Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.10.2007, Qupperneq 19

18 | Reykjavík Grapevine | Issue 16 2007 | Reviews Reviews | Reykjavík Grapevine | Issue 14 2007 | 19
Ganging Up
When the Grettir Kabaret sponsored show at Organ
began, the lineup was still a complete mystery to
me. I had managed to pick up a couple of names
from rumours and hearsay around town, but was
having a hard enough time figuring out what time
the show was to start. According to one of the
band’s myspaces, 20:00, according to the venue
owner, 21:00, and according to a guy who knows a
guy who supposedly was organising the event, the
show was starting promptly at 22:00. No ads, no info,
no buzz. Even the Grapevine had missed the finer
details of this show in its listings, and when the con-
cert began at 22:30, I was simply relieved that it was
starting at all.
The enigmatic gig began, happily, with an in-
tense sort of drum-circle by percussion veterans
Sigtryggur Baldursson, and Steingrímur Guðmunds-
son with Ben Frost acting as an on-stage mixer and
resident wizard. The collaboration, called Steintryg-
gur, was an engrossing take on “world music” jam,
with Sigtryggur on drum kit, Steingrímur on the
tabla, and Frost infusing the heavy and consum-
ing drum symphony with an electronic edge. The
tables were literally vibrating with pleasure.
Mr. Silla & Mongoose delicately picked up the
shivering mood. The room was sparsely filled. Their
first song began simply, heavy bass beats emitting
from the computer infused at times with electronic
synths and pangs and an assortment of random
sounds such as juggling keys. Anchored by Maggi’s
steady guitar, Silla’s mesmerising voice floated
above it all. Ten foot bear, their fifth song, was a
twangy blues inspired ditty in which Silla’s voice
twisted and contorted, expanded and softened to
fill the notes, her body shifting like a soft twitch be-
neath the microphone, her mouth hovering around
it like a magnet. Her voice was so full and consum-
ing that, almost inadvertently, it grabbed you by
the little hairs on the back of your neck and thrust
you into the melody. The two stood there innocent
and unassuming, Silla wearing a black and white
striped shirt and hard blue jeans, and Maggi ‘Mon-
goose’ a white tee with a cat on it. Inconspicuously
brilliant.
Pétur Ben followed, unexpectedly, to me at
least, steadily building up steam to turn his soft
compositions into something quite cutting and
intensive, while maintaining, beautifully enough,
a delicate edge. When his set ended, the crowd,
which had peaked for Silla & Mongoose, reached
an all time low. Not surprisingly, considering it was
00:30 and that a Monday night. Or Tuesday morning
really.
As I was preparing to leave and go home to
bed, I was alerted to the fact that there was yet
another act I should’ve been expecting. Gabriel
Braun, a German DJ, was about to grace the wrong
stage at the wrong time. His thin pulsating Berlin
beats were not the most welcoming sound after the
two-hour-long concert. One guy of the eight people
remaining in the audience was standing and puls-
ing along. Yet for me it was too late and inapt for the
occasion. I was going home to my badly advertised,
but intimately cozy and pleasant bed.
Text by Valgerður Þóroddsdóttir
Of Men and Mongeese
Photo by GAS
Photo by GAS
The new live venue, Organ has been a pleasant
surprise for regular concertgoers in Reykjavík. The
place runs an ambitious program, and it is pretty
much a given that you can walk in there, Wednes-
day through Saturday night and see interesting
bands play there. Kudos for Organ! On a Thursday
night, late September, I walked in to Organ to see
two interesting bands. One was interesting to me,
since I had not heard them play before, the other
because I had heard them play before and they im-
pressed me immensely.
The first band to step on stage that evening
was they five piece Royal Fortune. This is a folksy
pop group with considerable artistic ambition,
about to release their first album. They brought
a wide array of instrument out on stage, most of
which they could actually play. Their music is at ti-
mes low key and simple, almost naïveistic, but they
shoot for overwrought crescendos that never ma-
naged to move me. I was a little annoyed for they
came off as they were trying too hard to impress,
using too many obscure instruments to create obs-
cure sounds that ruined the solemn feeling they
managed to bring out occasionally. But, when they
took the full step, and dropped all their pop pre-
tentiousness to create a more simple artistry, they
developed soundscapes that were worthy of inte-
rest. Their album will likely hit home with a certain
group of audience but I remain unconvinced.
Benny Crespo’s Gang, however, is a band that
I could probably listen to live for full two days
without getting bored. These four kids have been
around for a while, but they have not played much
as of late. This might well be related to band mem-
ber Lovísa’s busy schedule with her solo project
Lay Low. In any case, I was excited to see them per-
form as it had been close to a year since last saw
them in concert.
Benny Crespo’s Myspace site lists their in-
fluences as Mars Volta, Queens of the Stone Age,
Sonic Youth, Blonde Redhead, PJ, Rage Against the
Machine, The Pixies, and At The Drive In, among
others; but I would say that they have managed to
create a sound that is undeniably theirs. The band
has a new album coming out in the next few weeks,
and they mainly played songs from their upcoming
release, but capped things off with the great Johnny
Has Got a Baby. Their progressive indie sound is full
of aggressive riffs, thundering bass plots and crazy
synths that create a thick wall of layered sounds.
Their drummer looks like he was built to run throu-
gh a brick house and plays like a man possessed.
Overall, it was great display.
If this performance is anything to go by, Benny
Crespo’s upcoming release will be one of this year’s
best. I recommend you go see them live. Get in on
the hype early.
Text by Sveinn Birkir Björnsson
As Giles Wareing’s fortieth birthday draws closer, he battles mild de-
pression and develops symptoms of gout. He lives with his wife, two
sons, and a dog, of which he remains closest to the dog. We find out
that he is an “averagely bad” journalist, who writes free-lance for a
national newspaper, mostly by lifting material of the Internet. When
he discovers an Internet based Giles Wareing Haters’ Club his mild
depression turns to a full-blown mid-life crisis This ignites a string of
events, as Giles tries to reclaim his manhood by infiltrating his own
haters’ club to prove his detractors wrong and entertains thoughts of
starting an affair with its leader, the mysterious Salome66; while self
medicating on a cocktail of cocaine and anti-depressants. Giles Ware-
ing is an incredibly uninteresting person, and author Dowling does
a good job of creating funny situations from his miserable existence.
SBB
The Giles Wareing Haters’ Club
By Tim Dowling
It has been more than 15 years since W. Axl Rose called out Mick Wall,
former Kerrang! scribe, in his diatribe against the press on Get in the
Ring, on Use Your Illusion. Now Wall has answered, and it looks as he
might have the last word. Wall was one of the first journalists to pick
up on the Guns N’ Roses phenomenon and benefited from a good
relationship with the band, until falling out with Axl Rose, report-
edly over an interview that sparked a long-lasting feud between Axl
and Motley Crüe’s, Vince Neil. The book mostly draws on previously
published material, but gains from Wall’s access to the band and his
personal relationship with band members, particularly in their early
years. He does a good job of documenting their rise to stardom and
recounting Axl’s troubled childhood. The second act, Axl’s post-GN’R-
breakup-years, suffers for the simple fact that the reclusive Axl has not
been very forthcoming with the press about his life, so Wall is mostly
restricted to a recount of tabloid headlines. SBB
The clichéd but irresistible question of influence has been answered
in the simplest of terms on Sprengjuhöllin’s debut release, “Tímarnir
okkar.” Possibly the most blatantly culturally Icelandic pop record to
come out in recent music memory, this album encompasses, slyly and
with ironic flair, the idiosyncratic perspective of Iceland’s Gen Y on
this, its cultural era. Much like the title track, the album is an exer-
cise in contemporary communication, expression that is sometimes
clumsy yet delightfully un-claustrophobic, dripping with the nature
of modern-day life in Iceland. With a kind of cocky buoyancy that is
both endearing and slightly annoying, Sprengjuhöllin maintains the
elusively charming balance between appreciation of the absurd and
the sentimental elements of the culture they are consumed by. Their
songs are self-deprecating social commentary, so emotively close-to-
home that their charm will for the most part be untranslatable. The
distinct unabashed-ness at the heart of this album is, like our wasted
generation, as fresh and fascinating as it is consequential. VÞ
Tímarnir okkar
Sprengjuhöllin
These teenagers have been darlings of the international music press
for two years running now, so it is nice to see they have finally re-
leased an album to justify some of the hype. It is even nicer that this
offering goes a long way to justify some of that hyperbole. Not all
the way, but still pretty far. Their influences are stretched widely, from
surf rock to post punk, from conventional rock to modern dance mu-
sic. Singer Hallberg has mastered the obligatory Icelandic dialect of
English that has worked so well for the Sugarcubes and Björk in the
past. Their lyrics are funny and full of the kind of teenage angst that
comes with feeling that everyone else is a fucking idiot. I remember
those times myself all too well. Given the band’s young age, it is easy
to predict them success in the future, but this album at least gives us
something to base that prediction on. If this band keeps growing, they
could realistically make something truly awe inspiring. SBB
Every music fan knows the rough outline of this story. Joy Division, a
great post-punk band out of Manchester, was set to become the next
big thing until their singer, the troubled soul that was Ian Curtis, com-
mitted suicide on the eve of the band’s first American tour in 1980,
23 years of age.
Control offers fans an opportunity to fill out the story board.
Based on a book by Deborah Curtis, the singer’s widow, in which she
documented their relationship, the movie’s greatest achievement per-
haps is to offer a very convincing portrait of Ian Curtis the person,
rather than the musician. Corbijn never makes excuses for the man.
His faults are displayed in full view without painting him as a monster,
but rather a confused young man who was not the first, and hardly
the last, to succumb to the pressures of fame.
Several key figures from his life are associated with the film.
Besides writing the book the film is based on, Deborah Curtis is a co-
producer, along with Tony Wilson, the Manchester rock scene mogul,
whose career was propelled by Joy Division and vice versa. Curtis’
extra-marital love interest, Annik Honoré, disclosed personal letters to
director Anton Corbijn who, as a rock photographer, shot the band at
the height of their fame. As biopics go, this one looks to be as accurate
as possible.
The film is shot entirely in black and white, and director Corbijn
makes great use of his keen sense of visual aesthetics and his ability
to portray moods. The atmospheric, grey and grainy look of the movie
has a lot more in common with his black and white photography
than his music videos, the two mediums that have created his consid-
erable fame. His U2 series come to mind, or his shots of Elvis Costello
on Amsterdam.
The acting is good. Sam Riley offers a convincing portrayal of
Curtis, and Toby Kebbell drew some laughs as manager Rob Gretton;
no easy task given the gloomy subject. The grand prize, however, be-
longs to Samantha Morton, who is superb in the role of Deborah Cur-
tis.
The strength of the narrative is hidden in its simplicity. This is
a story of one of rock history’s most iconic figures, but instead of
drowning it in music and references to the pop-culture of the time,
Corbijn quetily depicts a man who is tormented by his shortcomings
as a father, riddled with guilt by his shortcomings as a husband, and
terrified by his ongoing struggle with epilepsy, using sparse dialouge
and long shots.
The movie narrative strength is ultimately its shortcoming. For
those who are not familiar with Curtis’s story, the script is completely
void of any clues to the overall story. We meet a man, he joins a band,
band is famous, man commits suicide. Although compelling in its
simplicity, the narrative does not allow offer the historical details that
non-fans of the band might need. SBB
The First Crusade
Jakobinarina
Control
Director: Anton Corbijn
W.A.R.: The Unauthorized Biography
By Mick Wall
CD
BOOK
CD
BOOK
FILM
When:
October 1, 2007
When:
September 27, 2007
Where:
Organ
Where:
Organ
Who:
Steintryggur,
Mr. Silla & Mongoose,
Pétur Ben, Gabriel Braun
Who:
Royal Fortune,
Benny Crespo’s Gang
C
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CM
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CMY
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