For a blog with consistently terrific pictures. Iceland Eyes is definitely worth a RSS link.
But I must say, if you haven’t been to Airwaves, especially a local, you owe it to yourself to make the effort. Don’t take for granted excellent events in your own backyard. Perhaps that is easy in Reykjavik, where festivals, programs and big events happen with yawning regularity.
Not a heck of a lot to report these days, other than bad economic news for Iceland and the kronur. Icelandair is even sending emails touting the fact that “everything in Iceland is 20%” cheaper now.” For some reason, I received one for US audiences saying that for the dollar, and another for the UK.
The suggestion? The Accidental, which means you, Mr. Destiny, could get a 2 for 1, with Tunng. Kind of a Sunday morning band to me, when you’re trying to read the paper, nurse a slight hangover and get the kids (in our case) to chill out for just one moment. Only one. Please…
In the U.S. and Canada. According to the always reliable, super-exciting Iceland Review, Sprengjuhöllin is playing a few shows over the next few weeks, including one with FM Belfast in NY next Monday the 19th. That sounds like a lot of fun. Somebody go and provide me with a report, por favor.
The Iceland Review is easy to poke fun at, but they do have some gems, like this one that explains the relatively new laws on prostitution. (Bottom line-it’s legal unless you have a pimp. No one else can profit from the transaction. Women of Iceland, feel free to sell yourselves AND keep the kronur!)
Smekkleysa, the record store, is closing. No word on the record label of the same name (bad taste in English)
Perhaps it is a victim of piracy, or rising rents on Laugavegur, or the general economic malaise that seems to be hanging over Iceland these days.
Let’s hope that the owners find another place to do business. In addition to being an off-venue site for the festival, independent record stores provide character to a town. Would you really go to Austin and not hit Waterloo Records? Or Newberry Comics in Boston, Amoeba Records in San Fran and LA, or Criminal Records in Atlanta? Detroit had a few-Repeat the Beat, Off the Record, Sam’s Jam’s, Schoolkids in Ann Arbor, but few remain. One is Stormy Records, which is run by ambient recording artists Windy and Carl.
I guess this is a long-winded way of saying support your local record store. The extra buck a CD is worth it in the longrun, unless they give you stereotypical indie-record store attitude. If so, they can rot. Or worse, work a mall chain record store.
Maybe they’re too mellow? Or clubby? Give them a listen.
And what are they putting in the water over in Gothenburg? A lot of good music coming out of there these days.
