Andrew's Collection
Acid Mothers Temple 04/24/2007
The Rock n' Roll Hotel, Washington, DC
| Source | Audio Technica AT943-SP (cardioid pattern) > Roland Edirol R-09 (mic-in, low cut on, no AGC, saved as mono 16 bit 44.1khz .WAV) > WaveLab ((EQ-1 (low @ 441.0, +8.4, mid @ 1323.0/4.000, +12.5, high @ 4410.0, +15.0) > externalizer @ 100% > LP-2 |
| Media | Flac CDR 1 disc |
| Tech Notes | It's really not as bad as the taper insists. ;) "Acid Mothers Temple April 24th, 2007 The Rock n' Roll Hotel Washington, D.C. SOURCE: Audio Technica AT943-SP (cardioid pattern) > Roland Edirol R-09 (mic-in, low cut on, no AGC, saved as mono 16 bit 44.1khz .WAV) > WaveLab ((EQ-1 (low @ 441.0, +8.4, mid @ 1323.0/4.000, +12.5, high @ 4410.0, +15.0) > externalizer @ 100% > LP-2 leveller multi @ 3.29dB)) > foobar2000 (ReplayGain written) LOCATION: House mid-right for main set, house front-right (right up against stacks) for encores Taper / chief screw-up to blame: ZaPenguin (pjzyhfz02(AT)sneakemail.com or http://db.etree.org/ZappaPenguin) SOUND QUALITY: B-/C+ -- Allow me to preface what I am about to say by stating, flat-out: Of the shows that I have heard from this tour, this is far and away the most amazing music of the lot (and that's saying something). This show deserves to be heard, even given the less-than-nature-intended sound quality therein. THAT SAID... This recording makes me wince. I'll try to recount what went wrong in as few words as possible: "I am a moron. I did not use a battery box. I deserve to be flogged, like the naughty taper that I am. Perhaps after I am flogged to the point of unconsciousness, battery boxes could be inserted into all possible orifaces of my body, that I might learn through the combination of pain and irony what pain or irony alone would not teach me". Why did I choose to get all experimental at a top-notch concert without a backup taper? I have no real good excuse. The whole issue was dogging at me for quite some time, and I guess on this night I finally snapped. Just HAD to do something different. God, what a dunderhead I was. The resulting recording could be worse - granted - but suffers from a ton of distortion and bleeding. I did the best I could with it, and after going to the WaveLab, I managed to at least make it presentable. This is probably the ugliest recording I've made since my high school days, with the little gold Radio Shack microcassette recorder and built-in microphone. It's certainly audible. If this was a Zappa recording from the 70s, it'd fit in nicely. The quiet bits are A quality - the louder bits are all over the place. I'll call this recording "completists-and-tinkerers-only" and just hope that the presence of the former encourages the latter to do what they do best, and somehow turn this pig's ear into a sow's purse, or however the pithy saying goes. THE BAND: (THE MELTING PARAISO U.F.O.) Kitagawa Hao: voice, thermin, hot spice & alcohol Tsuyama Atsushi: bass, voice, cosmic joker Higashi Hiroshi: synthesizer, guitar, dancin'king Shimura Koji: drums, latino cool Kawabata Makoto: guitar, speed guru 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 PAGES: http://www.acidmothers.com http://www.myspace.com/acidmotherstemple SETLIST: Intro Jam Namu Myho Renge Kyo Dark Star Blues Pink Lady Lemonade Scamback La Nova SHOW NOTES: A six song setlist. A two hour show. This one's epic, all right. If only I weren't such a dickhead. Let's start with the positive. Hearing this show in juxtaposition with the Baltimore show from last night truly speaks wonders for the fluidity of the band. The same band, playing the same basic setlist (possibly minus a Speed Guru), a single night later - and yet it's like comparing the first show of a tour to the last. Baltimore had a more "local" vibe, but the D.C. show was much more professional. That's not to say "distanced", per se - the audience certainly had a lot more fun with the Scamback intro than the Balty crowd - but the emphasis here is definitely on the music. The crowd was probably just as big as for the Baltimore show, but there were a -lot- more youngins in the crowd. Interesting. Almost as interesting as the music being played. I can't really find words that would do justice to this show. While Tsuyama Atsushi isn't quite the cosmic joker he was in Baltimore, his bass playing tonight more than makes up for it. And every single song is an extended number - the shortest number played is the introductory "soundchecking" jam, and beyond that, we're looking at thirteen minutes of Namu Myho, twenty two minutes of Dark Star, and nearly thirty five minutes of Pink Lady Lemonade. La Nova, which was nothing more than a two minute long acoustic ditty in Baltimore, is a twenty minute tour-de-force here - no doubt the band realized that this wasn't the sort of crowd that was really going to go "out there" enough for a second encore, so they made this one -count-. And every single extended number is bliss. Pink Lady Lemonade, in particular, is THE MONSTER. No matter when Kawabata Makoto picks up his guitar, the result is always worth hearing - but each time he picks it up during this track, time stands still. And Higashi Hiroshi's rhythm work is outstanding, especially once the vamp goes to double-time. Dark Star is sick, La Nova refuses to die, Scambag is fun as always, and the first composed song, Namo Myho, gets the crowd's attention in a hurry. About the only brief, niggling detail that keeps me from a fifty page diatribe on why you, the end-user, must have this recording is just that. The recording. As I mentioned above, I decided I'd take a risk tonight, and leave my battery box in my right pocket. It wasn't like it wasn't working or I forgot it - I just thought that, well, maybe the recording might sound a bit less distorted if it wasn't going through a battery box into mic in. Because, you know, battery boxes make things louder, right? Right? The result is not one of my finer moments. The quiet bits are perfect - hardly any audience interference, just the noises we're supposed to hear. But once the drums and bass kick in, it's Washington: Distortion City. The result is much like pressing your ear up against a household (non-ceiling) fan. No doubt in fifty years the next Nikolai Tesla will come up with an algorithm that could take audio like this and restore it to its original intentions - heck, that algorithm may already exist, and I may just be too stupid to be aware of it. So, after getting home and having my head suddenly start to hurt as I listened to the horrors on this SD-Card, I took two or three weeks to sit and sulk before finally loading the file up, with a mighty groan, to see what could be done - if anything - to save it. As it turns out, after some EQ trickery, it's not quite as bad as I thought. The EQ helps to bring out the bass, and thanks to the twin wonders of the Acid Mothers and the human ear, one can pretty much interpolate what's missing at any given "slice" by the preceeding slice. Some bits are lost - the intro jam is practically unlistenable, and I haven't yet found the courage to listen to La Nova all the way through (though I suspect it won't be as painful as the intro). The recording is listenable. It is nowhere near as superb as this show was live and in person. For that, I am sorry. TORRENT NOTES: Track list: 01. Intro Jam [3:50] 02. Dialogue [0:54] 03. Namu Myho Renge Kyo [12:58] 04. Dark Star Blues [22:25] 05. Pink Lady Lemonade [32:45] 06. Scambag Intro [3:12] 07. Scambag [15:59] 08. Encore Applause [2:22] 09. La Nova I (acoustic portion) [4:15] 10. La Nova II (electric portion) [6:20] 11. La Nova III (acoustic portion revisited) [4:21] 12. La Nova IV (electric portion revisited) [6:08, total time of suite: 21:03] Thanks to Jeff Mewbourn for the setlist! I took a liberty and split this monster La Nova up into four portions. This may not be absolutely ideal from the perspective of one who likes to use a player's shuffle function - but I doubt this recording would really be ideal for a shufflefest. I made the splits just in case this is some twisted La Nova > something else > La Nova medley, with the La Nova melody worked into the guitar solo. It's easier to combine tracks when burning an audio CD than it is to split them, so I erred on the side of caution. RECORDING NOTES: As documented above, this recording is far from perfect. Quiet bits are fine. Loud bits, not so fine. Music being played, so incredible that it makes me wish I had the nerve to have asked for a SBD patch or something. La Nova is much louder than the rest of the show, as I was right up against the stack at that point. The waveform appears to be clipped, but I assure you, kind listener, that even on my original, non-processed .WAV file, the "clipped" portions sound just as ugly. I didn't see any rigs in my quick scan of the premises - but if someone was stealthing it, speak up, and I'll forever hold your piece. REQUESTS: Do not sell this recording. Do not buy this recording. Do not sell this recording, then buy it from yourself. Please do remaster this recording if you have a hunch something can be done for or to it. Always use a battery box for everything ever. Include this source information when trading. Try to trade as .FLACs whenever possible, nobody likes a re-rip. ============== Feel ABSOLUTELY FREE to convert to MP3, OGG, or even, under particularly dire circumstances, WMA/AAC. There are people out there who are bandwidth or disk-space deprived, and there's absolutely no reason why a bunch of pretentious taper egos should cause these potential fans to miss out on a new experience. Just do your duty and give me some credit. And hey, it's not like words in an info.txt file have ever prevented any misdeeds. ============== Those of you uneasy about ending up with MP3 sourced material in trade, do yourselves a favor, and visit http://www.audiohub.org/get/fa/fa.htm - a webpage that explains, on pretty idiot-friendly level, how to detect lossy sourced audio, using free programs such as EAC and TAU. When setting up your trades, ask for a minute long .FLAC sample, if you're that utterly paranoid, and you can see just what kind of lineage you're getting. And, finally, to borrow a line from one of the classics of American TV: Keep circulating the tapes (/CDs/DVDs/Hard drives/Shows in general) I'm always looking to trade shows and share banter. Visit my etree.org page or drop me a line. Torrented by the taper: ZaPenguin email - pjzyhfz02(AT)sneakemail.com web - http://db.etree.org/zappapenguin (still woefully out of date) BAND PAGES: http://www.acidmothers.com http://www.myspace.com/acidmotherstemple" |
| Trades Allowed | Yes |
| Ratings | Show: A/+ Sound: A-- |
Owned by Andrew
· Last Updated May 23, 2023
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