Reykjavík Grapevine - 25.07.2003, Side 10

- the reykjavík grapevine -10 july 25th - august 7th, 2003 - the reykjavík grapevine - 11july 25th - august 7th, 2003
Grapevine does not know what to
expect as the phone is picked up. Will
Master answer in verse or prose, quoting
pearls of oriental wisdom, the Sagas or
the Bible, or will he answer cryptically,
leaving Grapevine to discover the
meaning itself?
“Yes?” says the voice. “Megas?”
asks Grapevine somewhat stupidly, as
the voice is very distinctive and well
known from hundreds of songs. “Yes?”
the voice repeats. “I’m calling from
Reykjavík Grapevine,” I manage to blurt
out, before becoming silent with awe at
the moment. Here I am, holding an old
Nokia cellphone, and at the other end of
the line is Master Megas himself.
Megas is almost as old as the
Republic, born in 1945, and the country
has grown up with him. His 1990 semi-
autobiography, Sól í Norðurmýri, is a
wonderful prose poem about growing
up in Reykjavík in the post war years.
Through Megas´ works you can witness
the transformation of Reykjavík from
the small town of his childhood to the
gritty urban area portrayed on his
1987 masterpiece, Loftmynd (Airview),
released in honour of Reykjavik’s 201st
anniversary. The album (which features
Björk on very apparent backing vocals),
is full of tales of innocence lured to the
big city, as generation after generation
of Icelanders moved to Reykjavík,
leaving entire towns abandoned. Once
there, however, instead of the realisation
of their dreams, they find drunkenness,
murder, prostitution and heartbreak.
But the album is also an extended love
letter to his city (it’s his, we might as well
admit it), filled with adventures among
the abandoned bunkers in Öskjuhlíðin
and the fair in Vatnsmýri (defunct since
1963).
His first album, released in 1972, is
an iconoclastic tour de force of Icelandic
history. Among the cast is first settler
Ingólfur Arnarson, lamented for his
unfortunate discovery of the island,
last Catholic bishop and national hero
Jón Arason, who loved young girls as
much as God and the pope, and national
poet Jónas Hallgrímsson, the syphilitic
drunk whom it is not safe to let into your
house.
Megas made a string of brilliant
albums in the 70´s and did a lot of drugs
before retiring after having released
a final album, Drög að sjálfsmorði
(First Steps to Suicide), recorded live
in 1978. He disappeared from public
view, stopped doing drugs, became a
dockworker and finally went to art school
from where he got a degree. He was
finally cajoled into making a comeback in
1986, with the brilliant album Í góðri trú
(In Good Faith), and has been recording
and performing frequently ever since,
also writing a novel, a play and even
translating the stage version of Irvine
Welsh’s Trainspotting.
He has spent time in Thailand, and
made his first trip to the United States in
1990, playing “Got a Lot of Living to Do”
along with the Sugarcubes and Mexican
Elvis impersonator El Ves at an animal
rights benefit in New York.
Profoundity or a pint?
Megas agrees to meet me on one
condition. “I am broke”, he says, “so
you buy the beer.” Grapevine is not in
the habit of buying girls drinks, even
though it knows that this sometimes
entails the tiniest possibility of leading
to sex, but this time, it seems like a
sound investment. Still, it is ironic that
the greatest artist in the country cannot
afford a drink. A Soviet propaganda
poster shows on one side a wretched
troubadour playing on the streets, and
on the other a well dressed violinist
playing in a concert hall. The poster
is supposed to reflect the difference
between how capitalist and communist
societies treat their artists. These days,
the strip clubs of Russia are filled with
trained ballet dancers unable to find
employment elsewhere after the state
stopped sponsoring them, whereas in
the West, teenagers are auditioned,
placed into pop groups, taught a few
dance moves, stripped of most of their
clothes, videoed and made rich beyond
their wildest dreams before being
abandoned to their drug addictions once
the money stops rolling in.
In Iceland, as in most civilised
countries, we are outraged by our
greatest artists on occasion, but mostly
we just ignore them until they die, after
which we worship them like Gods.
Megas´ works have rarely stormed up
the charts, and he has sometimes had
difficulty releasing his albums due to lack
of financial backing, but lately he seems
to have been vindicated to some extent,
as in 2000 he was voted by the nation to
be the second greatest wordsmith in its
history, second only to Halldór Laxness
and beating Snorri Sturluson. His entire
catalogue was rereleased in 2002,
remastered and with bonus tracks,
the most ambitious rerelease series
undertaken in this country so far.
Mussolini, Ciccolina and the Gay
Birds
Meanwhile, our artists can always find
expression on the second floor of
Grand Rokk. The room, seating some
200 persons after the tables are taken
out, is cramped and very, very smoky.
Opening act Súkkat is a duet comprised
of two cooks, as renowned for their
subdued stage appearance as for their
witty lyrics. The crowd is noisy, drunk
and impatient, but Súkkat show their
mettle and, defying convention as well
as logic, before the set is over the crowd
is singing along They then announce
the next band, Geirfuglarnir (a penguin
like bird hunted into extinction on these
shores in the mid-1800´s, yes, we did it
to them and we’ll do it to the whales),
as the Gay Birds. The Gay Birds back
them up on the last two songs, and by
now the crowd is wholly on their side.
Súkkat leave the stage and the Gay Birds
do a few numbers of their own, including
one song in Italian, a language of which
they seemingly know where little, but
they manage to name check Mussolini,
Ciccolina and various culinary delights,
before somewhat ingeniously rhyming
Don Corleone with Silvio Berlusconi.
But no one has forgotten what we
are here for, and finally comes the
anticipated moment when the Master
takes the stage (sadly, at this time
Grapevine is in the bathroom, so the
following description is entirely fictional).
The lights go out, and the room becomes
deadly quiet. A low chanting of childlike
voices is heard, ever escalating, then
suddenly stopping. A terrible thunder
is heard as the heavens part, angels
and demons flutter about, each playing
a different instrument, laughing and
shrieking and dancing about on tables
and above peoples heads. Then a flash
of light blinds everyone, and as we slowly
regain our senses an aging man with
protruding ears and a guitar slung about
him has appears on stage. He begins to
sing. It is as senseless to try to explain
in words the joy of listening to music as
it is to describe the taste of wine (“oak
and earthy nose, barnyard dusty palate,
good length,” anyone?), so I won’t.

Campness from Elvis to Batman
The minutes seem to pass satanically
slowly as I stand waiting outside Hotel
Borg, feeling that combination of dread
and anticipation usually associated
with first dates. Finally Master arrives,
apologizes for his lateness and
courteously motions me inside. He
explains he had something he had to
finish, and Grapevine hopes its intrusion
hasn’t smothered some masterpiece in
infancy.
Finally, the moment has come. Able
to ask anything I want, I am bereft of
inspiration. “Why do you write songs?”
I find myself saying.
“Presley was one of my two saviours,
but unlike him I didn’t have access to
material, so I had to write it myself.”
“And the other one was?”
“Laxness. I listened to him read
Gerpla on the radio as a child, and I was
glued to the set with the book in front of
GODLIKE GENIUS
DEVILISH GRIN
F E A T U R E A R T I C L E
Photos: Paldís
VALU
R
GU
N
N
ARSSON
BY
There are so many questions. Why am I here, is there
a God, why is there so much suffering, what can I do
to make the world a better place, why do bad people
always seem to have more sex than good people? To
find the answer to these questions and many others,
including which is the more profound comic character,
Batman or Spider-Man, and what happened to the
stolen treasures in Iraq, we called Megas, songwriter
and sage.
article
“Elvis was every taboo, wore gay
clothes, moved like a stripper and
raped the microphone stand.”
“Spider-Man always annoyed me. It’s
that damn aunt of his. You just want to
punch her face in.”
Ph
ot
os
: A
ld
ís