fimmtudagur, janúar 18, 2007

Icelandic Music Scene Text 2/1/2003 by Siggi Ponk

GREINAR
ICELAND - SCENE REPORT
Siggi Pönk

Þessi grein kemur til með að birtast í Maximumrocknroll sem er eitt stærsta pönkblað í heenna að ég var ekki nógu duglegur að vinna í þessu eða bara nennti ekki að gramsa meira. Með þessari grein fóru myndir frá Guðnýju frá tónleikum með SNAFU, Vígspá (Loftur Litli), Sólstöfum, Mínus og náttúrulega Forgarði Helvítis.Ég veit ekki hvenær greinin kemur til með að birtast en læt ykkur vita hér á töflunni (ég er áskrifandi) svo að þið getið pantað ykkur eintak þá eða gerst áskrifendur.

To begin with you should know that the whole nation of Iceland only counts 280.000 people still we do have all the elements of a nation fucked up by capitalism.
First, some historical facts: In the 1980’s there was a big explosion of punk/underground activity here, many bands were formed, labels releasing records and importing music from abroad plus concerts all over. Punk bands like UTANGARDSMENN, PURRKUR PILLNIKK, Q4U, FRAEBBBLARNIR, TAPPI TÍKARRASS, KUKL and many more were around. This activity slowed down through the years, with labels collapsing and musicians turning to other interests but the spirit has never totally gone.Around 1991 there was a wave of Death Metal in the Icelandic underground scene. Almost every kid forming a band let his hair grow, bought a T-shirt with a favorite band and tried to imitate it. Not that it was all bad, there were a few good bands around like SORORICIDE who managed to release one LP and few songs on two split CD´s, CRANIUM who released a demo, STRIGASKÓR NR.42 who called it quits in ‘95 after releasing a great full length CD, IN MEMORIAM and CONDEMNED to name some. All of these bands have now split. Today the spirit of Hardcore and punk with the musical elements of both genres plus various types of metal is creating bands and making kids jump around. Hardcore bands around, to name some, are MÍNUS who have released two CD albums with their special brand of noisecore, their second release, "Jesus Christ Bobby," wich they created in coalition with electronic noise artist Bibbi, is on Bad Taste. VÍGSPÁ (prophecy of a kill) are more metallic in their approach to hardcore and have three CD demos out on Hardkjarni records. KLINK (small change), the power violence band of the scene have a CD demo out on MSK rec. and are planning their first album. SNAFU is a "pure" hardcore band, very brutal and heavy sounding, which has a CD album,"Anger is not Enough," out on Hardkjarni records. ELIXÍR, playing tribal hardcore with gruffy vocals are about to release their first album, also on Hardkjarni rec. SQUIRT are more of a metal band with a CD demo out. Also the metalcore band BETREFI have released two CD demos. The second one "the flop syndrome" has nine songs and is available from hardkjarni rec. Another metal approach is from CHANGER who has one CD release out on hardkjarni rec as a one man band but are working on their second release with added members. The youthful brutality and intensity of MOLESTING MR. BOB and MANNAMÚLL keeps the spirit up at shows while ANDLÁT (passing away) break it down with their deathhatesludgecore. Get the seven song CD demo of ANDLÁT, "Salt," for $10 from SI! MANNAMÚLL also recently released a six song CD demo called "Aliens from Iceland" and MOLESTING MR. BOB released a CD demo on MSK records wich is run by members of the band Mínus. MSK (short for Mannaskítur, which means human feces) released a comp. CD of Icelandic hardcore/metal bands which is very interesting for newcomers to the Icelandic underground. SAKTMÓÐIGUR is a punk rock band, wich has released one cassette, two 10"and two full length CD’s. Another dirty punk band is ÖRKUML (physical breakdown) who have a EP out and now a CD with a more punk’n’roll approach. Also on their label the rocking punk band KUSA (cow) has a CD album. A historical release on Örkuml records is the "Pönkið er dautt" (the pönk is dead) CD, which compiles all the bands who participated in the PÖNK festivals these guys used to organize from ‘96-’99. The diversity of the bands included describes quite well the overall spirit of the underground scene in Iceland. Some of their releases are also available from Bad Taste).
HEIDA is a one woman band who last year released herself a CD album recorded by her and a band! of friends. HEIDA used to play guitar and do vocals for pop-punk band UNUN (rip) and this album has music ranging from electronics, to rock, jazz and folk to punk, everything sung by Heida herself. STJÖRNUKISI (starcat) is a spaced rock band with quite a few diverse releases behind them and stoner rockers BRAIN POLICE have one album out on Geimsteinn records.
There is also a whole lot going on in the underground activity, in Akureyri and Húsavík, wich are the biggest towns in the north of Iceland. At least from there come the skatepunks INNVORTIS (innards), who in the spring of ‘98 released a full length CD, and hardcoremetals TOY MACHINE. The grindcore band FORGARÐUR HELVÍTIS (Hell’s front yard) is the only band still around from the ones who started during the Death Metal wave ten years ago. They released a split EP w/DEVIATE from S-Africa on View Beyond rec. plus many compilation songs and now they have put together a CD with all of their recordings (29 songs in 33 minutes) wich is available from the band for $10. The Viking Metal band SÓLSTAFIR released two demos and have released a mini-CD on View Beyond rec. They are currently finishing their first album for a German metal label. MÚSPELL is a brutal death metal band with members of F.H. and POTENTIAM, who have two albums out on Wounded Love/Avantgarde music in Italy, and MICTIAN play black metal. In early ‘97 there was released a compilation CD with F.H., SÓLSTAFIR plus MIND AS MINE, THULE, ÁMSVARTNIR and FIELDS OF THE FILTHY which all touch on different sides of Metal.
The first punk band in Iceland was FRAEBBBLARNIR, they re-recorded and re-released most of their old, short, poppy, punk tunes on CD and have now released a CD with new (similar) material. Q4U and PURRKUR PILLNIKK have also re-released their old material on CD (possibly find these re-releases at Bad Taste) and the KUKL albums are available through southern rec..
There are many other bands around who are playing shows and releasing on plastic and vinyl but I won’t mention them all since not all af them have yet proved themselves to be so active or interesting. Even though the scene is small the bands play very diverse styles, that’s the good thing about having a small scene; no two bands can play the same style because everyone would notice instantly. All the bands I have mentioned play shows together no matter the diversity in styles. We slam dance to everything mixed and girls kick ass in the pit too tough almost no girls are active in bands.There is a lot going on in the artworld of young people in Iceland; theater, performances, poetry etc.
The "Hitt Húsið" ("the other house", by Ingólfstorg) is a center for youth cultural activity, including organizing underground shows.Usually shows are in clubs (that’s 18-20+), youth centers or schools (all ages) and in the summertime they can also be held outside.
Foreign bands come here occasionally, f. ex. Fugazi and Sick of it all. Decent record shops are hardly any except for Hljómalind on the main shopping street, Laugavegur and staff in the mainstream shop Japis on Laugavegur do sell underground releases without adding to the price. The September distro sell CD’s at gigs and from their homes.There are two zines; one is the webzine hardkjarni at http://www.www.dordingull.com/ where you will find links to all the Icelandic band homepages, photographs from live shows, discussion groups, hardkjarni records, MSK records and more. You will have fun searching through it since it is all in Icelandic (band links are under "hljómsveitir"). Moldvarpan (the mole) is a new, small music zine, also in Icelandic. This guy also runs the September distro and one of the two weekly hardcore radio shows. This one reaches the whole country but the other one reaches the Reykjavík area (where half the nation lives) and is taken care of by the guys in Minus and MSK records.Travelling punks: There are ca. 90 cafés and clubs located around the center of Reykjavík.
Punks/scenesters don’t hang out in any specials of those so if you want to meet people who are active in the scene, make friends before coming. If you are here in the summertime, you can meet people, punks and drunks at the grassy field of Austurvöllur in front of the parliament. You should be warned that Iceland is a horrendously expensive country so bring a tent or make friends in Iceland to crash at before flying in and drunk punks should be warned to stay sober while here because of devastating prices on alcohol. Still, you will notice that half the nation gets pouring drunk every weekend. Cheap eats (also vegan/vegetarian) are f.ex. the Kebab house in Austurstraeti, The noodle house in Barónsstígur, the vegetarian restaurant Graent og gómsaett in Skólavördustígur or the local Subway chain. Bónus is the cheapest chain shop to buy groceries and we do have 10-11 in every town. Also ! we do have McMurder and other multinational chains and some fundamentalist christian groups who detest us punks, Iceland is quite Americanized in many ways.The government is a right wing democratically elected useless piece of shit who is constantly cutting down on education and health care and putting money into aluminum plants and other money making machines that are bad for our treeless rock made nature. Most people are quite well off financially but minority groups like single parents, invalid individuals and some of the elderly suffer financially from state policies. Underground political activity is some, mostly by radical socialist youth and a handful of anarchists. There has also been some distribution of the Icelandic version of the "What’s wrong with McDonald’s" pamphlet. No skinheads exist in Iceland, be they fascist or not, but racism rears it’s ugly head here as among most nations. One organized racist group is airing it’s propaganda. Straight edge as a movement does not exist, but this generation of underground freaks is not as keen on alcohol and drugs as the "normal" Icelandic youth. Veganism is almost unheard of but there are some vegetarians in Iceland.

by Gudný, nursepunk@hotmail.com
02/01/2003

Source: Siggi Pönk
http://www.hardkjarni.com/skrif/greinar.php?n_id=14

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