Acid Mothers Temple and the Occasion - Music ReviewWriten by Eric Nielsen
Ah, the ecstasy of a live Acid Mothers Temple show. I don't get excited about seeing bands much anymore. That's not true for this band. If you've never seen them, you must seek them out!
OK, this was maybe the loudest show I have ever seen at the Casbah. Maybe one of the loudest shows I've ever seen. My ears rang for 2 days. Often the drums would disappear even though you could see Koji Shimura hitting rolls with abandon.
Tabata from Zeni Geva plays bass on this tour and he was loud as sh*t. Also, he was excellent as can be! Playing mean riffs at a steady clip. Short mean, powerful licks.
There is nothing like seeing the brothers of Kawabata and Higashi onstage together. They have been playing in AMT together for 10 years. All the lineup changes in AMT never affect these 2 folk. They are the heart of the collective. These Japanese men have been doing this underground thing for years. Multiple albums and labels and lineups and sattelite projects later they arrive at the Casbah to sear the perfect ears of the chosen on Sunday night.
The magic spirit that Kawabata claims is the cosmos speaking through him fired through the set. It started with Kawabata playing a guitar on a stand to strum and the one around his neck. He hung his guitat from wire on the ceiling and played a wah pedal. Higashi played the synth and guitar.
Pink Lady Lemonade is their live backbreaker. You need to find an mp3 of it. It's maybe their most accesible song. They played for more than 90 minutes though their rider included 120 - 180 minutes available for them. Maybe that's why there were only 2 bands on the bill.
They shared the bill with The Occassion from New York. These guys just put out their second album on Say Yeah. You can check out a review of it at http://www.pitchforkmedia.com. It was an interesting set up with a girl playing tape loops through effect pedals, wurlitzer, bass, guitar and drums. Hearing three different singers was nice. I would have liked to hear them sing together some though. The main singer sounds a lot like Pall Jenkins from Black Heart.
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