Reykjavík Grapevine - 23.05.2014, Síða 34

MUSIC 34 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 06 — 2014
“We were on a radio program a couple
years ago,” recounts Guðmundur Atli
Pétursson, a 33-year-old lighting techni-
cian for RÚV and also Illgresi’s mandolin
player. “We just said, ‘Hey, if anybody’s
out there playing banjo or fiddle in this
style, please let us know.’ We didn’t hear
from anybody.”
Now surely no one thought it would
be easy to find enthusiasts of blue-
grass—a syncopated string-based folk
music that originates in America’s Ap-
palachian and Southern states—in the
northernmost capital of the globe. But
could it really be that difficult?
On a recent fishing excursion to
Meðalfellsvatn in search of some of the
first brown trout of season, Guðmundur
and Arnbjörn “Björn” Sólimann Sig-
urðsson, Illgresi’s guitarist, discussed
the band’s history, its struggles as the
country’s sole purveyor of bluegrass and
its mission to plant this unique musical
genre in Icelandic soil.
Old Times Are Not Forgotten
Back in 2006, Björn found himself
hooked on a newly discovered style of
music. “I had been learning jazz guitar
in music school,” he recalls, casually
casting his line into the placid lake. “I al-
ways loved acoustic music, though, and
when I finally heard Clarence White and
his flatpicking style, it changed my life.
I haven’t touched my old electric guitar
since.”
The natural next step was to form
a band, so Björn recruited his oldest
friend, Eiríkur Hlöðversson, to pick up
double bass. Another friend, Vignir Þór
Pálsson, was easily convinced to try
his hand at banjo, arguably the most
important part of any bluegrass group.
The hand proved adept, and before
long Vignir was playing Scruggs style, a
three-finger picking method perfected
by North Carolina bluegrass legend Earl
Scruggs that is at once the lifeblood and
the crowning glory of the genre. When
Björn, Eiríkur and Vignir happened on
Guðmundur by chance at a now-defunct
Celtic music session, they knew they had
found their final missing component. So
the quartet was born.
Vignir’s proficiency on the banjo soon
introduced a hazard into the equation,
however. “The first tune Vignir learned
was ‘Groundspeed,’ by Scruggs, a really
fast tune,” Guðmundur chuckles, reeling
in an unbitten hook stuck through his
soggy bait. “So we started out playing
crazy fast. We were playing way faster
than we could manage.” The bandmates,
focused more on the music than the im-
age of being a blazing fast string band,
reined in the tempo. “It’s hard music to
play,” Guðmundur observes. “We want-
ed to play better, so we had to slow it
down.”
Before long the band was gigging
around Reykjavík. In the six years since
they started playing together, the capi-
tal region has remained their primary
haunt, but they’ve ventured farther afield
as well, playing in Siglufjörður and at the
Kántrýdagar (“Country Days”) Festival
in Skagaströnd in 2012.
Workin’ It Out
There are some truly existential chal-
lenges to playing old-time and bluegrass
music in Iceland. Besides finding others
familiar with the genre, there’s the sim-
ple task of securing decent instruments.
According to Guðmundur, if you’re look-
ing for a quality banjo or mandolin, you
better start looking someplace else.
His own search for the right mandolin
in the storefronts of Reykjavík seemed
so hopeless that he ordered a custom-
ized model from an artisan in Oregon. “I
looked around and never found one with
all the specs I needed—F5 body; banjo-
sized frets; a radiused fingerboard,” he
says. “I wanted a certain tonal quality
too, a full, bluegrass sound.” Four years
after the purchase, he’s suffered no buy-
er’s remorse.
Once the instruments are secured,
the next step is making sure people
know what they are. “Everyone thinks
Guðmundur’s mandolin is a banjo,”
Björn says when I ask about typical
reactions to their music. The questions
about his “banjo” became so frequent
that Guðmundur put a sticker on his
mandolin case to clear up the confu-
sion. It’s as droll as it is informative:
“Not a banjo.”
The lack of familiarity with the style
in Iceland presents another problem as
well. In the US, bluegrass offers a com-
forting lap of tradition for musicians to
lay their heads in. In a country like Ice-
land, that tradition doesn’t carry over,
so any attempt to recreate or operate
within it is fraught with peril. I ask if
they write any of their own music. Björn
perks up. “I had a tune once,” he says.
“The more I thought about it though,
the melody was kind of familiar. Then
I was like, ‘Hey, it’s ‘Stony Lonesome.’
With traditional music, it’s hard to hit
on a melody that hasn’t already been
done.” Indeed, it’s hard enough just
getting the traditional tunes right. “We
haven’t written much original material
yet, since we’ve been busy studying the
songs and trying to keep them true to
the style,” Guðmundur says.
Then there’s the typically Icelandic
challenge of fishing. Not the kind we’re
doing in Meðalfellsvatn, but actual in-
dustrial-scale fishing, like the kind from
which Björn makes his living. “It runs in
the blood,” he shrugs. “My father and
both grandfathers were all fishermen.”
Trips take Björn out to sea for weeks
at a time, making practice schedules
erratic and concert planning difficult.
The hard work of fishing in the freez-
ing North Atlantic also takes a toll on
the hands—something clearly problem-
atic for a guitarist, especially one who
needs to pick fast bluegrass tunes. But
fishing also offers its advantages. “I
learned all of my bluegrass stuff at sea,”
Björn says. “You don’t have tons of time,
but you have privacy. You can just focus
on the tunes.”
Will The Circle Be Unbroken?
What motivates Björn and Guðmundur
to keep playing this music, despite its
alien status in Iceland? Part of it is an
obsession bordering on monomania.
“Our experience with
bluegrass is that once
you really get into it,
you’re hooked,” Guð-
mundur says, paying
as little attention to the
pun as the fish are to
the mutilated worms
speared at the ends of
our lines. “We’re con-
stantly thinking about
what we can do to
improve our playing,”
Björn agrees. He paus-
es a beat before dou-
bling down. “We can’t
stop thinking about the
music. We’re awake,
reading about it. We’re
asleep, dreaming about
it.”
The other big driv-
ing force is a sense of
mission. Just as there
are few bluegrass
pickers in Iceland,
there are few fans as
well, or even just peo-
ple in the know. “I re-
ally want folks here to
give at least one good
listen to this music, to
become familiar with
it,” Guðmundur says. I
ask if Icelanders have
any exposure at all
to bluegrass in popular culture. “We
get requests for “Dueling Banjos” all
the time,” he laughs, referring to the
popular tune featured in the 1978 film
‘Deliverance.’ “I dig that though,” Björn
springs in. “A lot of guys, like my dad,
when they saw that movie, they were
hearing this music for the first time and
absolutely loved it. You see it played
more or less live in the movie, which is
important, because the form is meant to
be enjoyed live.”
Down The Road
All of a sudden, Björn heaves out a sharp
“dammit” followed by a deep sigh. “I had
one,” he says. “He bit my line, but then
he must have swum
off.” It was the clos-
est any of us would
come to catching a
fish on this trip, but
it hardly mattered.
The views alone
around Meðal-
fellsvatn made the
drive more than
worth it. We were
also able to con-
sole ourselves with
the knowledge that
rod-and-reel fish-
ing has never really
been about catch-
ing fish anyway.
As we close out
the afternoon, Guð-
mundur reflects on
the upshot of his ex-
perience with blue-
grass in Iceland, all
the searching for
instruments, study
sessions on the old
masters, sweating
over gigs and tough
first steps required
to teach one group
of stubbornly tra-
ditional people the
musical form of an-
other group of stub-
bornly traditional
people. “To grow a bluegrass band, it
takes years, decades,” he says.
It’s a lonely row to hoe for Illgresi,
but who knows? They’ve already seen
the appeal of the form, especially when
played live. With some more digging,
perhaps they’ll find their native soil fer-
tile after all.
Words
Jonathan Pattishall
Photos
Sébastien van Malleghem
“The questions about
his ‘banjo’ became so
frequent that Guðmun-
dur put a sticker on his
mandolin case to clear
up the confusion. It’s as
droll as it is informative:
‘Not a banjo.’”
Talk about that high lonesome sound. The boys of blue-
grass quartet Illgresi have searched every hummock
and holler in Iceland looking for likeminded musicians,
all to no avail.
Gone Fishin’
With Illgresi
Illgresi
The Icelandic bluegrass band Il-
lgresi was formed in the summer
of 2009 when the band members
were searching for someone to
pick some bluegrass.
For fishing gear and further in-
formation about fishing around
Reykjavík, contact the tackle
shop Veiðiportið at veidiportid.
is, tomas@veidiportid.is or
552-9940.
INTER
VIEW