Lee Hardy Dydo

Acid Mothers Temple at Pour House

October 22, 2026

On October 21, Acid Mothers Temple came from Osaka to Pour House in Raleigh. They've been playing since 1995,1 and one song can run twenty minutes. There's no destination, just the playing.

The room

The Pour House Music Hall door in a brick alley, covered in stickers, under a pink arrow sign
Pour House Music Hall, open since 1997, from the alley.2
A steel door covered edge to edge in band and venue stickers
The door: decades of bands and fans, layered on.
Steel stairs up a brick wall, the rails and drainpipe covered in stickers
The stairs up. Every surface is somebody's sticker.
A painted octopus mural signed Torres beside a door painted in swirling stripes around one open eye
In the stairwell: an octopus by Torres, and a door with one open eye.
Inside under blue string lights: the bar, the sound desk, and the crowd near the stage
Inside, waiting for the band. Faces blurred.
The balcony over the stage, by a mural of an old man holding a rooster against a burst of color
Upstairs on the balcony, before the set. Faces blurred.

The band

Kawabata Makoto on guitar at Pour House
Kawabata Makoto guitar, founder
Higashi Hiroshi at the synthesizer at Pour House
Higashi Hiroshi synthesizer
Jyonson Tsu singing with a guitar at Pour House
Jyonson Tsu voice, guitar
Sawano Shozo on bass at Pour House
Sawano Shozo bass
Satoshima Nani on drums at Pour House
Satoshima Nani drums

Kawabata won't say he composes. In an interview with Fifteen Questions: "I've been just like a radio tuner. I can hear music from my cosmos, so I just try to play this music without any of my personality getting in the way."3 That's how it sounded in the room.

Find them at acidmothers.com · Bandcamp · Facebook · X

After the set

At the merch table I gave my card to Higashi Hiroshi, Jyonson Tsu and Sawano Shozo. They looked at it and said "kawaii." I asked Higashi if I could share these photos and the video, and he said "no problem," more than once.

Earlier, at the door, I'd gotten talking about Alan Watts. That turned into its own post.

Sources

  1. Acid Mothers Temple, Triple R (formed in Osaka in 1995) ↩
  2. About Pour House Music Hall ↩
  3. Fifteen Questions interview with Kawabata Makoto ↩

Photos and video: mine, the night of October 21, 2026. The photos of Acid Mothers Temple and their music in the video are shared with the band's permission; thank you.