Reykjavík Grapevine - 11.10.2013, Side 58

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The Wonders of Volcanoes
Volcano House Cinema – Dramatic and Informative
Volcano House Café – Healthy and Volcanic
Geological Exhibition, free entrance
Tourist information and Booking Service
Volcano House Boutique
Open from 9.00 – 22,00. Films are shown every hour on the hour!
Striking documentaries on eruptions in Iceland in amazing Emmy nominated footages.
Shows every hour on the hour in English, from 09.00 – 21.00. German and French
version upon request.
The Volcano House Café presents the only volcanic menu in Iceland. Breakfast Lunch
Meal of the day Light meals Happy Hour Deserts Volcanic Co!ee.
Volcano House I Tryggvagata 11 I Tel. 555 1900
www.volcanohouse.is I info@volcanohouse.is
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Simmering Iceland Airwaves O! Venue program Thurs, Fri, Sat, (31.10 -2.11) from 12.00 – 20.00.More on volcanohouse.is
Magnús Trygvason Eliassen, “Maggi,”
drums in local bands Amiina, Borko,
Kippi Kaninus, Moses Hightower, Sin
Fang, Tilbury, Snorri Helgason and a
number of others on a rotating basis. He
manages to balance domestic and inter-
national touring, recording and practic-
ing with all of them throughout the year,
but from a peripheral view, it seems like
trying to date several people at the same
time, and Airwaves would be that week-
end when they all happen to be in town
at the same time.
Last Airwaves, Maggi played 24
shows with various bands, running with
his drums between venues in November
weather that feels like someone is beat-
ing you with a cold, wet towel. By most
music festival standards, this is an in-
sane number of shows to play, but by the
standards of Reykjavík’s tight-knit mu-
sic community, it’s kind of just expected.
When I walked into the Airwaves
office seeking the person scheduling
the bands, or what I imagined would
be a burnt-out intern crying in front of
an Excel sheet, everyone seemed wildly
caffeinated and totally unshaken by my
insistence that 24 shows in five days was
abnormal. “Everyone in an Icelandic
band is playing, like, ten shows,” some-
one chimed in.
“It’s actually a rush I really like,
playing all that and running between
venues,” Maggi says offhandedly, as if
23 shows would have been too boring.
This year he’ll be playing with just seven
bands in nine shows given that he has
to miss the first two days of the festival.
I try to imagine a Brooklyn-based indie
band playing more than twenty shows in
a weekend because they were supporting
friends in other projects. Perhaps Reyk-
javík hasn’t been cursed by the rigidity
that came with tight pants and the ultra-
competitive music scenes of larger cities.
“I don’t feel the music scene here is
very competitive,” Maggi says. “I want
to see great drummers here play and
succeed. I think most musicians in Ice-
land are like that.” Maggi posits that the
music scene in Reykjavík is less about
an aesthetic than it is about people who
found a type of music they love and then
threw themselves into it. “Musicians
here don’t make a lot of money so if
you’re making music it’s something that
you really love. You don’t have to listen to
the Replacements and wear Cheap Mon-
days to play in an indie band here.”
Guitarist Örn Eldjárn, who will play
with Maggi in Borko and Tilbury this
year, played fifteen Airwaves shows last
year. “The music community here is
small, we all just hang out and play to-
gether,” he says.
Equally ambiguous about what was
beginning to seem like a musician’s
mafia, Albert Finnbogason, of bands
Grísalappalísa and Skelkur í bringu and
accompaniment to sóley, says he can’t
explain how it all works out. This year
he’s slated to play upwards of 14 shows
and he doesn’t think it’s that big of a
deal. “It seems like a lot but I think ev-
eryone’s doing it,” he says. “If you play
a brass instrument it’s likely more than
that.” Both he and Maggi mentioned the
Airwaves 2011 Wonder Woman Ragnhil-
dur Gunnarsdóttir, the trumpeter of Of
Monsters And Men, who played thirty
shows including three with the biggest
bands on Saturday night.
Perhaps that’s the local enigma of the
festival—that if you miss your friend in
one band, you’ll be able to see them at
least five or six other times. “Airwaves
is a festival to go see something you’ve
never heard before,” Maggi says. Played,
perhaps, by an arrangement of people
you’ve seen only every-elsewhere.
MUSICIANv ISSUE 16 — 2013GRAPEVINE AIRWAVES
Maybe Reykjavík’s tight-knit music community is
just one big band
—Words by Alex Baumhardt
Gu!mundur Vignir Karlsson