Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.06.2013, Page 6

Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.06.2013, Page 6
THE GRAPEVINE TURNS 10! �������������������� ���� �������� ���������� ��������� ������������� �������������������� �� ���������������� ����������� ������������������� ������� ������ ����������������������� ���� ����������������� ������� ���������������� ������������������ ��������������������� ���������������������� ���������� ����� ����� ����� �� ������ ������ �������� ������ �� ���� ���� ���� ����������������������������������������� On the cover this issue are 10 people who have appeared on the cover of a past Grapevine issue in each of the last 10 years. They are significant for one reason or the other, and we are pretty proud to have them all on the cover once more, this time together, celebrating our tenth birthday! Read on to learn more about the cover stars and why they are there… This was Singapore Sling in Stoke on Trent, on tour with the Brian Jonestown Massacre. They gave me all access. We were a little short-staffed, and so I had worked 48 hours straight before flying to London to catch up with the band. The experience was like ‘Al- most Famous’ if it were directed by David Lynch. The music of Singapore Sling and BJM is fantastic, but the divide between the lifestyle and meaning was jarring. I watched these fantastic concerts with fans who were decent people, made by bands who were sur- prisingly open and friendly, and the result would be, well, Henrik from Singapore Sling summed it up: “A fan in Norway took me to his house and told me my music was great, it made him want to commit suicide.” The on-edge brilliance butted up with supernatu- ral banality. I should also admit that I had a very high fever for most of this trip, and the photographer ended up evacuating me to his house. When I flew home to Iceland, next to a prominent politician, I looked like I was coming off a heroin addiction. – Bart Cameron So... GusGus. I don't really remember much about this cover, other than we were having difficulties coming up with a concept. Then we found out GusGus had just done a photo shoot to promote their upcoming album. The band was one of the original music success stories out of Iceland, and this was their first album in five years. So we got to use some photos from that shoot for the cover and did a last minute interview with GusGus member Biggi Veira to go with it. It worked out great in the end. The visuals were really strong, but usually, the material dictates the cover, not the other way around. – Sveinn Birkir Björnsson We did a great interview with Lay Low for this issue and we wanted to put her on the cover. She was just about to release her sec- ond album, and we not only liked the album, but also loved the fact that a female country and blues artist from Iceland was making waves. This is the first of many covers Bal- dur Kristjáns would do for The Grapevine. We really liked the way he managed to capture the tender, delicate person that ap- peared in the interview. – Sveinn Birkir Björnsson As protests still raged at Austurvöllur, we accompanied composer Ólafur Arnalds and the bands Hjaltalín and Retro Stefson to Oslo's annual By:larm music festival. All three acts had much going for them at the time, critically acclaimed albums and positive post-Airwaves write-ups abound. A lot had been brewing in Reykjavík’s much-hyped music scene; it felt like it had reached a bursting point, that it was time for someone to break out. Wanting to capture that fleeting moment, we tagged along for the showcase ride and documented the art- ists strutting their stuff for the Norwegians. Meanwhile, Icelanders were busy being indignant about the lavish lifestyles their financial elites had enjoyed (a turn from aspiring to/celebrating them). SHOCK! re- ports on lavish gold-eating, coke snorting private jet parties filled the media. This amused us, so we played with that theme on the cover, setting the musicians up as hu- bristic banksters partying it up in the most 2007 setting we could imagine. Designer Jói Kjartans then brought the idea of setting it up tabloid style, modelling the cover on an issue of HELLO! – Haukur SM This issue features an amusing article by Hallgrímur Helgason in which he ponders Iceland’s tradition of building ugly houses. It was originally written as a speech, which he gave at the Louisiana Art Museum in Humlebæk, Denmark, but we thought it made for great reading and he gave us per- mission to print it. For the cover, Hrefna Sigurðardóttir illustrated an angry look- ing Hallgrímur Helgason surrounded by a bunch of sad looking architectural sites around Reykjavík, including his cleverly dubbed “Indian Tent” and “NASA Mobile Launch Platform That Accidentally Fell on the Ground After Liftoff of the Space Shuttle and Then Was Painted White.” – Anna Andersen When you see a political figure (such as Hannes Hólmsteinn Gissurarson) on our cover, this is not in any way an endorse- ment—rather it is our understanding that they at that time have things to say that are relevant to readers' interests. This was certainly the case with our Steingrímur J. Sigfússon cover, the only time an active minister has graced our front page. As minister of finance, which was in 2010 one of the most important posts one could hold in Iceland (due to some events of a couple of years earlier, we forget exactly what). After hearing some disturbing sto- ries regarding “the true state” of Iceland's finances, and also because we had the hard- est time understanding what exactly was happening, we reached out to the notori- ously busy Steingrímur. To our surprise, he picked up and granted us an interview and cover shoot. In the story, he talks a lot about “cleaning up the mess”—this provided a theme for our cover, which was shot by Bal- dur Kristjáns. – Haukur SM We had no idea what we were getting into when we asked Sheba to model for our cover. A recent immigrant working as a barista at Segafredo at the time, she made her way into Icelandic cultural history after our cover caused a furore and was subsequently shown in art exhibitions, taught at the university and spoofed in cartoons and comic shows. Most people applauded the vision she represented of a more heterogeneous future for Iceland on its 60th anniversary, but there was a dark side. Both she and I would soon receive threats by ultra-nationalists, which is proba- bly more than she signed up for. Her bravery in some ways did change the country. – Valur Gunnarsson Mammút were on the cover of our first Air- waves tie-in. They were so young when we took this photo. I thought it was so expres- sive—and it matched the optimism that we had when we approached this festival. When I took over the year I wanted to get away from the superficial, hype-and-stereotype writing that the Icelandic and foreign media were do- ing on the festival. I felt if we could just send reporters out to write honestly about every band, it’d be a huge departure from anything we’d seen before in festival coverage. What still stuns me about the whole Airwaves proj- ect is that we’re the only magazine I’ve come across to make any effort to do something like this: to actually report on music instead of massage press releases. – Bart Cameron This was the fourth issue of Grapevine, our first cover interview and in some ways the first issue that we were truly happy with. De- spite his influence on his sometime collabo- rator Björk and pretty much everyone else in Icelandic music, Megas is largely unknown abroad, which perhaps goes with being a brilliant lyricist in one of the world’s smallest languages. During the interview, we talked about pretty much everything except his career, and it was very interesting to get the Megas world view. And nice to leave your hero holding an even higher opinion of him. – Valur Gunnarsson + THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO LIFE, TRAVEL & ENTERTAINMENT IN ICELAND www.grapevine.is OMG! Strætó is finally stepping into the 21st century Glitnir CEO Lárus Welding made over $3.000 per day in 2009 LOL! London's Mayor vs. Reykjavík's ROFL! RIFF promises plenty of fun times BRB Watching whales, rowing boats WTF! IN THE ISSUE Issue 15 • 2010 • September 24 - October 7 COMPLETE CITY LISTINGS - INSIDE! T SPORTSDANCING TRAVEL MUSIC CHOCOLATE YOUR FREE COPY THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO LIFE, TRAVEL & ENTERTAINMENT IN ICELAND × 2012 November 9 - December 7 Issue 17 Do it during lunchtime! NBA-rejects find solace in Iceland! Drive these fjörds forever... Awesome #airwaves12 moments! Yummy Prince Polo is still the king! Icelandic architecture is mostly kind of awful, really (despite the odd gem). You've thought this, and you are not alone. In our feature, artist/writer Hallgrímur Helgason examines the depressing surroundings of his childhood, the problem of "personal expression" in Icelandic architecture, the freak show of the Icelandic churches, "Lobbyism" as an architectural trend, the jealousy of architects towards artists, and more! Page 16 Complete Reykjavík Listings Lots of cool events+ Download the FREE Grapevine Appy Hour app!Every happy hour in town in your pocket. Available on the App store and on Android Market. A lot of Reykjavík is aptly described as "what happens when you let contractors design buildings and neighbourhoods." Hallgrímur Helgason Rips Icelandic Architecture A New One GV 4, 2003 GV 15, 2008 GV 3, 2009 GV 15, 2010 GV 2, 2004 GV 14, 2005 GV 8, 2006 GV 3, 2007 I was filling in for Haukur this issue while he drove around Iceland in one of those Happy Campers campervans. I thought it went pretty well although Haukur had prepped most of it before he left and Sve- inn Birkir came in to help too. I have since learned that making Grapevine issues is a lot more work than it was for me this first time. In Grapevine’s ninth year, this cer- tainly wasn’t the first time the annual Gay Pride celebration featured in an August issue, but we thought an interview with Hörður Torfason made for a nice twist. Not only is he Iceland’s first openly gay man, but he also played a large role in the story of Iceland’s ‘Pots & Pans revolution,’ which the world had been watching so closely. – Anna Andersen THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO LIFE, TRAVEL & ENTERTAINMENT IN ICELAND www.grapevine.is PAGE 23 CONSTITUTION We are making a new one! LungA - G! Festival Verslunarmannahelgi! CULTURE Gay Pride info and schedule MUSIC Cut Copy are awesome TRAVEL A fancy pullout dedicated to ... FESTIVALS IN THE ISSUE Issue 11 • 2011 • July 29 - August 11 COMPLETE CITY LISTINGS - INSIDE!+ NO LAWS ON LOVE I C E L A N D ' S F I R S T O P E N L Y G A Y M A N S E T S T H E R E C O R D S T R A I G H T TRAVEL: 12 PAGES OF OUTSIDE REYKJAVÍK! GV 11, 2011 GV 12, 2012 6The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 7 — 2013 PREPARING FOR TAKE OFF Mammút and 90 other local bands rock Airwaves Special Icelandair Edition 050193-2179 YOUR NUMBER AT BIRTH Your Free Copy Why Public Social Security Numbers Work Spelunking extraordinaire: Nick Cave and Reykjanes Caving Plus everything you need to know about Airwaves Franz Ferdinand Insults Icelandic Football and that’s before the interview starts We’ve Got Your Number: Why Public Social Security Numbers Work Spelunking extraordinaire: Nick Cave and Reykjanes Caving Plus everything you need to know about Airwaves Franz Ferdinand Insults Icelandic Football and that’s before the interview starts Your Free Copy

x

Reykjavík Grapevine

Direct Links

If you want to link to this newspaper/magazine, please use these links:

Link to this newspaper/magazine: Reykjavík Grapevine
https://timarit.is/publication/943

Link to this issue:

Link to this page:

Link to this article:

Please do not link directly to images or PDFs on Timarit.is as such URLs may change without warning. Please use the URLs provided above for linking to the website.