“Oh, so you’re going to see the girly band?” Our neighbor looked sympathetically at my husband, sure he was being dragged to Mammút’s set by me, his wife.
We laughed him off. We had already identified the middle-aged man in the camper next to our tent in the Eistnaflug campground as one of those whose only measure of quality was the yardstick of external genitalia, and knew there was no point in arguing the merits a witchy band like Mammút to such a person. Continue reading
The first laser show I ever attended was in a symphony hall in 1991 or 1992. Accompanied by a classic rock soundtrack, green lines flashed around the room, sometimes joined by a smoke machine. I wasn’t particularly impressed.
The next laser show I attended was Northern Lights, part of the annual Taste of Iceland Festival. Hosted in the Pacific Science Center Laser Dome, the free show was set to an hour of Icelandic indie music curated by KEXP DJ Kevin Cole. It was a little different from what I remembered. Continue reading
Taste of Iceland, the annual, four-day Icelandic culture festival in Seattle (and a few other cities) turns 10 this year. October is high season for colds in my child-filled household, so I don’t always make it.
For the 10th anniversary, Taste of Iceland is pulling out all the stops, with so many events that they have begun to overlap like a miniature multi-art Airwaves, so even if you dedicate the whole week to it, you couldn’t make it to all the events. I was therefore incredibly stoked to be invited to the press preview. Continue reading
When you travel, have you ever noticed that there cat cities and dog cities? Tokyo is a cat city. When I’m in Japan, I always carry a package of dried fish with me to tempt the stray kitties. Everywhere in India, stray dogs roam the streets. There is not a cat to be found. Reykjavik is known for its cats. They even have their own Facebook page. But I didn’t know that at first.
The first time I went to Reykjavik was for Airwaves. It was early November and we partied amidst hurricane-force winds. I didn’t see any cats. The next time it was April and warmer, but I was in class all day and didn’t wander the city much, except in large groups that would scare away any half intelligent animal. But the third time was in July. I was in the Eastfjords most of the time, but I spent my last day at the botanical garden in Reykjavik, marveling at how it looked like a Seattle garden in May, and making friends with this guy.
He never let me get close enough to pat him, but he followed me for nearly an hour as I wandered through the lilacs and buttercups. Reykjavik is a cat city.
Icelandic horses (don’t call them ponies!) are famous for their extra gait, the tolt, which is unique in the world. But it’s not the only thing unique about them. Unlike horses everywhere else in the world, they do not necessarily sleep standing up. In fact, they often take a break flat on the ground, legs out, in a position most of us associate with dead horses.
Life is tough for Icelandic horses, who stand out in the snow and wind year-round, and rarely enjoy the shelter of a heated barn like horses elsewhere. Do they get dead tired battling the weather all the time? Or are they just clever little horses that know how to below the wind when there’s no shelter to be found?
I don’t normally put pictures of other people’s kids on the internet, but these pictures are three years old and these boys are probably big enough to beat you up by now. At Eistnaflug in 2014, this group of kids was always hanging around the venue – sometimes sneaking inside it, too, since the festival was still 18+ back then.
In the documentary Eistnaflug DVD, they talk about how the festival has introduced a generation of small-town kids to heavy music, and I remember people talking about some local boys who had formed a band called Blodstafir in tribute to Iceland’s famous export band Solstafir. At the time, I wondered if it was the same group I’d seen recklessly skating in front of the venue, looking like they’d ride straight into the water of the fjord at the bottom of the hill.
I imagine that if I go back to the festival in Neskaupstadur in a couple of years, I’ll look up at the stage and find out.
I’ve never quite understood why photos of set lists are so popular. But any time I get close enough to the stage or soundboard to get a shot of one, I feel compelled to take a photo. Maybe the urge is universal?
On my first trip to Iceland, I naively bragged that I had read all the sagas. My listener was too polite to do more than quirk an eyebrow. Of course, I had not read all the sagas. I had read that giant paperback Penguin Classics Deluxe collection, The Sagas of Icelanders, plus The Saga of Burnt Njál. At the time, I didn’t know that more was possible.
For English speakers outside of academia, the ten sagas and assorted short stories of the Penguin compilation remains definitive. But there is another. Continue reading
At my first Eistnaflug (2014) REYKJAVÍKURDÆTUR was a stand-out act for me. They were one of the only bands I interviewed (unfortunately I never found an outlet for that interview – I should probably post it here one of these days). I probably would have been taken with the band regardless of the circumstances of discovery, because they are doing something quite new and original. But I think their feminist hip-hop, rapped in Icelandic, stood out all the more for being surrounded by the testosterone-laden atmosphere of a metal and punk festival.
I’ve noticed that my favorite shows at festivals are often the ones that don’t conform to the format. I like the rock bands at folksy Doe Bay Fest, the metal bands at Bumbershoot. Maybe the other acts blend together in the memory while the misfits stand out.
I once interviewed Gudny, the woman who booked Eistnaflug for many years, and she commented on how important it was to add stylistic variety to the line-up, even for a festival with as specific a focus as Eistnaflug. She said the oddball acts serve as a palate cleanser. Like smelling coffee beans when sampling perfume, or sorbet at a tasting menu, electronica between metal bands or metal between pop sets clear the head. “No matter how you love it,” she said, “You can’t just listen to one thing for three solid days.”
I recently was in a conversation with a woman whose husband was in a career transition. He wasn’t making the effort to get his new business started that she expected when she okayed the decision to quit his day job, and she was getting really frustrated. I joked, “Yeah, you married an artist not a drummer!”
“He does play drums!” she wailed.
Oops.
So maybe there is a basis to the drummer stereotypes. Certainly a good drummer is hard to find. I interviewed a lot of Airwaves acts in 2012 on my first trip to Iceland. The search for a good drummer was a common theme in those interviews. One person said that for all the musicians in Iceland, there were only about 30 really good drummers. This is one of them.
Raggi Sverrisson is one of the best drummers I’ve ever heard. A former bandmate claims he can sustain 240 beats per minute with metronomic accuracy and anyone who listens to his bands play can hear the difference a really consistent drummer makes. I think I saw him perform with four different bands at Eistnaflug 2014. I really liked Azoic and Ophidian I, but Beneath is the band I’ve listened to the most. The internet tells me Raggi is no longer with Beneath, and that’s a crying shame, because a good drummer is hard to find.
gemma D. alexander 