Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.10.2014, Blaðsíða 16

16
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 16 — 2014
ListoflicencedTour
OperatorsandTravel
Agencieson: 
visiticeland.com
Licensing and
registration of travel-
related services
The Icelandic Tourist Board issues licences to tour operators and travel agents,
as well as issuing registration to booking services and information centres.
Tour operators and travel agents are required to use a special logo approved
by the Icelandic Tourist Board on all their advertisements and on their Internet
website.
Booking services and information centres are entitled to use a Tourist
Board logo on all their material. The logos below are recognised by the
Icelandic Tourist Board.
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Reykjavík
Art Museum
HAFNARHÚS
TRYGGVAGATA 17
/ 101 RVK
ÁSMUNDARSAFN
SIGTÚN
/ 105 RVK
artmuseum.is
KJARVALSSTAÐIR
FLÓKAGATA
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Erró, Man with a Flower, 1985.Andreas Eriksson, Almoso 113, 2003.
Open daily
One admission
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Guided tours in
English every week
Thursdays in October
at 6 p.m. – Hafnarhús
Grateful for the fix and also interested to
learn how he became so trusted within
Iceland’s music community, I drove out
to Akranes and spent the day at his home.
We drank tea, listened to classical mu-
sic, took some photos around his place
and chatted about his electronics work,
which he started doing as a thirteen-
year-old boy working in an electronics
repair shop, about 50 kilometres from the
German border in the south of Denmark.
What brought you to Iceland? Why did
you choose to live/work in Akranes?
I had an Icelandic girlfriend in Den-
mark for some years. She moved home
and I followed her one year later, but we
broke up shortly after I arrived. I decided
to move with my son [from a previous
marriage] to Akureyri because I got a
good job there producing equipment for
the fishing industry, but when I got there
the company said, “There’s been a crisis
in the industry, we can’t hire you.” So
there I was in Akureyri with no work, no
girlfriend, my son and no money at all. I
really didn’t know what to do. But I said
okay, I’ve moved to another country and
I’ve taken my son here too. I have to stay
and try to make things normal.
Then one day I got a phone call from
a local school and they said, “You’re Dan-
ish and our Danish teacher has just gone
to the psychiatric hospital. The students
have been so bad to her that they’ve
driven her mad. Are you prepared to
teach Danish at our school?” I had always
promised myself that I’d never be a teach-
er but I told them I would try. Now I’m
not a language person—and my Icelandic
was horrible at the time—but it worked
okay and I loved Akureyri. But after my
first year teaching there, an educated
Danish teacher moved to Akureyri and
the school had to hire him. I didn’t have
a formal education as a teacher. So again
I had no job and no money. It just wasn’t
working. That’s when a friend reminded
me of an advertisement for an electronics
teacher in Akranes that had been posted
a year ago. I called the principal and
asked about the electronic teaching job.
“Oh yes,” he said, “Funny that you should
call because my electronics teacher just
quit this morning!” I started less than a
week later and I’ve been teaching elec-
tronics at Fjölbrautaskóli Vesturlands á
Akranesi (FVA) since 1991.
What kind of work does an electronics
technician such as you do?
In my electronics business I’m build-
ing and modifying Hi-Fi amplifiers, re-
pairing guitar amplifiers and all the stuff
connected with the music industry. I re-
pair for Andrés at Tónastöðin. I’m also
importing a lot of stuff like valves for am-
plifiers.
But my main work is teaching. I teach
at FVA four days a week and off on Fri-
days. I do repairs mostly in the evenings
and on weekends. I’m repairing all the
time. If you’re educated in electronics
you can’t stop re-
pairing because if
people know about
it they always come
with their stuff.
I’m also a stu-
dent. I’m nearly
finished with a MA
degree in education
with an emphasis in
vocational training
at the University of
Iceland. I’m working on my final essay.
Normally I would be working on that
on Fridays, but now I’m paying bills and
talking to you! I’m reading a lot about
Creativity Theory too.
Would you elaborate on your studies
in Creative Theory?
I hate copying what other people do.
It’s boring. People often ask me, “I’ve
found this schematic on the internet,
can’t you just copy it and make that for
me?” I say no. I don’t dare copy what
other people are doing. You can copy ev-
erything but you will never get the same
sound. It’s much more fun starting from
scratch.
Therefore, I became interested in
Creativity Theory when I started study-
ing at the University of Iceland two years
ago. I was in a course where we had to
describe what we thought creativity was.
I think I had to write a twenty or thirty
page essay about it. I said creativity is
connecting things in new ways that you
never have known
before. And how does
that work? You see
this thing, you see that
thing and you try to
combine them. Then
you begin thinking
more about it. You
go into some kind of
work cycle. You modi-
fy it all the time, it be-
comes better and you
come to a solution.
I saw that when I’m working with
electronics it’s creative. It must be be-
cause it’s exactly the same work cycle.
And I know everything about it because
I’ve done it for many, many years. And I
realised that all creative people share the
exact same work cycle. It doesn’t matter
if you’re a scientist, architect, engineer,
artist, musician, painter, sculptor—it’s
exactly the same work cycle because we
have the same brain. It’s funny!
You mentioned that you’ve done re-
pairs for many local musicians. Would
you tell us some of the musicians that
you’ve done work for?
I really don’t know whom I haven’t
repaired for! Oh yes, I don’t think I’ve
ever seen a repair personally from Björk.
I’ve worked with a lot of the musicians
that have played with Björk but never
her personally. I’ve done a lot of work for
Sigur Rós. I go through their stuff every
time they go on tour. They often come
here with a trailer full of stuff or I go to
their place. They’re so professional and
they often have double of everything. I’ve
been doing a lot of work for Alex [Somers]
and Kjartan [formerly of Sigur Rós] at
Greenhouse studios.
It doesn’t matter whom I’m working
for, I try to give the same service to every-
one. I’ll tell you, it’s a dream to work with
musicians compared to Hi-Fi people. Hi-
Fi people think they know a lot about this
stuff, but they really don’t know anything
about it. When they hear a change in
sound, they think it must be better. Espe-
cially when they’ve paid $200 for some-
thing! But changes in sound aren’t always
for the better.
What’s the best way to get in touch
with you if a reader needs their equip-
ment repaired?
You can just bring your equipment to
Tónastöðin. It usually takes only a few
days to complete a repair.
After carefully lugging my vintage guitar amplifier all the
way from New York to Iceland, I foolishly plugged it in
without a power transformer. There was an unusually loud
humming noise and then it started smoking. The smell of
burned plastic gently wafted around my flat. My panicky
brain immediately cycled through these thoughts: Smart
move, Matt, not only will your wife kill you for nearly burn-
ing the place down, but also you’ve fried your amp. There
was no avoiding the first problem. The second might just
require a good repair guy. I started asking around and all
of my musician friends recommended the same person:
Flemming Madsen. I called him up, arranged the repair
and about a week later my amp was like new.
Akranes:
Where Busted
Amps Go!
…To Be Resuscitated By
Flemming Madsen
Words and photos by Matthew Eisman
Music | Repairs
“It doesn’t matter
if you’re a scientist,
architect, engineer, art-
ist, musician, painter,
sculptor—it’s exactly
the same work cycle be-
cause we have the same
brain. It’s funny!”