Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.10.2007, Side 5

08 | Reykjavík Grapevine | Issue 16 2007 | Opinion
Since this is a special Airwaves preview issue, it is only fair to use this
space to prepare some of the citizens and tourists here in Reykjavík for
what they can expect. During the festival, the city will be overtaken by
a creepy lot of people, collectively known as the ‘music industry.’ Some
of them are rather friendly, while others are quite dangerous. You should
know the difference. To this service, I have put together a short guide
that will help you recognise the different types, and the usual dos and
don’ts.
The Agent
The most obvious telltale sign of the agent is the mobile phone. He is
always in a hurry between places, usually bars, with a phone attached
to his ear. Often does not know if he is coming or going. His phone vo-
cabulary seems limited to phrases like “need gig, yesterday!” or “need
a road crew, pronto!” Usual attire is a dirty leather jacket and broken
glasses. Sometimes seen holding contract papers. The manager is
most likely to be spotted lurking around A&R people or running after
record label executives. Relatively harmless, but highly confused.
The Rock Journalist
Very often wannabe musicians, who lack the talent to play the game,
but consider themselves to know more about music than the musi-
cians themselves. Constantly engaged in an intellectual one-up man-
ship with other journalists over who likes more obscure bands. Will
typically say things like “Lately I have been fixated on the Anthology
by The Clean, and that whole 80s New Zealand pop scene that sur-
rounded them, like The Bats, The Pin Group, Bailter Space.” Inescap-
ably nerdy looking. Harmless, but highly opinionated.
The Rock Photographer
The duties of the rock photographer are usually minimal (as opposed
to everyone else on this list,) so he is usually seen hanging around
bars, drunk, and talking loudly. More often than not, photographers
consider themselves to be more important artists than the musicians,
and often take offense to being labeled as a part of the industry. They
are easily recognized by their insistence on dressing down for every
occasion, so he/she will always be the worst dressed person in the
room, and more often than not, wearing shorts. Will yell: “Get out of the
frame!” every time you step in their path. Dangerous when drunk, but
usually sleeping when he is not.
A&R People
The Chameleon of the industry. Always looking for the next big thing.
Likes to blend in with musicians and will mimic ongoing fashion
trends. Has a talent for smooth talk and will sell his soul to sign a hot
band. Most easily told apart from musicians when he pays for their
drinks at the bar. Often heard saying things like “Put this on a single
and it will ship 30,000 units.” Extremely untrustworthy, do not turn your
back on them.
Record Label Executives
Lords of the ‘industry.’ Usually started their career in A&R, but have
worked their way to the top with schemes and betrayals. Most often
seen at expensive restaurants, often in company with a megastar, pro-
tecting their investment, or with lawyers discussing anti-piracy laws.
Typical attire is Armani suits, but will wear Hugo Boss Jeans with a La-
gerfeld sportcoat when dressing down. Often heard on the phone with
their stockbroker. Extremely dangerous, especially to downloaders.
Industry Associates
Group of people associated with various industry events, usually
sponsors and/or marketing types. Always attend invite-only cocktail
parties to rub up against famous people. Easily recognizable by deer-
in-headlights facial expression whenever someone brings up music
in a conversation. Often give spirited lectures about market-based
economy, but only in a group of other industry associates, typically
waving a glass of white wine around. Harmless, but boring.
Groupies
A group that more or less reflects the gender ratio of musicians in o,
only three times as big. Often wears few items of clothing. Found at bars,
backstage, or where there is a good party. May or may not be looking
for husband/wife material. Will usually know the name of everybody in
the band except for the drummer. Typically heard say things like: “Hey,
are you in a band?” Usually harmless, but simple. Fierce when provoked,
and willing to fight off other suitors to the prey.
Musicians
Claim to be artists, but are usually in it for the drugs and the sex. Rare-
ly spotted in daylight. Always broke, but proud of not having sold out
their artistic integrity. Will sign any piece of paper handed to them,
and regardless of artistic integrity are eager to cash in. Often seen in
company with groupies, A&R people, and sometimes agents. Vocabu-
lary limited, but often heard talking about groupies, sex, drugs, and/
or monitors. Sometimes even doing sex and drugs upon monitors.
Harmless, but often sleepy.
The sun doesn’t knock on the door of this old barbershop, it rushes
its way in here through several windows. All I see from my desk, re-
gardless of what I want to see, is the narrow landscape of dirt on the
thin piece of glass separating me from Grettisgata – formations of dirt,
which enter my mind by the warm hand of this bright light. The sun is
everywhere, and yet, all I do is trying to ignore it.
Here are two examples:
The glossy paper of the cheap book I bought at the airport is shining
back at my eyes, keeping them from focusing on the small ink letters
of the novel and I’m forced to reorganise the furniture. And during
my much needed thirty minutes for lunch, a very disturbing warm
breath of the sun is giving the supposedly cold milk a couple of extra
degrees.
These lines are written during a completely normal, sunny Fri-
day in September. The air is clear, the harbour noisy, and a friend of a
friend is playing guitar at a random place on Laugavegur tonight. As I
said – normal.
I’m reading ”The Book of laughter and forgetting” by Milan Kun-
dera, and as the warm milk has started its temporary rest within my
body, I’m in a chapter about the blackbirds, and how they fled the
nature for the cities somewhere around the eighteenth century, all
over Europe within just a couple of years.
It hits me that the unfriendly gestures towards the bright enemy
in my house are as easy to find if I step outside. And as I sit here think-
ing, I can’t but help to see that this humble apartment symbolises
something larger, perhaps every modern city.
I’m leaving my desk for a nice and quiet walk through my new
home town, walking along Laugavegur towards (for me) unknown
environments. The cars are everywhere, and they aren’t ashamed of
themselves. Clumsy four wheelers slowly flood the street, making the
potentially so beautiful main street into a land of nothingness. Or
should I say a land of everywhere, and therefore nowhereness.
To be home blind is to ignore the unique charm of one’s own
city and its people. And as I tried to ignore the penetrating sun some
time ago, the people of Reykjavik seem to be focusing on things that
you’d find in every capital of the world, instead of the surrounding
ever so astonishing phenomenona that are constantly knocking them
on their shoulders.
Minutes later, when I pass the beautifully placed City Hall, the
people around me seem to vanish in the opposite direction. They’re
slowly drawn backwards in the periphery, like flies to old food. Sur-
prisingly alone, I discover the old graveyard, where I find a whole
bunch of the 1 450 people that lived here in 1860.
A sign tells me that the great variations of plants are rare for Ice-
land. I wonder if the plants are getting some nourishment from down
under, since they aren’t getting any oxygen from the visitors. (My only
company is a cat with dead eyes.)
Just like my furniture rearrangement, our habits are drawn away
from things that we cannot deal with, towards…for example a cup of
coffee and a “been there done that” kind of friend.
And just like the narrow landscapes on my window, the pen-
dulum of my newly made friends here seems to be taking place up
and down the very same road of nothingness. New York, Stockholm,
London and Paris has a Kaffi Barinn, they have drugs, clumsy cars and
second hand shopping. But no other city has a graveyard like this one,
or steaming rising water from the ground. Not to mention the amaz-
ingly beautiful background scenery known as Esja, which I heard of
only once from a citizen in a tale of a drunken runner.
Later this Friday, I find myself in one of this cafés, with one of
these friends. As I watch her dipping that little spoon in her cup over
and over again, obviously dull, I curse the blackbirds for their stupid
move. Seconds later, answering the question of whether she’s been to
Esja or not, her surprised face tells me everything.
It tells me to stop asking those stupid questions and of course
she hasn’t. And the key phrase: why should she?
Why indeed.
The home blind people of the world are settling for a Starbucks
society without any great adventures. Bored to my bones I walk home
again. A friend of a friend is approaching, looking really depressed.
What’s bothering you, I ask, and he sums up this text perfectly
for me: I can’t stand the midday sun without my sunglasses, it gives me
headache. I’m going for a cup of coffee, wanna join me?
Text by Viktor Banke
The Grapevine Guide to the
Airwaves Personalities
I am Going For a Cup of Coffee
Sveinn Birkir Björnsson edits the Reykjavík
Grapevine. He is also a keen observer of people.
Viktor Banke hails from Skåne, Sweden. He currently
lives in Iceland where he is working an a book.
27. SEPTEMBER
7. OCTOBER
2007
Reykjavík
International
Film
Festival
Reykjavík International Film Festival
Ticket sales at www.riff.is
Please visit our information centre at Hressingarskálinn,
Austurstræti 20, 101 Reykjavík