Reykjavík Grapevine - 21.10.2005, Qupperneq 11

Pil then the electro-indie rock
they intended. Which is a much
better thing. ¶ Gunnar even man-
aged to name-check the Wu tang
Clan, shouting triumphantly to the
crowd, “Jakob ain’t nothing to
fuck with.” ¶ Show closers Coral,
playing to a half-empty room,
found that out firsthand. BART
BlASenGAMe naSa >>> Hermi-
gervill versus aBC Mint Chew-
ing Gum <<< nASA kicked off with
what at first appeared to be a
wedding band, Cynic Guru, a five-
piece light-rock outfit whose dis-
armingly charming lead guitarist/
vocal Roland also happens to be a
violinist in the Icelandic Sympho-
ny orchestra. Roland looked like
he was living his dream; at a guess
this is perhaps the culmination of
years of extracurricular air guitar
and rock grimaces in front of a
bedroom mirror to the sounds of
Iron Maiden. The rest of the band
looked as if this may have been a
hobby that had gone too far. ¶
You can’t deny the talent. These
chaps know what they are doing,
and the opening festival audience
generously responded to the cli-
ché-ridden arrangements. The
highlight was when Roland pulled
out his electric violin as he shout-
ed out, “no more of this guitar
crap.” Quite. Do you know he ac-
tually pulled it off? He was in his
element, as strings began to fly
off his bow in a genuinely pass-
able early Radioheadesque cli-
max, though you still hoped he
had a spare bow for his day job. ¶
A lot of people had come just to
see Mr. Silla. An old school friend
of hers in the crowd told me “she
used to win these jazz and soul
competitions.” It is no surprise
this girl is used to winning. She
knows she’s good, though she
doesn’t quite know what to do
with her hands. In theory she was
spellbinding, but there was a lot
of fidgeting. Against the plinky
plonky, atonal backing from the
laptop and guitar, her soulful
voice seething sexuality and con-
fidence, there was a façade of un-
comfortable modesty. Compara-
MC Nonni is either insane, men-
tally disabled or really, really stu-
pid, but it appeared he was going
for a combination of all three.
mc NoNNI pRAvdA
No one here is trying to be a rock
star; they just want people to have
a good time.
pRAvdA
The rest of the band looked as if
this may have been a hobby that
had gone too far.
cYNIc GURU NASA
ble to Coco & rosie immediately, a
band she covered along with an
inspired reworking of a Destiny’s
Child classic. ¶ Singer Jara’s per-
formance suffered from a series
of technical cock-ups and badly
planned stagecraft. A pleasant
but irrelevant narcissistic video
managed to hold up the perfor-
mance after the first song. Cotton
+ Einn know how to make an en-
trance; their stormingly ridiculous
wigged and piggy backing en-
trance was a welcome release.
They proceeded to give nASA
some dirty electro punk. In be-
tween white boy chanting, you
could hear rare glimpses of al-
most soul-girl squealing. Funk Har-
mony Park. What to say? Big bass,
uncharismatic blokes with ‘oh so
crazy’ visuals. Still, with nASA
packed, people began to move. It
is amazing what a good bass line
can do even when a performance
is less than inspired. ¶ The award
for outstanding performance of
the night goes to Hermigervill.
Confident, enthusiastic, tight and
talented, he kept control of decks,
mixers, synths and control pads
while encouraging the eager au-
dience. From the Jingle Bells in-
tro, through samples of James
Brown plus infectious synth jazz
one-handers, Hermigervill turned
the night around with big-beat,
funky dance and Casio-styled
loops. Halfway through the set,
he shouted out, “Where are you?”
and a sweet soul singer with a
sense of humour managed to add
to the show. When she left, and
Hermigervill removed his jacket,
there was almost a riot. ¶ Have
you ever eaten someone else’s al-
ready chewed chewing gum? Well
annie’s performance was much
like this tasteless goo after the
Hermigervill three-courser. Disap-
pointing, tired and just plain dull.
annie has the attitude – more
Blondie than kylie – but she was
stiff, not naturally pop-tastic, with
a voice less rock star and more
soft mint. But the nASA crowd
seemed to love annie despite the
gig’s shortcomings – was this
making the best of a bad situa-
tion, or because she was sucking
up so badly that it was fun?
Whichever, as the encores began,
people began to leave even
though the bar was still open.
DeBoRAH CouGHlIn ¶ ¶ PraV-
Da >>> Dance… noW! <<< Accord-
ing to the embarrassingly bad
Festival Guide (let me put it this
way: it couldn’t guide you to a
heat source if you were standing
on the surface of the sun), the
night’s theme was Electro Breakz
(sic), and I found myself pleasant-
ly surprised by the general mod-
esty of the electro scene. no one
here is trying to be a rock star;
they just want people to have a
good time. The ne plus ultra of
this were undoubtedly the night’s
first act, Helgi Mullet Crew. Friend-
ly-looking and shy, they intro-
duced themselves and played a
far too short and far too quiet set
of brisk, funk-laden house beats
before retreating into DJ-land. ¶
MC nonni is either insane, mental-
ly disabled or really, really stupid,
but it appeared he was going for a
combination of all three, which
would have made for a good show
if these mindsets didn’t cancel
each other out. There was a cer-
tain conviction missing in nonni’s
performance, but it hardly mat-
ters, since the music speaks for
itself: lyrics that make Wesley Wil-
lis sound refined and intellectual
were yelped, yelled and even
belched out over playful and min-
imal electro beats that sounded
very familiar to anyone who has
spent more than a half-hour fid-
dling around with Propellerheads
software. Still, anyone who let
their guard down could easily
have been swayed by his retarded
charm. The crowd did not so much
as tap a foot. ¶ Panoramix is a
one-man act. A young man clad in
a tracksuit top stood behind an
old-looking PC and delivered reck-
lessly standard beats, devoid of
any pretentiousness or minimal-
ism. He and his colleagues have a
unified purpose: To make you
dance, and to make you dance
now, and make sure you do not
stop dancing until they say so. ¶
Ozi took full advantage of the
crowd’s drunkenness, throwing
them into a sloppy frenzy whilst
swerving from house to hip-hop
to electro with gleeful abandon.
Some of the songs were punctu-
ated by awkward stops that left
the dancers gagging for their next
fix…it was quite beautiful to
watch. ¶ The absurdly named
Zuckakis Mondeyano Project were
up next, stepping on stage with
furs, hats and an ego that could
power the spaceships they obsess
so much about in their lyrics. The
crowd’s reaction to them was
about as surreal as any cheer by
people you’ve never seen before
in a town of 200,000 for a band
you’ve never heard of. The music
itself was a cheesy and ironic
amalgamation of R and B and
electro that they admittedly did
put their all into. Their finest mu-
sical moment came during the
second-to-last song, Composition
of nature, with its prerecorded fe-
male backing vocals making a sul-
try whisper of the chorus chant. ¶
Affable as they were, however, iro-
ny is no substitute for talent, and
their songs were, for the most part,
as achingly plain as they were
short and unoriginal. oh, they were
funny, sure, but sometimes funny
just isn’t enough, and live instru-
ments on playback are never a
turn-on, now matter how charis-
matic the performers in question
are. ¶ The man who saved the
night was unquestionably ewok.
Aside from being involved with the
two opening acts, he played re-
cords as forcefully as one can han-
dle vinyl. SInDRI elDon
BENNI HEMM HEMM PHOTO BY SIGURJÓN
{ 13 }Grapevine Airwaves 2005 Friday October 21 – Issue 1 of 3