MUSIC DIARY 2012

I didn't find out about this "Music Diary" project until I saw entries about it on my Twitter feed. But whatever. This post will be updated throughout the week.


MONDAY, MAY 7
Deep Purple, Made in Japan (all tracks)
Cactus, Ultra Sonic Boogie 1971 (tracks 1-5)
Defiance, Void Terra Firma (tracks 1-3)
Anthony Braxton, The Montreux/Berlin Concerts (tracks 1-3)
Walter Smith III, Live in Paris (tracks 1-3)

TUESDAY, MAY 8
Robin Trower, For Earth Below (all tracks)
Lee Morgan, Search for the New Land (all tracks)
Rhapsody of Fire, From Chaos to Eternity (tracks 1-3)
Rhapsody of Fire, The Frozen Tears of Angels (all tracks)
Peter Brötzmann, Nothung (all tracks)
Trivium, "Kirisute Gomen"
The Black Dahlia Murder, Ritual (tracks 1-3)
Coroner, No More Color (tracks 1-3)

WEDNESDAY, MAY 9
Miles Davis, Sorcerer (tracks 1-6)
Vader, Necropolis (tracks 1-9)
Perfume, JPN (tracks 1-10)
Ornette Coleman, Of Human Feelings (tracks 1-6)

THURSDAY, MAY 10
Sleep, "Dopesmoker"
Earthless, Live at Roadburn (all tracks)
Fishbone, Truth and Soul (all tracks)
JD Allen Trio, I Am I Am (tracks 1-3)

FRIDAY, MAY 11
JD Allen Trio, I Am I Am (tracks 4-10)
Jerome Sabbagh, Pogo (tracks 1-6)
Joshua Redman, Compass (tracks 1-7)
The Cult, Choice of Weapon (tracks 1-8)

SATURDAY, MAY 12
Elvis Presley, Good Times (tracks 3-6)
Wadada Leo Smith, Ten Freedom Summers, Disc 1 (all tracks)
Creedence Clearwater Revival, Green River (all tracks) & "Born On the Bayou"
A shuffling mix of tracks from the following albums: Jones Very, Words and Days; No For An Answer, A Thought Crusade; Pagan Babies, Next; Token Entry, Jaybird; Wrecking Crew, Balance of Terror; Various Artists, Free for All
Belanova, Fantasía Pop (all tracks)
Wire, Read & Burn 01 (all tracks)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It's Blitz (all tracks)
Peter Brötzmann Trio, For Adolphe Sax (all tracks)

SUNDAY, MAY 13
Interpol, s/t (tracks 1-3)
Darius Jones Quartet, Book of Mae'bul (Another Kind of Sunrise) (tracks 1-7)
Diego Schissi Quinteto, Tongos (all tracks)
Juilliard String Quartet, Shostakovich Quartets, Disc 1 (all tracks)
Steve Noble & Stephen O'Malley, St. Francis Duo (all tracks)
Sam & Dave, The Definitive Soul Collection (all tracks)

OTTO WHAT? OTTO PARTS?

L'ARC-EN-CIEL LIVE IN NEW YORK

Last night, I saw the Japanese rock band L'Arc-en-Ciel (who I profiled for the current issue of Relix) at Madison Square Garden. I was there for the Village Voice; you can read my review of the show here. They only used one of the photos I sent them, though, so I'm posting the rest below. Enjoy!

ALIEN TRAILER

I'd never seen this before - don't even know if it's a bonus feature on the Alien DVD I own. Pretty great, though. Wait till the third time they show the cat - that's when shit starts to really go nuts.

BERLIN 2012

So I went to Berlin for a few days, to give a talk about German thrash (Destruction, Kreator, Sodom and a bunch of lesser-known acts) at Centrum, a small independent art space, and walk around and see some museums, the zoo, and whatnot. I took a whole bunch of crappy photos, too, and you can see them below, now that my wife has made them halfway tolerable to look at.

This was my hotel, which looked from the outside like a spaceship from The Fifth Element or something:

This is the Berliner Dom, a cathedral:

This is an art museum, which I didn't go inside (I did go inside the Neue Nationalgalerie, where they show modern art, but I didn't take any pictures in there or in the Museum of Musical Instruments, which was creepy and fantastic):

This is, of course, the Brandenburg Gate, which I walked through:

That's it for historical-touristy stuff. On my second day in the city, I went to the zoo. Here are some pictures of animals.

A penguin, who didn't seem all that happy about having his picture taken:

A seal, who was only too happy to hang out posing for photos and scratching himself with his tail:

A wolf (I looked around for Liam Neeson, in case he came through the Plexiglas):

Something called a dune cat, which was about the size of a regular house cat and which spent most of its time running frantically back and forth—I grabbed this shot in a rare moment of stillness:

And here's a panda:

Also, the Berlin Zoo apparently had quite a famous gorilla once, named Bobby. He's dead now, but there's a statue of him, and a plaque that tells his story (if you can read German):

Frankly, I wish I'd had more time to spend in Berlin. The people were really nice, the food was good, and there was a lot of stuff I didn't have time to see (like the giant Gerhard Richter exhibit opening at the Neue Nationalgalerie today). I hope to return one day, and bring my wife this time.