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The name of the church in today’s photo is Церковь Спаса на Крови (Church of the Savior on Blood). Well known as one of the visual highlights of Saint Petersburg, Russia, the church began a many years renovation project just days before I arrived so the overall view was not what I was hoping for. If you want to avoid the scaffolding you’ll want to wait to visit until at least 2025.
@LiveAtTheArmory @COPENHELL #copenhell @SeasonofMist #heilung
Apparently Heilung is popular in the USA. Months prior to their first shows in the USA, and just a couple hours after going on sale, both the Portland and San Francisco shows sold out. Now the question is, what will Heilung do? Add more shows? Come back soon and play larger venues?
I’m hoping they add a show in my hometown (they have an open date, will be here anyway, and the venue is not yet booked) so I can see them for the third time this year. Actually, it will be next year, but whatever.
I didn’t follow the music scene very closely in the 1990s. I went to few shows and didn’t like much of the new music I was hearing on the radio. Also, I was busy with a new career and family. However, I do remember that one night, while searching for something different in the 90s music world, I stumbled upon an internet radio station out of the UK that was playing Emperor. That may have been the first time I heard true, black metal. “I Am the Black Wizards” became one of the few black metal songs that I listened to regularly before becoming much more devoted to the genre in the past 10-15 years.
Finally seeing Emperor live this past summer at Brutal Assault was very special. There was one moment, a few hours before they hit the stage, where I was sitting on a leather couch, in the fortress where Brutal Assault is held, and the members of Destruction were conducting an interview 10 feet in front of me, Ihsahn was signing autographs 20 feet in the other direction, and Au-Dessus was playing the Octagon stage just 100 feet away. Also, the creator of the Emperor logo, Christophe Szpajdel, was giving tours of his art nearby. I thought I was dreaming.
@COPENHELL #copenhell #copenhell2016 @ArtilleryMetal
Morten Stützer of Artillery @ 2016 Copenhell
Morten died last week at the age of 57. “By Inheritance” was one of my favorite albums of 1990 and was in frequent rotation on my CD player in 1991 and 1992. Khomaniac is an amazing track.
Back in 2008 I had no idea Artillery were from Copenhagen when I was in Copenhagen and saw fliers for their shows at The Rock. Unfortunately, they played before I got there (and again after I left before The Rock closed their doors in 2011). I so wanted to see them. They almost played in Southern Oregon at Club 66 in 2014, but I finally did get to see them at Copenhell.
@MuseumPushkin
Today’s photo comes from a boat tour I did a couple months ago in St. Petersburg, Russia. I hadn’t heard any English in many days when I decided to book the tour, and I thought it would be nice to hear something other than Estonian or Russian for the first time in a while. Although the Russian guide spoke decent-enough English, there was not a single other person on the boat (which could probably hold over 100 people). The guide was out of sight so it wasn’t a very social event.
Anyway, one of the things that struck me about Russia (and maybe this was in part due to poor, dreary weather most of the time I was there) was nearly all of the buildings could use some fresh paint. The vast majority of buildings seemed to have not been cared for in decades. This is probably why I took a photo of this building from the boat; it was a rare, somewhat-recently-painted specimen.
Today’s photo comes from a day I will not soon forget. That day was a little over three months ago. I woke up in my rented camper van on the westernmost tip of the Snæfellsnes Peninsula in western Iceland (by myself with no humans within hundreds of kilometers) and proceeded on a wondrous drive that took me to this spot, known as Látrabjarg. Látrabjarg is the westernmost tip of Iceland, and a bird can fly there from Snæfellsnes in under half an hour, but, by car, it takes over six hours–six hours of amazing views and vistas I should add. And no people. Actually, it was more like ten hours as I couldn’t resist the hot springs and photo ops along the way.
Fratercula arctica is the scientific name for the Atlantic Puffin. This one is peering across the Denmark Strait at Greenland in the distance. Speaking of scientific names… A few weeks later I found myself in Uppsala, Sweden immersed in the history of the father of scientific naming, Carl Linnaeus.