Grapevine Featured inside: Chromeo Ólöf Arnalds Grizzly Bear Airwaves Skátar and many more /Sunday Rockers of the roundtable by Jói Kjartans Le Fin The Schedule Sunday Schedule Gaukurinn 00:00 Cut off Your Hands (AUS) 23:15 Sudden Weather Change 22:30 TBA 21:45 Piknikk 21:00 BonSom 2.000 ISK / Passholders free Organ 00:00 Plants and Animals 23:15 Buck 65 22:30 Coral 21:45 Helgi Valur & Shemales 21:00 Hestbak 1.000 ISK / Passholders free NASA 22:15 Magic Numbers 21:30 Horsebox Photo by Gúndi 20:30 Skakkamanage From the editor Photographers Gunnlaugur Arnar Sigurðsson (GAS) [email protected] This year’s Airwaves has been a beautiful expe- a shout-out for his vision in putting this together Between putting this thing together and trying to Jóhannes Kjartansson (Jói Kjartans) rience. For me it has not been the festival per se and showing us how this could be done without get some sleep, I was busy trying to cram in too www.joi.is – [email protected] that has lifted my spirit, but rather the unique op- losing our minds, collectively. (Actually, we did many bands that I wanted to see in too short of a Guðmundur Vigfússon (Gúndi) portunity I have had to work with some great peo- lose our minds, on more than one occasion, but as time. I wish I had seen more bands so I could tell www.vigfusson.com – [email protected] ple who volunteered their work to be a part of this luck has it, there was always someone around to you about highlights, but I hardly feel qualified to Emma Svensson publication and this madness that we know as the pull our shit together.) drop names based on the all too few bands that I www.emma.rockfoto.nu – [email protected] Icelandic Airwaves. I can only hope that they have The Airwaves this year is the biggest festival managed to see. Next year I hope to do better. Árni Torfason gotten as much out this as I have. so far. With 240 acts playing, it was surely a mixed Look, I know that the Airwaves is supposed to www.torfason.is – [email protected] This is the third time the Reykjavík Grapevine bag of goodies. Some if was mindblowing, some be about the music. To me, however, it will always Óskar Hallgrímsson (Skari) has taken on the challenge of creating the Grape- of it… not so much. But as one of our more estab- be about the people. No matter who you put on www.myspace.com/skarih – [email protected] vine Airwaves, a daily publication of reviews, inter- lished contributors here at the Grapevine Airwaves stage, it all comes down to the people. What makes Leó Stefánsson views and other stuff that Airwaves guests might summed it up: buy the ticket, take the ride. Truer the Airwaves special is you. The people. www.leostefansson.com find informative, enjoyable, useful, or none of the words were never spoken. At least not this week- I’ve enjoyed, I hope you did too. [email protected] above. It was a crazy idea to begin with – doomed end. Rúnar Sigurður Sigurjónsson for failure, really. But somehow we made it work. So, how was my Airwaves you ask. Busy, www.r.sigurjonsson.org – [email protected] My predecessor on the job, Bart Cameron, deserves that’s the best description I could give you, really. Hrefna Sigurðardóttir www.flickr.com/photos/hrefna_S [email protected] Héðinn Eiríksson Festival highlights from our contributors [email protected] J. Edward Keyes Christian Hoard Andy Battaglia eMusic.com Rolling Stone The Onion Masthead For me, the high point of Airwaves was the sense of Musically, my highlights were Hoffman, Mugison Airwaves for me involved sleeping too little, drinking Published by: enthusiasm. Whether they were playing spritely pop and !!! – bands that sound nothing alike. Over three pear-soda too much, and meeting more people who The Reykjavík Grapevine or unrelenting death metal, all of the acts seemed years of coming to Airwaves, I’ve appreciated the commune with music for the right reasons than I Vesturgata 5 to radiate a genuine joy at the prospect of being on strange-bedfellows nature of Airwaves shows – those had in a long, long time. I was surprised to learn 101 Reykjavík stage. My three favourite shows: <3 Svanhvit!, Striga- mishmashes of punks, singer-songwriters, and arty, that Icelanders push harder in bars than anyone in Tel: 540-3600 skor nr. 42 and the awesomely terrifying Changer. exuberant natives. I also appreciate your beautiful New York would ever dream to—not as surprised, city, your hospitality, and the even the way you drink however, as I was to see them smile all the while. Edtior: Sveinn Birkir Björnsson like fiends on the weekends. Thanks, Iceland. Assistant Edtior: Steinunn Jakobsdóttir Art Director: Gunnar Þorvaldsson Proofreader: Jim Rice Ben Murray Don Bartlett Katie Hasty Thanks to: Mr. Destiny VirtualFestivals.Com Chicago Innerview Billboard Magazine Printed by: Landsprent ehf. Copies: 15.000 This was my first festival in Iceland and if I’m not back For good or for ill, at Airvaves bands are aiming When I ran into Chris Bear of Grizzly Bear at Organ, by the opening night of Airwaves next year please at something unique. Often times it pierces the we talked about writing meaningful music in a time find, sedate and fly me via DHL (baggage hold class) eardrums, but once in a great while you get a Mr. of political/environmental/economic/religious strife. to Reykjavik immediately. Hraun, Petur Ben, Hafdis Silla, a Hjaltalin, or a Lights on the Highway. The We decided it best to artistically to tend one’s own Online Huld and The End made me say this. common thread is that these young artists set their garden, to fix the things that can be fixed. I fixed aim at something profound; a goal that is more rare myself a pocket cocktail. www.icelandair.com/icelandairwaves than it ought to be. The Iceland Airwaves Festival is Lauren Strain Jonah Flicker proudly sponsored by Icelandair Plan B Magazine Village Voice Media and the city of Reykjavík. For me, Iceland Airwaves was all about being trapped The exotic locale (for us Americans), the drunken in the photographers’ pit between the lurching crowds rabble crawling the streets at six in the morning, and costumed nutters from Of Montreal; never was local gems playing alongside indie-rock faves, being anything so colourful, so bizarre, or – frankly – so offered a menu item with “human-like eyes” (turned god-damned hot. In both senses of the word. out to be seal)… my second time at Airwaves, and this festival hasn’t lost its charm, energy, or unpre- dictability. 2546 CIN Grapevine jona 330 MBL.ai 10/16/07 1:02:38 PM Interview Photo by Gúndi The Bronx Last Thursday at Gaukurinn, LA punkers The Bronx raised the bar for every future Airwaves show with their ferocious delivery of aggressive and obnoxious punk. Shortly before the show, The Grapevine talked to singer Matt Caughtran. “I don’t know how that happened. It was amazing. We had all been in other see them come to the defence of those bands by helping them out. You know, bands for so long that nobody really gave a shit about. Then you meet the right a crook is a crook, and crooks are everywhere in music; they are at the clubs, people and connect with the right guys, and all of a sudden you have a three they are running independent labels, they are running major labels. They are song demo, and there are 12 labels at your second show and they fly you out to everywhere man. It’s just a sack of lies. It doesn’t matter where and how you New York and want to give you a bunch of money, taking you to dinner and all put out a record, as long as your intention is true and as long as it is in the this shit. I’m not going to lie, it was absolutely wonderful and it was completely name of the music and creative expression.” insane. To this day, it still doesn’t make sense to me.” In recent years, the punk movement has had its base on the US East Coast, Matt Caughtran likes to talk. Ask him a question, and he’ll go on and on and as The Bronx acknowledge in a way, by having one of the five boroughs as on. He short and stocky, and has a penchant for taking his pants off at any given their namesake. So how is the LA punk scene developing? “The good thing moment. He is telling me about how his band was formed, and subsequently about LA is that there is so much normalcy that there is always going to be signed to Island Records after twelve live shows. “It happened and I am really something to counteract that,” Caughtran states. “The punk scene in LA is not thankful that it did. I think there is something important about this band. I think so much about ‘punk music.’ It is more about just doing things against the that when we get together and make records and play, I think it is something standards and the status quo. There is plenty of that and there is never a short- creative and beautiful and think that we haven’t quite been able to make the age of bands in LA that are good and are doing something different.