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Taper: ZaPenguin
1:29:55
Taper:
ZaPenguin
Transferrer:
ZaPenguin
SHNID:
amt2012-05-04.r09
Source:
Roland Edirol R-09HR > FLAC
Lineage:
Roland Edirol R-09HR (onboard mics, low-cut on, AGC off) > WaveLab (Puncher (hard density, 75% effect, 0% output gain) + SL-1 StereoExpander (100%) + EQ-1 (9000 and up boosted +10 dB, 750 and below boosted +4.6dB) > CDWAV (tracks split and saved as .FLAC level 8 ) > foobar2000 (Tags + ReplayGain)
Taper Notes:
View NotesAcid Mothers Temple May 4th, 2012 The Red Palace Washington, DC Source: Roland Edirol R-09HR (onboard mics, low-cut on, AGC off) > WaveLab (Puncher (hard density, 75% effect, 0% output gain) + SL-1 StereoExpander (100%) + EQ-1 (9000 and up boosted +10 dB, 750 and below boosted +4.6dB) > CDWAV (tracks split and saved as .FLAC level 8 ) > foobar2000 (Tags + ReplayGain) Location: House rear-center - which, given the layout of the Red Palace, puts me about fifteen feet from the stage, or thereabouts. Taper: ZaPenguin (zappa.penguin(AT)gmail.com or http://db.etree.org/ZappaPenguin) SOUND QUALITY: B/B- (veering towards the "B" end). See the "notes" below for the long-winded version - the short version is that there's definitely fuzz here, and in order to really bring out the guitar highlights I had to amplify the fuzz as well. So instead of a flat recording whose only distinguishing feature is some fuzz, this is an at-least-somewhat-lively recording with the fuzz a bit more audible. I personally don't think it's unlistenable (certainly better than the 2011 Salt Lake City AUD and the 2010 DC AUD which I have on some DVD backups), but I listen to a lot of old Zappa AUDs which could sound like absolute shit to modern ears. Of course, I'm listening on headphones, which may make the distortion MORE noticeable - there's a chance that a set of speakers might mask some of the distortion. I dunno. Give the samples a listen and see if you can stomach it. It's a HELL of a show. No soundboard, the soundman here prefers to run his own copy and give the bands CD-Rs after the show. THE BAND: Tsuyama Atsushi: monster bass, voice, cosmic joker Tabata Mitsuru : guitar, maratab Higashi Hiroshi: synth, guitar, voice, dancin'king Shimura Koji: drums, latino cool Kawabata Makoto: guitar, voice, speed guru TRACK LIST: CD1 [48:41] 01. Soundcheck [3:07] 02. Son of a Bitches Brew [18:42] * 03. Audience & Tuning [0:46] 04. Shine On You Crazy Dynamite [25:07] 05. Audience & Tuning & Jolly Good Show Chaps [0:57] CD2 [41:19] 06. "Tabata's Last Nocturne" [4:38] 07. > Pink Lady Lemonade [11:45] 08. > Om Riff [9:16] ^ 09. > Pink Lady Lemonade [6:01] 10. Audience & Tuning [0:42] 11. Cometary Orbital Drive > Speed Guru [8:07] 12. Excited Crowd vs. Venue Curfew [0:50] Notes: * - different sound from 8:02 - end ^ - a musical portmanteau of Gong's "Master Builder" and Steve Hillage's "The Glorious Om Riff". Also known as OM Riff, also known as Om (or OM) Riff From the Cosmic Inferno. 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: More bullet points: -The AMT back in D.C. - and this time, without a pesky midnight curfew to wrack havoc on the setlist! -Sign of the apocalypse: I've seen tours where Baltimore beat Philly (2009), and tours where D.C. beat Baltimore (2007 and 2008). But this is the first time where the D.C. show out-intensified BOTH of the aforementioned Hallowed Stomping Grounds. -Same location, same band, same soundman as last year, but this time around I ended up with distortion on the low end. For some reason I can't seem to make a decent AMT recording in D.C. on even-numbered years - 2010's was so distorted and nasty that I never even bothered releasing it (I was also expecting to get a soundboard recording that year, which probably influenced my decision somewhat - never got a response to my emails from the guy who taped it). 2008 had some distortion, though in a listenable way. Yet 2009 and 2011 are both fine, and 2007's would have been fine if I hadn't decided to try and be an Experimental Hero with my low-end filter. I don't know what the heck the deal is, but I guess a recording from the AMT in D.C. in 2013 will sound superb. -Of course, I'm also pretty confident that this show was much, much, much, MUCH louder than last year's. Maybe the sound guy took advantage of the extra time to push everything as close to the red as he possibly could. Maybe they just bought new house speakers. I don't know, but this was the sort of loud that leaves your ears ringing for days afterward. With earplugs in, it was practically impossible to hear anything but a sustained boomy drone. -I guess I could also blame the R-09HR a bit here - normally I use the older R-09 for audience recordings, as its mics seem less sensitive to Sonic Attack. However, either due to the SD card I was using for these shows, or due to the Edirol's contacts needing cleaning, I was beset with a few random "SD card not inserted" errors during some test tecordings I made on the way to Philly. For the Philly and Balty shows, this wasn't much of an issue - the errors only occured when I was moving the recorder around, and for both those shows I was able to rest it on a surface of some sort. That would absolutely Not Be An Option here in D.C., and the choice was basically between using the unit that I was comfortable with, with a small-but-perceivable chance of the entire recording being lost due to a random bodycheck; or using the newer and currently more rugged HR. I went with the safe route. -I tend to badmouth the HR in these notes, so let me just take this space to re-establish the fact that it's a darned good recorder. It has a much better layout than its older brother and a nicer LCD screen. The ability to use SDHC cards is a godsend. I just wish I could get the hang of the new mics. Maybe... maybe it's just me... -I really, really tweaked those EQ knobs on this one, and while a rare couple of synth sweeps may have ended up clipping as a result, it is, to my ears, an acceptable trade-off. -Enough about the recording, on to the show - the fans tonight (packed shoulder-to-shoulder, in a heartening reversal of last year's "small gathering of Milling Aboutedness") were geared up and ready for some Templed Mother Acdion, and the band easily rose to the occasion. -Enough about the show, back to the recording - because things were so, so packed, I was really in a no-win situation when it came to the time-honored question of where to record from. The most obvious location (on the mixing console) happened to be right behind a group of Especially Chatty Cathies. The least crowded location happened to be right near the bar and far from the stage, which probably would have resulted in an echo-laden recording filled with crashing glass. I ended up going house rear-center like last year, but had to constantly contort my body to try and prevent people from bashing the mics. For a brief while, I tried resting the recorder on a small platform, but with the excessive amounts of bass-induced vibration, I quickly recanted, fearing there'd be Aural Consequences. It turned out to not be an issue, but I'm still glad I ended up pulling it back - the portion of the recording that was recorded from the platform is very tinny, and still has the bass distortion. -Enough about the recording, back to the show - the jams here are all great. It's interesting haring the subtle changes here and there - for instance, tonight's Cometary Orbital Drive (yet another dead stop, I pretend to be over it but urrrrggghhhh) starts with drums instead of guitar. A little, subtle change, but one which really does work better for the new... cold-start... (sigh) nature of the song. -The jams are really, really on tonight, the sort of stuff that brings a listener to outer space and back. -This was the first show where I had a decent view of the stage. That odd, disembodied female voice? Folks, it's a toy doll (the same one pictured on the "rear cover" of the Baltimore torrent), held up to Kawabata's guitar frets. Genius. -Shine On always features a lot of Interstellar Overdrive teases, but tonight's is especially overt. Hints of the La Novia prelude in places, too. -Really, a show like this is much better listened to than talked about - I could pick apart each and every little detail here and there that makes this show so much better than the ones preceeding it, but it'd only serve to trivialize and mechanize matters. I just wish I could have done it justice with a nice-sounding recording. REQUESTS & REMINDERS: Do not sell this recording. Do not buy this recording. Do not sell this recording, then buy it from yourself. One must learn to accept the Tao of D.C. recording. CREDITS: D.C. Dynamite Champions - Shoulder-rubbing and sweat 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