Reykjavík Grapevine - 03.12.2010, Page 15

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 18 — 2010
dr. Gunni's History Of Icelandic Rock | Part 26
By Dr. Gunni (Based on his book Eru ekki allir í stuði from 2001). We hear the
good doctor is working on an updated version of the book for 2011!
Five Super-Weird
Icelandic records!
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Icelandic musicians have produced
their share of weird records. Some
records aim to be weird, but some
are weird by accident, the artist
involved even being fully serious
about the whole thing. The five be-
low are truly weird, some by design,
others by accident.
BROKEN SILENCE, BROKEN
GUITAR
Jóhann G. Jóhannsson, who had been
part of Óðmenn, a Cream influenced
rock trio, hit Weirdsville fast in 1972
when his super weird two track 7" was
released. The "songs" were called ‘The
Silence Broken’ and ‘Broken Guitar’ and
they sounded just like that: On side A,
a long silence was broken with a violent
scream, on side B a guitar was slowly
torn apart and broken. This weirdness
marked the start of Jóhann's (completely
unweird) solo career, and he says the re-
cord's release was a sounding board for
dare.
“I had written a song called ‘Don't
Try To Fool Me’ (later to become a pop
classic) that Ámundi Ámundason (then
a record mogul in Iceland) wanted to
release as a single, but I said he had to
release this single first. He said alright,
as long as he didn't have to listen to it.
The single was sealed so people had to
buy it before they could listen to it. Even-
tually it made a profit, and then Ámundi
laughed out loud. Everybody thought I
had lost my marbles when this single
came out!"
The broken guitar track was record-
ed as a form of stress-release at the end
of Óðmenn's long sessions for their clas-
sic double album in 1970, but the silence
track Jóhann recorded at home.
"I had tried to record it several times,
but there was always some distraction,
once a hail storm even broke out in the
middle of the silence. Eventually I got it
done in the middle of the night, but my
scream woke up the people on the f loor
above me who came rushing down in a
state of shock. I had turned the tape re-
corder off by then though!"
SQUEAKy BALLOON RECORd
Industrial veterans Reptilicus' first "re-
cord" was a very weird one. It is called
‘Tat was asi’ and came out in 1989.
"We got the idea from Bjarni the
Mohawk [singer from teen punk band
Sjálfsfróun]," says Reptilicus singer
Guðmundur Ingi Markússon. "I met
him once downtown where he sat with
a blown up balloon and made squeaky
sounds with it. He was no fan of our
band, so he made a joke that this was
what his next album would sound like.
He meant it as a pot-shot at us."
The band members got some old
LPs from their parents and painted them
black, both the records and the sleeves.
On the back side was a track list—"we
considered this a 12" with two tracks,"
says Guðmundur—and precise instruc-
tions on how to perform the songs with
the two black balloons that came with
the record.
"We meant to make fifty copies but
we only got around to making around
ten. The record was for sale in [legend-
ary indie and underground record store]
Grammið, and we sold one copy. I still
don't know who bought it!"
TROUBAdOURS dEGRAdEd
The rudest man-hating record ever to be
released in Iceland came out in 1990. It
was a 7" by Dýrið gengur laust (“The an-
imal walks freely”), a rock group fronted
by singer Jón Filippusson, formerly of
punk group Sogblettir (“Love bites”).
The uneventful song, called Bláir drau-
mar (“Blue dreams”) was performed in
ballad and rock style, but the lyrics were
pure bile, where three beloved trouba-
dours—Bubbi Morthens, Hörður Torfa-
son and Megas—were accused of being
paedophiles and "faggots". Later, the
singer had huge regrets about the lyrics.
"The record was sold under the table
and it sold quite well, about 1.000 cop-
ies. We could drink out of the profits for
a long time. Fortunately we never got
any complaints from the subjects," Jón
later said with deep relief.
THE RECORd THAT WAS pAWNEd
IN SWEdEN
One of the late eighties rock bands in
Iceland was called E-X, originally Pro-
fessor X. It came from Hafnafjörður
and was lead by two guitarists, Davíð
Magnússon (later of nineties combo
Bubblieflies) and Pétur Hallgrímsson
(who would later play with LHOOQ, Ky-
lie Minogue and Emilíana Torrini). The
band played R.E.M. influenced rock and
sang in English. In the spring of 1988,
their first 7" was ready with the songs
‘Frontiers’ and ‘Highway One’. The
recordings were done in Studio Mjöt,
which also sent the master to their asso-
ciates, a pressing plant in Sweden.
A year earlier, Mjöt had produced a
very ambitious Christmas album called
‘Hvít er borg og bær’, where people like
Björk, Megas and Miss Universe, Hólm-
fríður "Hófí" Karlsdóttir, performed
songs written by Ingibjörg Þorbergs.
This had sold much less than expected,
so a big debt was due in Sweden. The
Swedes took the E-X single in pawn, and
as the debt was never paid the single
was never delivered and is probably col-
lecting dust on some Ikea shelves some-
where. The E-X boys have never even
seen their own record, but they have
heard of people who have seen it!
THE BIRTH OF ‘CATASTROpHE-pOp’
In 1966 at age 16, amazing drummer
Gunnar Jökull Hákonarson moved to
London, where he landed a job with the
band The Syn. This psychedelic pop
band made two very good singles on
Pye records, which Gunnar drums on.
The band would eventually evolve into
prog giants Yes—fame and fortune en-
sued. Unfortunately, Gunnar had left
the band by then, but he was for some
time known in Iceland as "the drummer
who nearly joined Yes". In Iceland, Gun-
nar drummed on some great records
with psych-rock legends Trúbrot before
vanishing in early seventies (to live in
Sweden).
In 1995 he surprisingly returned in
Iceland with his first solo album, ‘Ham-
farir’ (“Catastrophe”), where he did not
drum one beat, but preferred to perform
his naive pop songs on some kind of a
cheap Casio fun machine. His lyrics
were crude and straight to the point
with titles like ‘Kaffið mitt’ (“My Cof-
fee”), ‘Hundurinn minn’ (“My Dog”)
and ‘Bíllinn minn’ (“My Car”). Gunnar's
weird music and strained vocals horri-
fied his old fans but gained new ones,
like Jón Gnarr and Sigurjón Kjartansson
who played his stuff regularly on their
Tvíhöfði radio show.
The album's reception was not as
overall welcoming as Gunnar had ex-
pected. Unfortunately, nothing was
heard from him musically afterwards,
and he died in 2001 of Aids related
causes.
In honour of Gunnar's sincere al-
bum ‘Catastrophe-pop’ has been the
word used to describe similarly eccen-
tric music released later on by people
like Gissur Björn Eiríksson and Leoncie.

1 The cover of Jóhann G. Jóhannsson's
Þögnin rofin / Brotinn gítar 7"
2 Reptilicus being cool in downtown
Reykjavík, 1991
3 The Cover of Gunnar Jökull Hákonarson's
‘Hamfarir’
1