Reykjavík Grapevine - 20.10.2007, Blaðsíða 10

It’s hard to describe the noisy experimental prog-rock circus known as Dr. Spock but a band that
uses a white Hummer as a tour-bus, wears rubber gloves in concerts and describes itself as a
heavy-metal cabaret with a dash of surf-porn cartoon funk is everything but ordinary. The band
counts six members, a mishmash of musicians from various bands that merge in some crazy
uncontrollable outburst.
“The glove is a good example of the divine intervention that guides The Spock. Some force
we don’t control,” legendary singer and Spock’s spiritual guide Óttarr Proppé explains: “Finni
just showed up with a yellow rubber glove in his pocket and all of a sudden the glove was on
his hand onstage. How that happened is still a mystery to us”. “The glove just took over,” Finni
adds, “and he isn’t going anywhere.”
The glove is just as an important part of Dr. Spock as are the six bizarre members. He’s
posed on covers and beer-bottles, got into fights in downtown Reykjavík, and had its clones
handed out to the masses at Dr. Spock’s awarded live shows. That’s when the true spirit of
The Spock really kicks in. The concerts are always a chaotic ceremony. They could even be
described as a freak show (in a good way) seeing as how the members dress in pink spandex
pants, leopard Speedos and jump around stage on of them showing off an enormous beer-gut.
These events are not to be missed.
Dr. Spock’s debut, ‘Dr. Phil’, was released in 2005. They brought lots of whiskey to the studio
and recorded the album live in only 20 hours. Spock’s fame rose to stardom, and to satisfy their
growing fan-base they’re back in the studio working on the second LP. This time, they’re going
do things differently says Finni: “Recording Dr. Phil live was a good concept for that particular
album. Some of the songs were old and we just needed to get them out there, but now we want
to try something different. We still want to get the sweat on the album, but also add some after-
shave and Queen to the mix.”
“When Dr. Phil was released, Dr. Spock was a different band. It was a band that just met
randomly and had played concerts on and off for ten years,” explains Óttarr and adds that they
take things more seriously today. “The song-writing has developed and we use lots of time to
maybe record choirs and other stuff for only one song,” he says and continues: “And we’ve made
some amazing discoveries. For example we went on boot-camp trips to the countryside this
summer and found out that polka and speed-metal are exactly the same thing!”
Since keyboardist Tobbi joined the band a year ago, the sound has gone to a totally new level,
they say, with choirs and weird instrumentations. “Tobbi’s first move in the studio was to sit
down in front of a grand piano. That was something we had never, ever considered before,”
Óttarr says.
“We don’t want to be stuck in the same rut. On the EP, we proved that we can write “ordi-
nary” songs,” Finni continues: “The Spock is an on-going experimentation. In ten years, we’ll
probably be part of the ‘cute-scene’,” he adds jokingly.
Dr. Spock’s members are involved in various other music projects that will keep them well
occupied during Airwaves (for example Rass, Motion Boys and Ensími), but Finni and Óttarr
say that Dr. Spock is and will always be Number One. “We will continue experimenting with
The Spock and do just whatever feels right at the time. That will always be our mission,” says
Finni while encouraging all Icelandic housewives to put on the gloves and go see Dr. Spock rock
the roof off NASA tonight.
Words by Steinunn Jakobsdóttir
Dr. Spock
Dr. Spock play at NASA tonight at 01:45
Interview
“The yellow glove was everything but satisfied when the
pink glove took the charge and gave everyone the fin-
ger,” Dr. Spock’s singer Finni comments on the cover of
2007’s EP ‘The Incredible Tooth of Dr. Zoega’. “But I’m
pretty sure the yellow one has won the power again.”
Photo by Marino Thorlacius
Opening hours see www.handknit.is