Acid Mothers Temple
By Tim Bugbee
Monday. Jul 02, 12:34 PM
live at The Middle East Downstairs (Cambridge, MA) April 28th, 2007.

It's no secret that Kawabata and fellow travelers produce CDs / CDRs / LPs / singles / wax cylinders / etc. at a rate faster than Courtney Love develops internal lesions, so keeping on top of what these deep-fried psychonauts are up to is a laughable endeavor, only within the grasp of retired millionaires. I gave up on this Sisyphean task years ago... either the kids ate, or dad got neat Japanese records. One unfortunate twist to this mountain of material was manifested in their live set, though I'd just seen them once before at Terrastock V in '02, filed reports from my field correspondent in London who'd kept up with the live activity lamented the paradox of the infinitely deep song catalog and the thoroughly tightly and straitjacketed set list unveiled during the live gigs. Still, I like to live by a stone-carved commandment which dictates that if a band happens to travel from Japan in order to play a local music establishment, make every effort possible to attend. Acid Mothers Temple acolytes will be well versed in the swirling, blanketing mass of Krautrock with hairpin turns and fueled with cheap trucker speed, drawn out heliotropic epics, all thickly hung with the persistent mung of massive guitar clouds. Guitar is clearly king of the Acid Mothers Temple solar system, and Makoto (with a nod to a certain James Marshall Hendrix via the playing of an upside down Strat, albeit lefty) is the center of this maelstrom.

Newcomer Kiwigata (now reported as having left the band at the conclusion of this tour) had replaced Cotton Casino as the female foil of the band, and she played a mystic mix of theremin and percussion via a looped string of shorn hooves. Longtime members Tsuyama and Hiroshi continue to bring their considerable talents to the banquet, especially the former's vocal work. And if there's a cooler looking rock dude out there than Hiroshi, let's hear about it: the man just exudes it.

A nice diversion tonight was a deviation from the engraved AMT setlist alluded to earlier; sure, we did get huge versions of "La Novia" and especially "Pink Lady Lemonade,” a storming surge which threatened to blow the walls off the place, but they also played some great new stuff from the tour-only Crystal Rainbow record. For a band with hundreds of songs to pick from, it is a bit disappointing to see the same two to three always plucked from the list, as if Robert Pollard would only play 20 minute versions of "Tractor Rape Chain,” "I Am a Scientist," and "Game of Pricks" then call it a night... if you're sitting on a trove of songs, play them! Since the band’s line-up has been pretty stable over the last few years, it's not like Makoto's gotta break in a new batch of recruits to the prodigious Acid Mothers Temple songbook every few months. Well, I just learned that they will be back in town in late August with Guru Guru, so I've already penciled that one in.

Openers Mammatus took the stage draped in thrift shop printed sheets as ersatz togas, shook a wooden staff or two at the crowd, and then proceeded to crush. In a very convincing manner, these left coast denizens took all the best parts of heavy psych and throttled the collective cerebral cortex of the room. Holy Mountain is a class label all the way, and this is just another reason why. For unknown reasons I'd gotten them mixed up with Mouthus, who I don't like all that much, but that mistake was clearly corrected early... heavy dank bud psychosis never sounded so good, straight from the booby-trapped heart of the Santa Cruz forest.
www.acidmothers.com

Tim Bugbee

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