Reykjavík Grapevine - 28.08.2009, Qupperneq 32

20
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 13 — 2009
Dr. Gunni just happens to be an
extremely respected pioneer of Icelandic
punk rock. HE IS PLAYING GRAPEVINE
GRAND ROKK on Friday 04.09. Attend.r.
The History of Icelandic Rock music: Part 9
Hard Rockin’ In The
Early Seventies
The Icecross album from 1973 has in
recent times fetched high prices on the
international psych record market. This
is due to the fact that various noteworthy
collectors have raved about the “legend-
ary and mysterious” album. For instance,
the Dead Kennedys’ Jello Biafra is quoted
in the tome Incredible Strange Music Vol.
II (1994) saying: “Iceland has produced
one of the darkest, grimmish and most
brutal psych records I’ve ever heard:
Icecross. At times they even remind me
of the early Meat Puppets, especially the
song 1999.”
The truth, naturally, isn’t all that mys-
terious. The band rose from the debris of
Tilvera (‘Existence’) in 1971. Tilvera had
been bound for glory, as it contained
some heavyweight Icelandic stars, but
the band’s output only amounted to two
passable singles. Icecross played dance
balls and was successful even though
they only performed original songs writ-
ten by guitarist Axel Einarsson and bass-
ist Ómar Óskarsson. They both sang,
while the power trio line up was complet-
ed by drummer Ásgeir Óskarsson. The
band got known for being gloomy, even
though the members never dabbled with
the occult. They were also without doubt
the noisiest band in Iceland. The band
had eight Marshall boxes with four ten-
inch speakers in each, and Ásgeir had
built his own drum kit out of aluminium.
In 1972 the band moved to Copenha-
gen were very favourably received when
they played at the main club of the time,
Revolution. Says Axel: “When The Who
played in town, the members came to
watch us play. There must have been
some reason why Pete Townsend stayed
and watch us for 55 minutes. He sat fac-
ing the stage with his beer and didn’t
move until after we had finished our set.”
Icecross recorded their eponymous
and only album in Copenhagen with Dan-
ish pop star Tommy Seebach on the mix-
ing board. Only 1000 copies were made
of the album that reached Iceland early in
1973. By that time the band had split up
because of tensions that built during their
stint in Copenhagen. The album has nev-
er been officially re-released, but many
bootlegs, both on CD and vinyl, have
been made. An Icecross comeback—and
even a second album—have been dis-
cussed, but nothing has materialised as
of yet.
Ævintýri, the former bubblegum band
lead by pop star Björgvin Halldórsson,
got hard and heavy on a 7” single in 1970
(two songs, Evil/Depression, in Icelan-
dic). The band made more original songs
and wanted to do a LP, but split before
carrying out their plans. Two Ævintýri
members, guitarist Birgir and drummer
Sigurður, went on to form the similarly
hard and heavy Svanfríður, named af-
ter a barmaid at Club Glaumbær. Other
Svanfríður members were bassist Gunnar
from Tilvera and vocalist Pétur Kristjáns-
son, who had sang with Pops and Nát-
túra. Svanfríður called their music “rock”
which hasn’t been a fancy name to drop
for many years, as it reminded too much
of the corny fifties rockers.
Svanfríður was a popular ball band
during 1972. The band played the hits of
the day with jam sections in-between to
keep things interesting for the members.
In the summer Svanfríður went to London
and recorded nine songs, which ended
up as the album What’s Hidden There.
The music is progressive and hippy-ish
in parts, especially the lyrics, the transac-
tion from hippy innocence to rock tough-
ness not wholly complete. That transac-
tion would come through in 1973 when
Svanfríður split and Pétur and Gunnar
went on to form Pelican, Iceland’s most
popular seventies rock band. Svanfríður’s
album is though considered a rarity
amongst psych collectors and has been
bootlegged severely, as no official reissue
exists. - DR. GUNNI
By Dr. Gunni, based on his 2000 book Eru ekki
allir í stuði? (Rock in Iceland). A revisited up-
date of the book is forthcoming in 2010.
1. Icecross
2. Icecross LP
3. Svanfríður LP
RETRÖN is a strange animal. Loved by
hipsters and metalheads alike, there's
much to be said about this unique band.
With their debut, Swordplay & Guitar-
slay, on the streets via Kimi records, we
got Retrön guitar god Kolli to tell us about
the band, its ideology and and what the
hell they’re on about.
“This is actually sort of our third at-
tempt at making this record,” says Kolli.
“The first two were unsuccessful, be-
cause we didn't really know at the time
that the band was supposed to be a rock
band. We were stuck in the beginning as
an IBM PC Speaker 8-bit sort of thing. We
didn't have a drummer then and didn't
know how to make things sound good
without them being rock. So now, almost
three attempts later, we have a drummer
and a bunch of synthesizers compliment-
ing what we thought the band needed for
extra awesomeness plus it rocks cancer
into your balls, GWAR-style – with extra
volume. I want my rock as well as my
shampoo with extra volume!
You been working on this record for what
seems to be aeons now. How has it af-
fected the band and your feelings towards
the material?
I think it has been good for the band. If
the record had come out earlier, it would
have been way too immature and aged
badly. Now we sort of know better what
Retrön is and what the band can be. Also
the record would be by this time older
and therefore less virgin!
MUSIC FOR PC SPEAKERS
So, this idea of a band playing a computer-
influenced music or just to cover songs
from computer games it isn't a new one.
There are plenty of bands doing that.
However, you guys seem to have forsaken
the idea in lieu of doing more original
material. What is the reason for this devel-
opment and what do you offer that other
computer-bands do not?
Well I don't want to say that our band is
any better or worse than other videogame
based outfits out there, but we don't con-
sider ourselves a totally videogame based
band and maybe we never have. The
thing that is different with Retrön and
maybe some of the other bands is that we
actually started out as a computer game.
Kári and I actually made a mini game
with a bunch of levels that was called
Retrön. There was a bunch of music in
the game that was all made in a text file
on a program that Kári wrote. That music
was all made with the PC speaker (the
thing that goes bleep when you turn on
your old computer). Then people started
to hear the music and started asking us if
we could play the music live. So we start-
ed thinking, ‘How can we play this music
without it being a boring laptop band?’
That's where we decided to pick up the
guitars and learn the music for the game.
So it's all kinda backwards.
The first bunch of songs that we per-
formed live were all written for the PC
speaker. After that we started to imple-
ment the computer more as a part of
a band, and that's how we played for a
long time. Made the PC speaker mostly
do drums and some leads. So, we were
not only trying to be a rock band playing
video game cover songs, it was sort of just
means to be able to play the Retrön game
music live.
There are still remnants from the
game in one of our visual programs that
we use in concert sometimes. And we
have only ever covered one video game
song, Koji Kondo's theme from Zelda.
This record will go a long way to termi-
nate the misunderstanding that Retrön
is a videogame cover band. But we have
gradually been going away from using
pre-programmed stuff, so now we have
a drummer and try to capture the atmo-
sphere of the old game inspired songs
with synths.
REAL MEN LOVE THEM
SOME METAL
The music has become considerably more
metal sounding. Why is that? I know all
you guys are real men, and thus love your
metal, but please give me a more educated
insight into this development.
The real reason is that getting a drummer
made everything sound heavier. We have
not knowingly changed our approach to
writing the guitar riffs. It used to be me
and Kári chugging away on unplugged
electric guitars, but now we can try out
instantly what sounds right.
Has your background as an performance
artist at all bled into Retrön?
I think you can't escape what you are,
but Retrön is supposed to be a rock band,
not a fucking performance piece, god-
damnit! Art performances can be great,
but in most people’s mind they are just a
perverted weak evilness made to burden
people. I would rather say that a bunch of
Retrön has leaked into my performances
than the other way round.
Anything else?
Buy our album and ride a wave of suc-
cess. You don't want to be the person
left standing behind with no copy and
"Necroloser" written all over you. Also.
Take it slow.
Advanced Retrön & Dragons
Bringing the vision of Roberta & Ken Williams into the 21st century
BIRKIR FJALAR VIÐARSSON
RETRON
Music | Interview