LaRM day 2 (Acid Mothers Temple-Adam & the Ants)

Well alright, as Mick Jagger would say. Or at least Phil Cornwell's impersonation of Mick Jagger in Stella Street would say. So, it's been quite the journey, this psychedelic freak-out. I've been musically tripping my brain off for the last few hours in the company of Kawabata Makoto and his troupe of cosmic gypsies, Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso UFO. And when I say "tripping my brain off", I mean "listening to".

So, we started with the massive La Novia (2001), a three tune piece, the title track of which is 40 minutes of purest Japadrone, a glistening pool of shimmering feedback and mercurial whimsicality which takes you deep inside the beating heart of the experimental drone for the first half and explodes into a total psychedelic super freak out for its final part. In other words it's a whole bunch of quiet noises followed by a bunch of louder ones. Don't get me wrong, it is brilliant, but it does remind me a bit of a story my good friend Dr Uiterweerd once told me about an experimental jazz gig that he went to above a bar in Groningen. Three players - double bass, saxophone, drums - interplay - improvisation - all three running out of ideas and slowly stopping playing entirely - silence - expectation - silence - more silence - awkwardness - then! inspiration - the drummer rises from his stool - stalks across the stage - leans down - and gently rolls three small stones across the floor - Order is restored! As in, yes, it's funny, but is there any point in it? Still, I'll give La Novia credit for never being boring despite not going anywhere. Then we had the slightly less satisfying three song mini-LP 41st Century Splendid Man (2002). One of the great things about the Mothers is their determination to make jokes of every old prog and experimental song and album title from back in the day. 41st Century Splendid Man is not one of their finest records, being a bit flabby and unfocussed, but Dalai Gama gives it some good psychedelia for the 5 minute playout.

Right, so the preliminaries are over, let's get into the serious stuff - the 3.5 hour compilation Do Whatever You Want, Don't Do Whatever You Don't Want (2002), which is a kind of overview of the entire Acid Mothers Temple universe from around 1995 onwards, containing only a couple of AMT tunes, and loads of stuff by all of their off-shoots and side projects. There's some fabulous stuff, really fabulous and there's some dismal, boring stuff, really dismal, boring stuff. The whole marathon kicks off with AMT's hour-long piece 'Pink Lady Lemonade' which is absolutely fantastic, starting with a lengthy but lovely, delicate guitar figure around which various drones and noises drift in and out, before breaking off at the 20 minute mark into a kind of free-jazz breakdown and finally collapsing into a long piece of crackling drone. It's really invigorating stuff and completely gripping. It's all over the place from then on though, with some great bits (Kawabata's feedback drones 'Concurrence' and 'I Want You to Kiss Me Again', the delicate folk of Maquiladora's 'So Far Away' and Fursaxa's 'Mon Lion') but there's also some stuff that you can't help but wonder why you've found yourself listening to the workings of the inside of a vacuum cleaner ('Hello Baby' by the Wild Riders, The Pardons 'Pardon Monsieur'). On the whole though it's a brilliant trip through the mind of one of outsider musics most accomplished freaks. Man.

After that lengthy test of endurance though, it was on to something altogether simpler to deal with, namely the second and third albums by Canada's The Acorn. When I first heard Glory Hope Mountain (2008) I really liked it but wasn't sure if it was particularly special, but it only took a few listens before I was really sold on it. It's a truly lovely record, if a little earnest (but what's wrong with not having a sense of humour eh? EH? WHAT?) and I'm a sucker for sentiment so its back-story of being about the main chap in the band's mother's journey from Honduras to the US is a killer (the album title is a translation of ma's name). I'm often reminded when listening to Glory Hope Mountain and the follow-up No Ghost (2010) of just how terribly anaemic the records by The National are. Honestly, what is going on there? They're alright but honestly why are people acting like they're a collective second coming? Anyway, that's getting off the point, and I'll be slagging off The National again when I get to the American Music Club. And when I get to The National. I'll be slagging them off then for sure. But anyway, No Ghost is in some ways a better record and in some ways a worse record than Glory Hope Mountain. Individually the songs are better but the whole thing doesn't feel as fluid and cohesive. In any case, they are both just marvellous records, absolutely marvellous.

Next up we would have the indescribably soppy 'Fun Flies' 7" (1996) by great comic writer/terrible songwriter Peter Bagge's band The Action Suits. (Un)fortunately this also falls victim to the Abe & Malka effect (ie. vinyl only, no "internet presence"). Just worth mentioning that the sleeve features Valerie and Lisa, the two women in Buddy Bradley's life from Bagge's never-surpassed comic Hate, which I will now be re-reading having been reminded how utterly brilliant it is as a result of doing this stupid project.

So instead it's the eponymous album by the Action Swingers (1991). Now this is so much less than the sum of its parts it actually hurts. Various people were in the Action Swingers for a while: J Mascis, Thurston Moore, Don Fleming, but the core was ex-Pussy Galore members drummer Bob Bert and the MIGHTY Julia Cafritz (ah, there's one of the millions of indie crushes...). The really disastrous factor was that the band were effectively controlled by a guy called Ned Hayden, who seemed to believe that rock and roll was all about attitude, so he just sort of snarled a bit and did some shouting. There are a couple of great tunes ('Ski-Cap' for instance) but on the whole the album is a wash-out and certainly an ignominious entry for Cafritz.

To finish off for today though we move onto laughable fare of a very different, er, stripe - it's Adam and his Ants with Kings of the Wild Frontier (1980). What a record this is. I mean what a record. This is just the shizzle. Poor befuddled old Stu Goddard really believes that he was a kind of musical visionary bringing us messages from beyond our restricted understanding and opening us up to musics of the world. In fact that twisted gnome Malcolm Maclaren just made them get two drummers and made them play their drums "a bit African". In any event, forget any portentous nonsense about any genuine value and just listen to the brilliant pop songs - 'Dog Eat Dog', 'Ant Music', I mean 'Killer in the Home' - free the warrior! Come on!

See you tomorow for lots more letter A based musical fun, starting with an extremely lengthy Ryan Adams session. Fun? er...