Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.02.2006, Blaðsíða 35
where
whO
whEN
Gaukur á stöng
Kings of Hell
with Krummi,
Hairdoctor,
Úlpa and
Jan Mayen
January 15th
2006
When Jón Atli of Hairdoctor told me the opening
line he was planning, I was expecting a rumble. Jón
Atli is a small, well-groomed… well, pretty boy with a
good voice who fronts Hairdoctor, and who likely has
women call him to offer him protection or mothering
on a daily basis. Insulting a band of four large, tattooed
rockabilly musicians from Jacksonville, Florida seemed
decidedly unwise.
“You should not pick on larger, more dangerous
bands,” I said.
Jón Atli and Árni, the two thin members of Hair-
doctor agreed, and promptly went onstage and picked a
fight.
The fact that nobody cared indicated something
wasn’t what it looked like—or at least that cheap as-
sumptions about people with tattoos sometimes need
to be abandoned.
For one thing, the most testosterone-fuelled per-
formances of the evening were brought forward by the
most innocent looking bands: Jan Mayen and Hairdoc-
tor. For another thing, Kings of Hell, enormous and
tattooed, were so pleasant, easygoing, and seemingly
uninterested in the core of their songs—just playing
the crowd and smiling—that you felt you were at a
wedding.
Hairdoctor put up four slamming numbers,
obnoxious and cocksure as self-conscious irono-pop
can be. Úlpa played their best to a hostile crowd. Jan
Mayen, who have played infrequently while putting
together new material, got a screaming ovation, but a
cold response to their new material, which seemed a
little too simple and devoid of hooks to keep up with
their remarkable Home of the Free Indeed album. The
songs from their 2004 album are aging extremely well,
in serious danger of becoming rock bar classics.
And then Kings of Hell came on. A red-haired
monster of a Floridian walked onstage with a laughably
spotless flame-painted double bass and began to dis-
play rockabilly basslines that the Stray Cats would have
killed for. In a two-minute sound check, he stunned
the entire crowd and got a screaming response. His
reaction should have told us something: the 6 foot 3
giant looked more like an evil Viking than anybody on
Icelandic shores, but the cheering embarrassed him so
much that he turned a beet red across the face.
As the night went on, it turned out the master
bassist was the attraction, musically. The other three
members had excellent tattoos, and the frontman was
also strong and smiled a lot, but lyrics about girls who
talk to them at bars and don’t call back just don’t evoke
royalty or hell. When Krummi of Mínus guested for
two songs, the crowd perked up for a few minutes,
but the songs didn’t match his range or timing, and
miscues drained the energy from the performance.
We left wanting to like the Kings of Hell, and
wanting to be nicer to people with tattoos in general,
and, mainly, wanting to hear good music.
By Bart Cameron | Photos by Gúndi
If Tattoos Were Instruments