By Ken Taylor

COUNTRIES DON'T JUST close. As simple as that, though, on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, as I tried to return home to go to work, my country – Canada – was closed; attempts to get near its Windsor, Ontario, border were futile, giving me few options other than a temporary stateside camp-out. –The pictures of the planes endlessly rolled by on the TV back at my girlfriend's Detroit apartment, and after hours of having them burned into my psyche, I'd had enough. The world appeared to be in turmoil, yet outside her window the neighborhood surrounding Wayne State University (an infamous plot of real estate known as the Cass Corridor) looked relatively normal.

That's when I actually began writing this story – nearly three years ago. Towers had fallen, battle lines were being drawn, and my mind was about to be blown. I took meticulous notes that day and night, and I'm glad I did because memory, alone, naturally tends toward the romantic. In this particular instance, though, coupled with sonic points of reference, the emotional-trigger effect worked wonders on my hazy reflection. Soon what began as a stream-of-consciousness rant on geopolitical hardships became a perspective on how Acid Mothers Temple, a 30-member psychedelic guitar cult from Nagoya, Japan, just may have saved me. More so at night than during the day, their music provided a soft bed for my fleeting thoughts that ended up scrawled on a series of notepads.

[To be read with Mantra of Love's first track, "La Le Lo," a 30-minute, sitar-fueled, spirit-invoking creeper buzz of Nico-esque incantations with synths whirling and sweeping beneath frantically paced guitar runs.]

Sept. 11, 2001. Strolling along Cass Avenue, an area of Detroit where all cultures meet on a regular basis to engage in educational, commercial, pharmaceutical business/discussion/what have you, I made my way to Wayne State University's Marwil Bookstore (which was, for some reason, going to close at 4 p.m.) where I figured I'd have as good a chance as any at finding a magazine to help offset the time I spent eyeing the TV, waiting for my country's entryway to reopen.

A face on the cover of the British music magazine the Wire looked back at me, kinda. I knew the face, but in this context it resembled an Inuit man, perhaps one featuring in a primer on esoteric tribal ritual found-sound collage music. (A piece such as the one I have hypothetically described would not be uncommon in the Wire.)

The eyes on the page glimmered with wisdom and smirked devilishly, their small face (now enlarged) submerged beneath a parka hood of wiry black hair. The face of Kawabata Makoto, the astonishingly original guitarist and nerve center of Japanese psych-rock combo Acid Mothers Temple, was both on the cover of this magazine and, by this time, with its requisite body intact, en route to Detroit.

It was one of those days when, despite the flux of things going on in my mind, I paid an unusual amount of attention to my surroundings and to the people around me. The clerk who sold me the magazine was engaged in conversation with a coworker, who was understandably pissed that her kid's day care center was closing early and expected parents to pick up their children pronto. She was unable, momentarily, to track down her child and deliver him to her home in the wake of that morning's chaos (which did, in a rather mild and well-controlled manner, find its way into downtown Detroit).

On my way back, I passed the Detroit Islamic Center, where things seemed to be running as usual. (A week later a brick was thrown through its window, despite angled instructions from the local media to not "point the finger at your Arab neighbors, yet.") The remainder of my walk found me enumerating the many people I passed by: white, black, Asian, Middle Eastern, broke, disaffected, young, old.

A dial sweep of network news – ABC, NBC, CBS, CBC, with the sound on and with the sound off – provided a distressing cacophony.

The ticker at the bottom of the screen coursed by, furiously rattling off school closings and other cancellations. It appeared as good a reason as any to take the day off, what with the malls and Sylvan Learning Centers all locking up early for the night. Panic was undoubtedly setting in, with half of us lining up at the gas pumps (Mom's quick advice: "You'll eventually need gas anyway"), and the other half preparing to fuck in the streets (Dad: "When your time's up, your time's up").

Actually, the calls from Canada were reassuring in a way. Little had changed there other than the myth of moi, stuck in a foreign land while our collective governments tried to work something out to expedite my return. Detroit too has got its own book of myths in neighboring Canada – in its neighboring suburbs, as well – and it's rarely viewed as a safe place, even in the absence of an impending war overseas.

Despite the pleas from Canada to not go out, despite the pleas from the United States to not go out (what band didn't cancel their show that night?), I went out. And something really big happened.

[New Geocentric World of Acid Mothers Temple, track 4, "Universe of Romance," a dirge with recessed operatic wails, a repetitive acoustic riff striped with hints of a civil war drum and fife corps, and oscillators wildly panning between the channels.]

The place was hollow – but not empty – when I got there, echoing from three opening bands. As four men and one woman in a "Suck It" T-shirt strolled around the art gallery, I continued the enumerations I'd started earlier that day in the Corridor. Our community, though – those partaking in the night's communal experience (with an Acid Mothers Temple show, you've got no choice) – obviously didn't quite buy into the media fiasco. Pearl Harbor, and the glut of racism that tagged behind it here and abroad, was thankfully 60 years past. Out of the ugliness was born a strange magic and hope. Perhaps in 30 years I'd visit this room again, tasting for the first time the undercurrents of an Afghani or Iraqi band of voodoo rock experimentalists. For the time being, though, Acid Mothers Temple were converting us heathens and blessing our little corner of America with their witchy religion.

They entered slowly and started off quietly; acoustic strums, light electric twiddling, and a voice that imitated a didgeridoo:

WEEEEEEEUUUUUUURRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOHHHHHH...

It sounded like some type of signal or symbol – peaceful but fucking eerie. And in a blink, they were off: Ichiraku Yoshimitsu was bashing away at his kit; Higashi Hiroshi was hammering fast through a proggy chord progression; Cotton Casino was smoking nonstop; Kawabata was getting all the way behind his weapon and shooting us dead. Point-blank.

Somehow, unlike the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, we knew what was coming. C'mon, we had all day to prepare. Almost in unison, the crowd of about 80 put in their earplugs or balled-up cotton, readying for serious assault. Those who weren't equipped soon headed for the buffer zone in the other room. The rest went bravely, but stupidly, into the night, prepared for Acid Mothers Temple – a severely loud yet secretive attack on everything I knew about rock 'n' roll.

[New Geocentric World, track 5, "Occie Lady," the psychotic merging of Kawabata's obsessions with "Foxy Lady" and Higashi's fascination with the Occident. It's an all-out Strat war, so for your own safety, please step the fuck back.]

Over and over again the band illustrated their gift of being able to gently soothe and then instantly demolish, stopping and turning on a dime with equal parts compassion and malice. "Space Age Ballad" was ethereal and otherworldly – just melodica and voice, peppered with the slightest percussive touches – but "Occie Lady" was frightening. Kawabata and Higashi were absolutely brutal as they writhed through it like men possessed, channeling their guru Father Moo. And while no one really seemed to catch the Hendrix-postured humor, these two couldn't have cared less. In fact, I was more surprised when they didn't light their guitars on fire.

Kawabata virtually manhandled his Stratocaster, summoning ghosts, waking the last of the day's dead in some heliocentric creation of light and noise and horror and hostility and then spiritual peace. I realize now that I never actually saw his eyes as he hid in the darkness of the stage, which was only lit in the center by a kid with an overhead projector, two bowls, a bottle of Mountain Dew, and some food coloring – ersatz American, and thankfully, not too costly.

Yes, we're guilty, and we haven't got the faintest clue of what to do about it, so we protect ourselves from these "cowardly acts" by buying more safety. We haven't ever entertained the idea of not fucking you over and just simply doing the right thing. Ever. We have this idea that we can close our eyes and somehow instinctively navigate through the fog of the bodies we've dropped – yours and ours. We've lost the ability to communicate. Miles Davis's drummer Tony Williams felt it when he attempted to drum a message across the Serengeti plains to communicate with an African tribe. He played a full Gretsch drum kit. (Amiri Baraka: "We hear you, but we don't know what you're saying!")

I didn't know what they were saying either, but beyond the situation's inherent solipsism, the chaos warmed me, and I sensed that it was right and that everything, even in three or four years from then, would be OK.

Their Tuvan-like tribal chants gave way to a flailing mess of improvised psychedelia, daggers of white sound careening about the room, onlookers checking their earplugs like gas masks or welding goggles, others basking in it, unprotected, burning at the stake of these crazy Mothers.

"Acid Mothers Temple comes to Detroit Rock City!!!!!!!!!!," bassist Tsuyama Atsushi growled. I honestly looked at the rafters for a minute. Really, what could this windowless building (once a car-parts warehouse, once a storefront church, now one of the only decent venues left in Detroit) withstand?

This wasn't Congress singing "God Bless America" on the Capitol steps while TV jerks off to an image of the flag flying at half-staff in front of the Washington Monument. It quickly reminded me that by now we should all have been dead. Prayers aren't worth shit, but flags are worth a couple hundred bucks.

But we understood each other somehow. We wanted to shake hands. We wanted to say, "Thank you for igniting a fire deep inside of us. Thank you for allowing us to burn your candle at both ends. Wow. You must be tired. It's almost Sept. 13 in Japan now. Rest your head and smoke a Marlboro. Let me buy you a $1 can of Stroh's. I know it's no Sapporo. Hmmm, you like wrestling as much as I do? Let me into your world. 'Cuz I deserve to be in your place for a while. Please!"

I shook Kawabata's hand, but I didn't really know what to say. Perhaps I longed to be 30 years older or at least to catch a short glimpse of future.

They're here on some extended voyage into the soul, and it's gonna get a hell of a lot worse before it gets any better. Storm clouds are gathering and debris and dust is choking the lungs of the Great American Hope. Mark New Geocentric World of Acid Mothers Temple as music for ground zero and include it on your list of rations to be hoarded. It could cost $20 tomorrow.

And that's how it ended.

[The Day Before the Sky Fell on America, track 1, "Gentle Lift off La Novia," and track 2, "Crash and Burned La Novia." Smoky, dusty, safe, quiet, and just a little distant; the last recording before everything changed.]

I turned in for the night, never to revisit that evening's events until two years later when I found AMT's The Day Before the Sky Fell in America LP, a live recording of an in-store show on Sept. 10, 2001, at Chicago's Reckless Records. The caricatures of the band that adorn the album's cover are sort of goofy, picturing them in capes flying across a murky sky. I prefer to see them as cartoony renderings of Yamasaki's monolithic towers, standing stoic and unflinching, without the slightest idea that anything quite like this – and everything that's happened since – was possible.

I found a dark, quiet place, let the needle fall into the opening groove, and imagined for a moment that the whole thing never happened.