MAINLINER & WÖLFBAIT (live); Acid Mothers Temple (recorded)

I went to see MAINLINER recently. I went on the basis that they are a side project of the popular Japanese sensations Acid Mothers Temple. They were playing in the Grand Social, a venue in part of what used to be the monster pub Pravda.

MAINLINER were supported by Wölfbait, a local act. They are a band I associate with the world of Hunters Moon and all that, but I am not sure if they actually are linked (I could be mixing them up with Wölflinge or someone like that). Anyway, they were quite good in a broadly experimental kind of way, but not so engaging that I can remember too much about them several weeks later after taking no notes at the concert.

MAINLINER themselves comprise Kawabata Makoto (as you know, the AMT frontman) and a couple of other people. One of them is the current AMT drummer (or the guy who was drumming last time I saw AMT, or something), while on bass they had a sexy lady. Or so I thought, based on her attractive dress and long black hair, but then I realised it was actually a man sporting these items. Oh well, least said, soonest mended. And I think that was it — power trio action.

They certainly rocked out, and I could not fault the musicianship etc., but this did not quite fall into place for me. Maybe I am just too much of an AMT stalwart to enjoy seeing Kawabata onstage, knowing that he is not going to launch into 'La Novia' or 'Pink Lady Lemonade'. At the time I found myself concluding that I just prefer AMT to AMT side-projects, though of course since then I have learned that MAINLINER are the band Kawabata was in before Acid Mothers Temple. Still, whatever the reason I only half-liked this concert.

Nevertheless, I feel obliged to buy an album or two every time I see Acid Mothers Temple or a subset thereof. With other bands I shun records with saucy covers, but somehow this time I decided that the best thing to do would be to purchase the record with the most salacious cover. So I went for an album by Acid Mothers Temple & the Cosmic Inferno entitled For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Goofy Funk? The cover features two young ladies who are very good friends.

The record is entertaining, as is always the case with AMT. The first track is a surprisingly funky tune called 'Space Hurricane Funky Night'. While it does not disappoint in its guitar wig-outs, the overall sound is rather different to what one expects from Acid Mothers Temple. This is not a problem. They follow that with a much heavier short tune (only six and a half minutes) before the very long title track gets into its own stoner groove, again one owing a surprisingly large debt to the world of the funk. Finally a ten minuter with vague sitar and faux Theremin noises brings the album to an end. Like most AMT records you could argue that it is no more essential than any others of their releases, but that would largely be to miss the point.

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An inuit panda production

Acid Mothers Temple and the Flying Butter Elephants of Doom

Yesterday I mentioned seeing the Sisters of Mercy. They were playing on the same night that Acid Mothers Temple were visiting Dublin for the first time in ages. Deciding which to see was something of a dilemma, but we resolved it by travelling down to Cork the next day and seeing them play an afternoon gig there. And it was a free gig, meaning that we easily recouped the cost of overnight accommodation, train travel, and a slap up feed in the wonderful Café Paradiso.

The Japanese sensations provided us with all kinds of astonishing guitar freakoutery that must be broadly familiar to anyone who has seen them before. As it has been quite some time since they last trod the boards in Ireland, I had almost forgotten how good 'La Novia' is. For younger readers, this is the one where they take an Occitanian folk tune from the south of France and start it off with throat singing vocal harmonies, before adding in loads of guitars for the traditional freakoutery. The start of the piece sends tingles down my spine every time, partly because their record links it to the unfortunate history of the Albigensian religious community in the south of France.

Acid Mothers Panda

An inuit panda production

Live in Whelan's: Japanese New Music Festival

This featured some guy from RUINS and Kawabata from Acid Mothers Temple, performing separetly and together. The RUINS guy played drums on his own, and was a great server of "Is this music?" style excitement. Kawabata's solo set was the kind of thing he does solo, bowing away on his guitar to make funny versions of Acid Mothers Temple tracks, notably 'Pink Lady Lemonade'.

I was not quite so convinced initially by the two of them playing together… I started thinking that this is what Phish might sound like. However, they launched into their weird vocal stuff towards the end, which was both funny and musically fun at the same time, leading to a happy ending for all.

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Concert: Acid Mothers Temple

By now you know the score - Acid Mothers Temple are the crazy ass hairy Japanese guys who play space rock wig out music. I too know the score. They came, they played, they rocked. One of the tracks they played was recognised by me as 'Pink Lady Lemonade' - which is interesting, as I do not seem to have it on any of the recordings I have of this great band.

I picked up a couple of records at the show. Electric Heavyland was electric and heavy, while Starless and Bible Black Sabbath (a homage to the Sab) rocks like the proverbial motherfucker and demands to be turned up to call-the-cops volume levels.