Reykjavík Grapevine - 28.08.2010, Síða 37

Licensing and
registration of travel-
related services
The Icelandic Tourist Board issues licences to tour operators and travel agents,
as well as issuing registration to booking services and information centres.
Tour operators and travel agents are required to use a special logo approved
by the Icelandic Tourist Board on all their advertisements and on their Internet
website.
Booking services and information centres are entitled to use a Tourist
Board logo on all their material. The logos below are recognised by the
Icelandic Tourist Board.
List of licenced Tour
Operators and Travel
Agencies on:
visiticeland.com
Situated in the Central Bank´s main building in Kalkofnsvegur 1, Reykjavík.
Open Mon.-Fri. 13:30-15:30. Free admittance.
Numismatic Museum
The Central Bank and National Museum of Iceland jointly operate
a numismatic collection that consists of Icelandic notes and coins,
foreign money from earlier times, especially if mentioned in Icelan-
dic sources, and more recent currency from Iceland’s main trading
partner countries. A selection from the numismatic collection is on
display in showcases on the ground floor of the Central Bank’s main
building.
Call: +354 663 8300
Or book online: www.icelandontrack.com
10% off all day tours
Offer valid only if booked directly with Iceland on Track
Iceland on track
Guided Super Jeep Tours
Airwaves is coming! Get to know all the Airwaves acts you're dying to see in
every issue of the Grapevine from now until the big event!
25
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 13 — 2010
Music | Airwaves Preview
Fame In The Bike Lane
Dog Show At The Pound
Bombay Bicycle Club ride their way to rock-stardom
DLX ATX doesn’t need a nice family to take him home
Getting attention for your band in Lon-
don is no easy chore, especially not for
a rag-tag team of whipper-snappers
who should doing their homework.
But this teenage foursome from North
London has gotten their country all
atwitter. Sticking with the classic gui-
tar-bass-drum formula to making indie
rock, they are getting awards thrown
at them left and right which they gladly
accept when they aren’t getting chased
around in panda costumes. With
their upcoming visit for Airwaves, the
Grapevine had a speed-date chat with
drummer Suren de Saram on how suc-
cess is treating them.
Back in 2006, you won the Road to
v contest, landing you an opening
spot on v Fest. Where do you think
you would be if you hadn’t won?
Probably at the same place. When we
won Road to V we were still in school
and had to do our exams. There were
labels that wanted to sign us right away
but we decided to finish up with school
first and then go on from there. It’s not
like after we won it everything blew up
right away.
You also just won the NME award
for best new band against some
pretty serious competition. Have
you started any band feuds yet?
[Laughs] No, no. We’re a pretty pas-
sive band. We don’t want to start any
problems with anyone. Honestly we
were really surprised we won that. We
thought it would go to The XX or Mum-
ford & Sons, so we weren’t expecting it.
You are not from Bombay and you
don’t sing about riding bikes. Why
is your band name so misleading?
It comes from a chain of Indian restau-
rants in London. It’s also some kind of
religious cult and the name of a paint-
ing. We basically just stole it because
we didn’t have a band name and we
needed one.
So you’re a bunch of thieves?
Basically, I guess.
Have any of you been to Iceland be-
fore? What do you have to offer to
the Icelandic people?
No, I don’t think we have. It will be our
first time. We will offer lots of rocking
times and good tunes.
If the band had to order one pizza
together, what toppings would go
on it?
There would definitely have to be lots
of vegetables. Jamie, our guitarist, and
I are both really into veggies and try to
eat really healthy – especially Jamie.
So maybe some sweet corn and green
peppers. Then some pepperoni for ex-
tra flavour.
Are your mums proud?
Yes, I think they are. I think my mum
would like me to go back to study
sometime, but I think she is proud of
me.
What’s next on the horizon?
We are trying out a couple of produc-
ers for the next album. We want to work
with the right person because the last
album wasn’t really planned, it just kind
of happened. Next time we want to do
it better.
REBECCA LOUDER
PROMOTIONAL PICTURE
October 13 -17
Summer is over and school is back in
session, which means the party is ba-
sically over. Well, not really, it’s just
on a much needed hiatus before the
biggest, wildest, messiest and most
drunken five-day party of the year: the
infamous Iceland Airwaves festival.
It’s essentially the craziest weekend
in Reykjavík you could imagine to the
power of ten, five nights in a row. No
sleep.
The real fun of course is the music
and this year’s line-up, booked under
the new festival management of Grímur
Atlason and the Iceland Music Export
team, is already looking stellar. Robyn,
The Antlers, Apparat Organ Quartet,
Moderat, Slagsmålsklubben, Seabear -
the list goes on. Up until the festival, we
will be bringing you two interviews per
issue with Airwaves artists (one foreign
and one local!) so you can get all the
dirt on the bands you love and find out
about some new ones! Enjoy!
Eight Weeks Until Airwaves!
Start stretching…
Greg Barrett is a bit of a riddle. He left
Ireland five years ago and relocated to
this country, just one letter off, to start
an illustrious career in pottery making.
While his artistic endeavours thrived,
he got antsy to make some noise and
started up an inexplicable, lo-fi sludge,
art-punk unit comprised of bass, drums
and howling. Greg and his drummer
Pétur Már Guðmundsson rocked out
for two years but decided it was best
to part ways this summer. But now DLX
ATX is scheduled to play Airwaves,
and we wondered… uhm, how? So we
asked Greg.
So seriously, what’s the deal?
That remains to be determined, actu-
ally. I feel somewhat responsible for the
music that comes out, but I’m not en-
tirely sure what kind of set up it will be.
As you know it used to be just my-
self and a drummer. That kind of ran
its course and we stopped playing to-
gether for various reasons. I wouldn’t
say it was anything personal, it just be-
came more and more difficult to write,
so with the frustration that brought on
we were getting on each others’ nerves
a little bit. We tried to push it as far
as we could go and figured we better
stop otherwise it’s going to be really
unpleasant. Thankfully it seems like we
made that decision at just the right time
because we can still stop and chat on
the street and we get along, so that’s
nice. There were no issues about who
owns what because there was no point
arguing about something that is essen-
tially valueless. He made his contribu-
tion and I made mine and we’ve gone
our separate ways.
Not through any particular cre-
ative decision, it ended up that rather
than replacing Pétur and playing the
old songs, I thought it would be much
easier and less confrontational to do
something completely different. I per-
formed with Aðalsteinn (AMFJ) at the
off-venue at Eistnaflug, and he just did
some random stuff on the computer
and I ran my bass through a bunch of
effects and we did a random improv
drone set. That worked really well. That
gave me the confidence that I didn’t
have to dream up the whole thing
again, but that I could express myself in
a new free space without any particular
consciousness of what that might be.
The last two concerts I’ve played,
I’ve kind of gone up with random peo-
ple and I took on a character rather
than on their past experience of play-
ing live music. I figured they would be
nice people to hang around with up on
stage. I mean, I’m not big into improv. I
think it can often be really boring but
I was delighted that people actually
seemed to stick around and enjoy it. I
think people appreciated that we were
taking a risk. I always take it from what
I’d like to see or hear and that’s what I
like to offer people.
That’s great. And what’s your fa-
vourite colour?
Black, because it contains all the co-
lours.
REBECCA LOUDER
INGA HEIðA HJöRLEIFSDóTTIR