A while ago, I won The Catalogue magazine for the Independent Music Trade with The Sugarcubes on the cover on Ebay, and it came with a black flexi. I selected the most interesting parts of the Interview.
The Sugarcubes – In New York with Martin Aston
The Catalogue Magazine September 1989 - Number 74 with free One Little Indian Flexi
Flexi contained songs "Voulez-Vous" (Abba cover) by HAM & "Cindy" by The Sugarcubes
Also a song by other OLI artists The Shamen, Sleeping Dogs Wake and Kitchens of Distinction.
They were on the New Order/PiL/The Sugarcubes Tour aka "The Monsters Of Alternative Rock Tour "
They organized a special night in New York with HAM, Reptile & Bless + poetry readings.
Einar:
“When we started Bad Taste, we just wanted to challenge what good taste was because we ourselves didn’t know. You’re on an awful slippery intellectual slope saying that. I’m not qualified to define it, because if I do, we will soon turn into good taste. And we aren’t that. And we’ve never behaved like an alternative band. For us, it’s simple. In Iceland, we are only playing to 240,000 people, not even that. Birthday only sold 300 copies. That didn’t deter us from putting out records in the UK and changing music, to show we should sound. We just carry on with what we’re doing. An alternative band is always content with ... letters that we have, that we’ve betrayed our punk roots, our link with Crass, but Crass had to stop. They were an alternative band who ended up preaching to the converted. So they had to stop.”
About the Second Album title “Here Today, Tomorrow Next Week”:
Bragi: Because we found it amusing in Russia. That’s were it was conceived.
Siggi: When you go to the Soviet Union, one of the things you do most is wait. And then you wait a little more, and then you’re asket to wait. It’s one of the places that you wish for things to happen quickly and efficiently. So “Here Today, Tomorrow Next Week”, is like, let’s get it on, things are happening fast.
Björk: I think it’s about worshipping the next minute, what’s about to come.
Siggi: As I said, the obsession with ‘future’.
Einar: But at the same time, it’s a quote from Wind In The Willows, from around 1930s, when Ratty gets a car and says, “here today ... tomorrow next week!” and flies off! And for us, or at least for me, people have said, “The Sugarcubes are one-hit wonders, here today, gone tomorrow”, but we’re not. We are, and we’re going to be.
Einar: We are taling a hell of a risk with this album. We spent a lot of money, the most expensive pop record ever made in Iceland.
Who is "Regina"?
Bragi: She’s a housewife who contributies to an evening paper in Iceland.
Björk: She’s a local journalist for a national daily evening paper. She writes littel bits, small articles that are very local.
Siggi: Like what her friend next door is doing, or some great relative of her friend next door did something special.
In Regina you mention ‘lobsters’ and ‘chastity belts’.
Einar: Lobsters and fame.
Björk: It’s actuele quite difficult because usually Einar and I write our own stuff, but “Regina” was written by our guitarist Thor, who’s not here.
Einar: He actuele took ‘lobsters and fame’ from an Icelandic translation of an Abba book. In one chapter, they say “we’re only in it for the caviar and fame”. It’s a really bizarre sentence. We really don’t understand the meaning of it.
Björk: It’s pascal about us worshipping a laday that comes form the East of Iceland that has to crash down in the south. Like the sun. So we compare this lady Regina to the sun. She’s just as brilliant as the sun. That’s all you need. A worshipping lyric.
Is “Bee” a worshipping lyric too?
Björk: The lyric was originally supposed to be a party game. One persoon was ‘it’, and than that persoon would get wings and than a sting, and a costume, and try and sting somebody, and than he or she should become the bee. But I guess it turned into something else when it was written down but it’s still about that.
Why is Iceland more appealing to live in than elsewhere?
Einar: Because we’re from there. I think we’ve seen enough– I’ve already lived four years abroad, Siggi lived three years abroad. It’s our natural habitat.
Björk: London is a brilliant city but it’s not a city to live in, just to visit, like New York. Iceland is the bast place, not just because it’s our home, but you can’t understand the sort of luxury it is, just to be able to go to other places and just visit.
Einar: If we become filthy stinking rich, we might be forced to move out. I am prepared to accept to move out.
Bragi: It’s just the fact that we were born there.
It's strange to know that Björk late, when she went solo, lived in London and New York. So people change.
Photograph published in Morgunbladid Newspaper of the Sugarcubes @ Reykjavik (Reunion anno 2006)
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