Reykjavík Grapevine - 11.09.2009, Qupperneq 32

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 14 — 2009 Dr. Gunni just happens to be
an extremely respected pioneer
of Icelandic punk rock.
The History of Icelandic Rock Music | Part 10
Pétur And His P-bands
Pétur Kristjánsson was the hardest-
working rocker of the seventies. In a de-
cade laden with frothy pop music, coun-
try ballads and disco, Pétur kept the rock
and roll flames burning.
Son of fifties big band leader KK, Pé-
tur soon took after his father, although
he went for an altogether different musi-
cal direction. Pétur sang and played the
bass. His first real band was Pops, a leg-
endary cover band that has counted vari-
ous members through the years and can
still be found playing on occasion. Pops’
only release was a 7” in the early seven-
ties, where the band teamed up with co-
median Flosi Ólafsson on the novelty hit
‘Það er geggjað að geta hneggja’— (“It’s
insane to be able to neigh”).
After Pops, Pétur did stints with Nát-
túra and Svanfríður (already covered here
earlier), but after Svanfríður died off in
1973, Pétur formed his most famous rock
band, Pelican. Right from the beginning
Pelican was a popular band and had a
sweet sailing at the Icelandic ball scene.
In 1974 the band went to Massachusetts,
USA, to record a LP at the Shaggy Dog
Studio, where the reformed band Hljómar
had already recorded its ill-fated country
rock opus Hljómar 1974. In America, Peli-
can got in contact with various biz-peo-
ple, and for awhile it looked like Pelican
would sign a record deal and hit the big
time.
In 1974, Pelican was the biggest band
in Iceland. The first song from the album,
“Jenny Darling”, was released on a single
in the summer, a frisky number that went
on to become Pétur’s signature song. The
song was the hit of the summer and when
the album “Uppteknir” (a word-play, can
both mean “Unpacked” and “Busy”—the
album cover featured the band inside a
sardine tin), came out in the fall it became
the best selling Icelandic album yet, shift-
ing 11.000 units.
Being ultra popular in Iceland wasn’t
enough, of course! The band wanted
more: international fame. Pelican re-
turned to Massachusetts in 1975 to
record the follow-up album, Lítil fluga,
(“Little fly”). The Americans booked
the band on a nine date tour of the East
Coast, where Pelican played for up to
1.000 people at a time. The band was as-
signed a legion of roadies, sound-men,
lighting engineers, and so on—“the real
deal”—and the members were in awe:
“We got to glimpse the glory,” Pétur said
later.
The band was offered various record
deals and the chance to support bands
such as the Allman Brothers and the
Doobie brothers, and the albino broth-
ers Johnny and Edgar Winter, too. Sweet
times lay ahead, and the band returned
to Iceland to play for their eager fans.
One of the things that the Americans had
been talking about was that Pétur wasn’t
a good enough singer. Without him, and
with a new singer, great things were sure
to happen, they said. The other Pelican
members took these speculations way
too seriously and discussed the possibil-
ity of sacking the band’s founder. When
Pétur heard this through the grapevine,
he confronted his pals, ultimately leaving
his own band as a result.
Naturally the news spread fast and
people gasped—Pétur kicked from his
own band? Pétur had all the pity, and
Paradís, the band he formed fresh from
the ejection, soon got to be the main
band in Iceland, while Pelican with a new
singer, Herbert Guðmundsson, quickly
faded to obscurity. With Paradís, Pétur
behaved in a super professional manner,
and ran the band like a business. Eager
to top his former bandmembers and un-
der influence from Pelican’s professional
stint in America, Pétur invested in hefty
sound- and light-equipment and even a
smoke-machine, the first one in Iceland.
Paradís went through thirteen members
during its course—Pétur being the only
constant—and five more workers were on
board when Paradís played balls in the
Icelandic countryside, including a special
guy to run the light show and a perky DJ
to keep things hopping during breaks.
Paradís made an album in 1976, featur-
ing the full-blooded rock that Pétur had
been singing for four years now. Some
felt Pétur was beginning to show signs of
stagnation, and after disappointing sales
Paradís split up. In the spring of 1977, Pé-
tur formed yet another band beginning
with the letter P: Poker.
Poker’s main goal was to “make it”
abroad, and escape the doldrums of Ice-
land (a recurring theme in Iceland’s rock
history). With Pétur came guitar virtuoso
Björgvin Gíslason from Paradís, and Pálmi
Gunnarsson, Jóhann Helgason, Sigurður
Karlsson and Kristján Guðmundsson
came in from funk band Celsíus. Many
other members were to come and go in
the band’s short history. To cut a long
story short, nothing came of Poker’s
dreams of “making it.” In 1977, however,
every member of the band except Pétur
and Jóhann, performed on a debut solo
album by an unknown 11-year old girl
called Björk Guðmundsdóttir.
With his seventies dreams of “making
it” wholly immaterialised, Pétur lay low for
awhile and concentrated on running his
record shop. In the early eighties, some
younger boys asked him to join a new
band, Start, which played rock in the di-
rection of Loverboy and Foreigner. Start
went on to become a popular band and
Pétur was once more on top of things.
Start’s sole LP offering was released in
1981.
Since then and until his untimely
death in 2004, Pétur kept at it with vari-
ous outfits, sometimes reformed versions
of his old bands, sometimes new ones.
He was a mentor in the fine art of rock
and roll, famous for his record fairs (his
relatives still hold a record fair annually at
Perlan), a sweet and funny guy that was
beloved by all. As promised, Wild Thing
was played at his funeral. - DR. GunnI
By Dr. Gunni, based on his 2000 book Eru ekki
allir í stuði? (Rock in Iceland). A revised update
of the book is forthcoming in 2010.
Funny Guy: PéTuR KIDS aROunD In
THe MID-SeVenTIeS
SKInny TIe ROCK anD ROll: PéTuR
wITH STaRT In THe eaRly eIGHTIeS.
We went around and asked representative of the then-active politi-
cal parties if ethical guidelines were needed for MPs – guess which
one said “no.” We also created the “Most Complete Laugavegur
Store Review Ever,” which is fun to browse through these days, to
see which stores are still around (hint: not a lot of them). JT/OK
With the ‘obvious’ concept cover, featuring "The Reykvíkingur,"
holding a huge bull's tongue – something that shouldn't leave any-
one in doubt of what the cover is supposed to portray – our second
issue of 2006 featured among many things, a rather controversial
cartoon of journalists saluting Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen,
Nazi style. JT/OK
The US Army finally gave up and left Iceland for good after more
then 60 years, taking with them all four F-15s, as reported on in this
issue. Two people were actually surprised. On other fronts, a young
man from Egilsstaðir had this to say when asked about the effect of
importing large numbers of manual labourers to the dating scene in
Northeastern Iceland; "We really need women here. We have been
reduced to sharing them." JT/OK
Andri Snær on the cover, Banksy-style, and a good ol’ story on him
inside. Now, for most of its existence, Grapevine has been a keen
supporter of the Progressive Party. In this issue, the magazine de-
cided to give the Progressives some campaigning advice. It went
something like this: "Are you a member of an unpopular political
party that's past its prime? Are you tired of being accused of de-
stroying the environment and selling out to corporate greed? The
solution is simple: buy a big Hummer, put your logo all over and park
it in a handicapped space outside a campaign rally." Yes. They actu-
ally did that. And retained their seat in government. Ah, yes. JT/OK
Slimy politician on the cover. Aren’t they all? Then: "As I tore the
head off my giant gummy lizard I started to feel terrible, with a
headache and my stomach in pain I crawled home in something of
a drowse wandering if I truly had chewed on my last bit of candy."
Throughout the years GV journos, in this case Steinunn Jakobsdót-
tir, have often put their lives, limbs, friends, relatives, pets and in
some cases their own intestines at risk, in name of research and
journalistic integrity. JT/OK
Editor Bart Cameron joined Singapore Sling (on cover) for a UK tour,
resulting in an in-depth feature on the band. Elsewhere: There are
good days in Iceland. And there are bad days in Iceland. On a bad
day, a man with less than 16% of the popular vote behind him gets
to become the Prime Minister. On a good day, he resigns. On June
15 2006, then-PM and leader of the Progressive party Halldór Ás-
grímsson resigned and left politics for good, as reported on in this
issue. Some days are just better than others. JT/OK
Bart Cameron was on vacation and I was filling in for him, so this was
the first cover I was responsible for. I had no frigging idea how to ap-
proach it, but after some thought, the idea came up to do the Icelan-
dic Viking National team in football, fully clad in armor. Also, in this
issue, our journalist for years, Paul Fontaine-Nikolov, announced
that he was starting a political party focusing on immigrant's issues.
He's been involved with politics ever since. SBB
The Grapevine celebrated the release of it's first book; "Inside
Reykjavík - The Grapevine Guide" by putting it on the cover. Even
though the sales were less than remarkable for some reason, we
are pretty damn proud of that book and what it said. Read it, if you
get the chance. HSM
The feature story accompanying the Smelted cover was the first fea-
ture article I wrote for the Grapevine, and I was pretty damn proud
of it at the time. I thought the cover did it justice. Good job by Gúndi,
getting the aluminum-smelting woman across. I also really liked the
dictionary design. The feature also has this awesome quote by then-
Kaupthing bank chief economical analyst Steingrímur Arnar Finns-
son: "The economy will expand substantially, reaching it's top in the
years 2009, 2010 and 2011." Or so he thought. SBB
Grapevine had reached a consistently awesome plateau at this
point. It had it all, witty editorials, news, in-depth analyses and cul-
tural coverage. As the man on the street, this issue was the turning
point when my admiration turned into envy. The paper tried its best
to introduce Garrison Keillor to Icelanders. He is pretty awesome,
all things considered. They also managed to piss off the Icelandic
Ministry of Foreign Affairs very much. How? Well, they accidentally
placed a photo of a huge dildo, slightly leaning towards the Minis-
try's advertisement in the paper. The responsible parties are awfully
sorry about that. HSM
We feature the probably-forgotten-by-this-point Náttúra concert
orgy on our cover. That was a pretty awesome show. Also, if ever
in doubt: On page 22 of this issue, you can make your own as-
sumptions about whether former Kastljós anchor –slash- former
the Prime Minister’s PR fellow Kristján Kristjánsson is, or is not, a
prick. JT/OK
#34 - Issue 1 - 2006
#35 - Issue 2 - 2006
#33 - Issue 16 - 2005
Grapevine 101
#37 - Issue 4 - 2006 #38 - Issue 5 - 2006
#36 - Issue 3 - 2006
#40 - Issue 7 - 2006#39 - Issue 6 - 2006
Grapevine 101
#41 - Issue 8 - 2006
#43 - Issue 10 - 2006
#42 - Issue 9 - 2006