satoh-Yamashita album Metempsychosis? If so, get in touch! Thanks.

Happy holidays, yall.

Acid Mothers Temple 2008 Tour Announced

According to the most recent R5 newsletter, Acid Mothers Temple (not sure if it is the Melting Parasio UFO or Cosmic Inferno version) return to Philly on March 24 @ Johnny Brendas...

UPDATE: Full Tour Announced

Thu 03/13/08 Echo Los Angeles CA Danava
Fri 03/14/08 Che Cafe San Diego CA Danava
Sat 03/15/08 Plush Tucson AZ Danava
Mon 03/17/08 Emos Jr. Austin TX Danava
Tue 03/18/08 Hailey Denton TX Danava
Wed 03/19/08 One Eyed Jacks New Orleans LA Danava
Thu 03/20/08 The Earl Atlanta GA Danava
Fri 03/21/08 Local 506 Chapel Hill NC Danava
Sat 03/22/08 Ottobar Baltimore MD Danava
Sun 03/23/08 Rock N Roll Hotel Washington DC Danava
Mon 03/24/08 Johnny Brendas Philadelphia PA Danava
Tue 03/25/08 Mercury Lounge New York NY Danava
Wed 03/26/08 Middle East Upstairs Cambridge MA Danava
Thu 03/27/08 La Sala Rossa Montreal PQ Danava
Fri 03/28/08 Legendary Horseshoe Tavern Toronto ON Danava
Sat 03/29/08 Magic Stick Detroit MI Danava
Sun 03/30/08 Grog Shop Cleveland Heights OH Danava
Mon 03/31/08 Empty Bottle Chicago IL Danava
Tue 04/01/08 7th Street Entry Minneapolis MN Danava, Born Ruffians
Fri 04/04/08 Pats Pub Vancouver BC Danava
Sat 04/05/08 Sunset Tavern Seattle WA Danava
Mon 04/07/08 Holocene Portland OR Danava
Tue 04/08/08 Bottom of the Hill San Francisco CA Danava

Murder Junkies Dec 7 2007 Smalls, Harrisburg PA

Here are some pics from the Murder Junkies at Small's in Harrisburg on Friday, December 7th, 2007. The place is up the street from John Beck's old apartment; man I spent a good amount of my junior and senior years at that apartment, getting awesome and tripping out. Anyways, the show was cool, newish singer dude is really fitting in; band was tight. Lots of punk rockers. Many beers(Victory Pils and Yuengling Lager), much awesome, tons of nostalgia as I was hanging with my pal Rusty, a head from way back. Plus it was great to see Merle and Dino. Some fake skinhead looking dudes were eyeballing Merle at his merch table, which was right by the door. Turns out one of them sucker punched Merle as they left, ugh. What a bunch of silliness. Merle seemed ok, but it was a drag in an otherwise blurry fun night. Man, everybody still loves PBR. That said, no sign of John Beck, Jay Heycock, Pat McCann, the O'Hara brothers, the Gross sisters, Sam Lipton, Kamal or the Nutsman. Damn.

Acid Mothers Sunday Vol 3

Back in the 90s and early 2000s a spiraling, almost endless blast of cassettes (and videos, CDr boxsets) issued forth from Japan in (mostly) black and white sleeves, dubbed onto blank cassettes in tinted cases. Nanjo Asahito (High Rise, Mainliner, Toho Sara and a million more) documented his own history and the Japanese underground with an avalanche of releases on his La Music Records label. Dozens of releases from Nanjo's projects and others in his universe painted a weird ass picture of the deepest pool of psych in the world at the time. My fave among the handful of cassettes I have heard is almost too good to be true.

Leningrad Psychedelic Blues Machine was a meeting of hard psych weirdos Leningrad Blues Machine's Tabata Mara with Nanjo and Kawabata Makoto of Acid Mothers Temple, Mainliner and Toho Sara. They are joined by my favorite of Acid Mothers Temple's many drummers, Koizumi Hajime. And this meeting of the burnt psych spirit decided to take on the Grateful Dead's "Dark Star!" Fuzzed out bass notes keep the Dead's riff rolling for most of the 20 or so minutes while Kawabata taps into the mystical jazz of the Garcia archetype jam, sending shooting star notes into the black fog of Nanjo's rumble.

As far as I know this is the only release from this group and it was recorded in 1995. It carries the La Musica catalog number of LA-054). Nanjo seems to have dropped of the face of the earth the last few years; it is difficult to find any mention of his La Musica label on the internet (much less a discography). Kawabata has kept on truckin' with Acid Mothers Temple (Koizumi joins him in AMT on occasion) and plays with Tabata in the Cosmic Inferno version of Acid Mothers Temple.

Leningrad Psychedelic Blues Machine- Dark Star from Dark Star (La Musica cassette, LA-054)

Hardcore!

Not much time to blog this week, but when it comes to live hardcore bootleg 7" is there anything better than Void's live 2.13.83 single? Nope. Recorded totally in the red at the 9:30 Club. The blur of guitar/drums/air mixed with the snarly vocals totally sounds like a precursor to black metal. I wouldn't be surprised if someone dug up a much dubbed cassette tape of this gritty blur from Euronymous's cold dead tape deck. And yet, it is totally fucking psychedelic, too! Anyways, for those of us who never saw Void (unlike Eric Dejesus), this is one incredible document, especially in the face of the super tight DC Hardcore deal. In Eric's words (via baked email) "i'm gonna get a dog and name him 2 13 83"... so there you go.



And totally retarded, but awesome is the Society's Ills 7". Mike Watt (bass), Dez Cadena (guitar), Dave Markey (drums), Thurston Moore (vocals) do a cover of 7 Seconds' Skins, Brains & Guts 7". Recorded in 1994. Jokey and dumb, but still great in its own way. Wish I was there for the recording. Joints!

VOID- Who Are You? (Live 2.13.83 9:30 Club Washington, DC)
VOID- Get Out of My Way (Live 2.13.83 9:30 Club Washington, DC)
VOID- Ask Them Why (Live 2.13.83 9:30 Club Washington, DC)

Society's Ills- Skins, Brains & Guts (Skins, Brains & Guts 7")
Society's Ills- We're Gonna Fight (Skins, Brains & Guts 7")

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.