Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.09.2011, Blaðsíða 16

16
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 14 — 2011
Kraum of the crop
A shop dedicated to the best of icelandic design.
OPENING HOURS
Week days 9:00 - 20:00
Saturday 10:00 - 17:00
Sunday 12:00 - 17:00
Kraum is in the oldest house
in Reykjavík. Aðalstræti 10,
p. 517 7797, kraum.is
I guess you could call them ‘legendary.’
In any case, they’re more ‘legendary’
than most of the crap that is being sold
as ‘legendary’ in these limp times of re-
cycled pap. OK, OK, old fart mode off.
HAM is one helluva band and have
been since day one. I first encountered
Sigurjón Kjartansson (guitar, vocals,
songwriting) in a bus going to Kópa-
vogur from Reykjavík sometime in the
spring of 1988. I had already released
some music on my tiny indie label
Erðanúmúsík, and Sigurjón wanted my
help in releasing the first HAM single.
“Sure,” I said. I don't think I had even
heard HAM at the time but Sigurjón
was very eager and convincing. Noth-
ing would come of that single, but we
still hung out and got to know one an-
other. He produced S.H. Draumur's
last record (S.H. Draumur is my band,
as it were) and I rehearsed with HAM
for a while and played guitar with them
at exactly one show.
Now, twenty-three years later, the
two of us are sitting at Café Haiti.
HAM's first studio album for twenty-
two years has just been released upon
the hungry masses. It's called ‘Svik,
harmur og dauði’ (“Betrayal, Grief And
Death”). We'll talk about that album
later, but we should start by learning
about Sigurjón as a young boy, and how
he became interested in music.
GROUNDBREAKING SHIT FOR A
SIx-YEAR OLD
"Music was always around me as a kid.
My parents were very involved in music,
conducting choirs and teaching it. We
lived in Reykholt in Borgarfjörður until
1975, when we moved to Ísafjörður [Sig-
urjón was born in 1968]. I got my pop
upbringing from my older brother Sve-
inn. He opened my eyes to Slade, which
was groundbreaking shit for a six-year
old boy. Just stunning stuff. The first
record I owned was a Slade album.
When I was eight, I had developed
an interest in disco, and I remained a
huge disco fan until the age of twelve.
For the Christmas of 1980 I hoped to
get the new Helga Möller Christmas
album as a present, but Sveinn, al-
ways the important inf luence, gave
me ‘Geislavirkir’ by [Bubbi Morthen's
seminal punk rock band] Utangarðs-
menn instead. I had no interest in the
album and told Sveinn I'd exchange
it after the holidays, but he insisted I
give the album a go. So I went up to my
room and listened to the record with
my headphones. Thus, what happened
on Christmas Eve of 1980 is that I went
from being a boy into being a man. I
was spellbound by that album, and still
am. In fact, I still own the same copy,
and I still listen to it a lot."
A PUNK-ROCKER IN
ÍSAFJöRðUR
Under Utangarðsmenn's spell, Sig-
urjón became a punk-rocker. Being a
punk-rocker in small, small Ísafjörður
(about 4.000 people lived there in
1980, which is more people than live
there now) was a lonely existence.
"Sveinn owned a bass and an amp
and played with some cover bands. He
was such a good older brother that he
didn't mind me hanging out in his
room, so I learned to play the bass by
hanging out there and playing along to
his records. I soon became quite good,
and could correct Sveinn when he was
playing the songs wrong. I quickly got
fed up jamming along to Status Quo
songs, or whatever, and started writing
my own.”
“I eventually started dreaming of
forming a band. And then I formed a
band. My first one was called Andstæða
(“Opposite”) and it was quite peculiar.
It started out as a duet with me playing
the drums and another guy screaming.
It was very difficult to find someone
to play with in Ísafjörður. I was ca-
pable on most instruments, and often
I wished I could just clone myself and
do everything. I eventually managed
to train two guys into being fairly good
bass players, but I never found a guitar
player, so Andstæða never had a com-
plete line-up. I envied young bands in
Reykjavík that I read about in the news-
papers."
HAM have a new studio album out, their first
since 1989. Dr. Gunni, who was a member of
the band for few months in 1988, sat down with
bandleader and main songwriter Sigurjón
Kjartansson to talk everything HAM.
Words Dr. Gunni
Photography Hörður Sveinsson
“It's No Coincidence
We've Been Called
The Ironic Generation”