Mother - The Living Dead Film Stars [2012]
Between November and December 2012, Kyoto’s Mother played 14 shows on a tour commemorating the release of their first (and only) album, The Living Dead. At 26 minutes and seven songs, the release was nothing short of a masterpiece. If you haven’t heard it, do yourself a favor.
For the last two shows of their tour, both in Tokyo, Mother produced a DVD-R that collected video throughout the tour. In 1 hour and 16 minutes, they compiled clips of performances, clips of the band driving in between shows, going to convenience stores, and even some of the other bands they played with (eg. Birth, Weave, etc.). The other band’s performances weren’t listed on the screen, which confused the hell out of me until I figured it that it wasn’t Mother playing some weird songs. The sound quality is also pretty terrible for the entire DVD, so it’s more of a “document” than anything you’d want to watch for the music.
In addition to the video, they also included a zine. This is the second issue of their zine series, 解体新書 [trans. New Document of Dismantling]. It contains a tour diary from this tour, written by the band members.
Check out scans of the zine here.
To be honest, it’s pretty amazing the band threw all of this together in 6 days (the time between their shows on 12/16 and 12/22). A zine, a tour documentary, and getting all of this produced. They might’ve already had the boxes screen-printed and risograph zine covers printed, but even so, it must’ve taken a lot of work. It’s a super nice little encapsulating document of their tour, and almost makes me wish I would’ve done the same for some of Cease Upon The Capitol’s tours (we captured a ton of video, but never cut it together. I also kept a tour diary, so… maybe one day?).
Here are some photos of the release:
After this album and tour, Mother’s drummer left the band. With a new drummer, they only released another 3 song EP (on 7” vinyl) and a few songs on Bandcamp before splitting up.
Luckily, the band members continued to play rocking screamo in bands like Nostalgic Four Past And Cigarette End, and Suckville. Even today, former members are playing the same style in Give Me Back!, who released a great EP last year.