Bands: Perla, For A Minor Reflection, <3Svanvít!, Naflakusk, Eliza, Smoosh, Lights on a Highway, Jenny Wilson, Boys in a Band, Duke Spirit, Retro Stefson, Teenagers, Kimono, Singapore Sling, Computer Club, Loney, Dear, Trentmöller, Heavy Trash, Motion Boys, Gus Gus, Frost, Mental Overdrive, Amiina, Tied & Tickle Trio, Ms. John Soda, Benni Hemm Hemm, Lali Puna, Ra Ra Riot, Hafdis Huld, Annuals, British Sea Power
Travel: Reykjavik, Keflavik and Blue Lagoon, Iceland, New York, Los Angeles
Books: Spook Country by William Gibson, Adverbs by Daniel Handler, Lonely Planet Iceland



Tuesday, October 16: BOS - KEF The mother of all meetings days. Hyundai meeting, Creative Manager interview, legal meeting, finance meeting, another creative manager interview, company meeting, holiday card meeting, partners meeting, turner meeting, 2 husbands meeting, all before I hopped in a cab and headed to the airport, where I met Judi and we waited in line for like an hour to get through security while there was some sort of "incident," apparently involving someone trying to run through security, and 2 security dogs and a full shut down of screening at terminal E for like 40 minutes, but we were good travellers and were at the airport 2 hours early, so we made it anyway. Met up with Jelena and her friend Kate inside the terminal, and met a guy named Tim who was also going to airwaves. The flight was horrific. Iceland airwaves is a truly awful airline in coach, and we sat uncomfortable in our crammed seats for five hours while I tried to read to ignore the misery of the reality around me and judi tried to sleep but without much luck since the dude next to her kept jabbing her with his elbows. Ashley fared even worse, apparently. So we got to Keflavik and made it through customs okay (despite the inexplicable second metal detector screening) and bought a ton of wine at duty free since we learned how insanely expensive iceland was. And man, it was expensive. Whole trip. But the 6 or so bottles of wine we collectively bought plus 2 bottles of Icelandic Vodka mitigated things nicely. Then we got some Icelandic kroner and then ran into Tim again and chatted while we all waited for the Flybus to take us to Reykjavik, which was a lovely drive, the sun rising over the lava fields and the Blue Lagoon in the distance. Unfortunately the road to Reykjavik is only 2 lanes in some places still, and there was a traffic accident so the 40 minute drive ended up taking about 2 hours. We all got dumped at a bus terminal with a surly icelandic driver saying nothing but "minibus" for instructions, with no minibus in sight. Eventually Jelena asks in the terminal and we're told one will be coming. It's a comic scene of a bunch of NYC and BOS hipsters (the flights land at more or less the same time) all confused and looking very out of place. Eventually a minibus arrives and we pile in, and it takes us to our hotel, which blissfully has our room ready, since it's now 9 AM or so, and we should go to sleep, but it turns out our hotel still has breakfast, so we buffet ourselves to bloatedness on unlimited bacon, eggs, grapes, bread, pastries, yogurt, juice, muselix and more. Then we head to our room to pass out.

Wednesday, October 17: We wake up around 3 PM and it's sunny but COLD out, but we go wandering because it's supposed to rain the whole week, so we figure we'll take advantage of the sun. Reykjavik is an absurdly small town. Your map makes it look like it'll take forever to get anywhere, but really you can walk across the downtown in maybe 15 minutes. We quickly realize this as we walk "across town" to pick up our festival bracelets and buy another bottle of wine at the Vin Bud ("Wine Buddy!") - the local state-operated liquor store, which is apparently much cheaper than the bars. We also check out the 66ª North store - I'm in the market for a new parka - and do some shopping at "Bonus," the cheapest of the grocery stores. Then back to the house for a bit of a rest then we go to Jelena and Kate's hotel where we frontload on much wine to get drunk before we go out.

Wednesday night we split up our night, going back and forth between two clubs: Grand Rokk, which we won't be hitting again, and NASA, which is the largest club of the festival and a bit of a staple. We start at Grand Rokk for a terrible prog rock band called Perla (why is it I always hope for the best with modern "prog rock" bands and they always turn me down). We're quickly compensated by the next band, For a Minor Reflection which are 16 and 17 year old Mogwai-type post rockers that maybe weren't the best post rock band in the world but were super solid, especially for their age. We then head over to NASA and check out an Icelandic soloist Eliza who had some potential but was a bit too AOR, then the Seattle teenagers Smoosh! who are awesome but it's super crowded (a recurring theme with NASA) so we head back to Grand Rokk and see the last half of <3Svanvit! who are hilarious in their enthusiasm but seemed kinda bad musically that night. Then come on Naflakusk, who are like 15 high school kids in a ridiculous mix between the Arcade Fire and a high school talent competition with like 6 girl singers who need to learn to not yell into the mic, but their enthusiasm and their horribly brilliant cover of "Dust in the Wind" made me love them anyway. Then we left and headed over to get those famous hot dogs you always hear about, which was pretty funny. It was freezing outside, but never through the whole week was there not a line at the hot dog stand. The hot dogs are apparently very famous and everyone goes there, but the only celebrity photograph they had up was that of Bill Clinton. Apparently he's the only one worthy of a photo. We do a great photoshoot of Kate and Jelena eating their dogs and we all laugh muchly. Then back to NASA again for Lights on a Highway who played competent, but boring country rock while we all sat around too drunk and sick and left to go to bed before too long.

Thursday, October 18 Wake up around 10 so we can get more of that bacon bacon bacon (and so crispy!) and breakfast. Then we go back upstairs and putter and read and one or both of us may have fallen back asleep for a while. We then set out to explore a bit. First we stop at 12 tonar, the local hipster record store, and I buy a few things and as we're leaving we get to talking to a guy about the instores, and we say we want to see Singapore Sling and he says it's his band! So that is cool. Then we head up to the big huge church on the hill that has some Icelandic name that I can't pronounce like everything else and I'm not connected to the internet right now so I can't look it up. The church is awesome in its minimalism, and then we head up the bell tower and gaze at the view and look at the huge bells and take pictures of the view and freeze from the splitting cold. Then we drop our stuff back at the hotel and I sort out some credit card stuff like my card being jacked to buy a plane ticket in Guadalajara WTF - not a good time to have that happen while I'm in ICELAND, but at least they quickly refunded it, though now I'm without my primary card while on the road which is always stressful. I call my other cards to let them know I really am in iceland and to not turn off my card please k thanks. Then we head out again and keep walking, around the lake downtown, looking at the ducks and we run into Tim again! We chat for a while about who saw what and agree to meet up at the Teenagers, which we all go to, but NASA is so big we never met there. We then go to City Hall and check out a big replica of Iceland they have, and then find a Cafe, where we sit and snack and text Jelena and Kate and they meet up with us. Jelena's yogurt helpfully comes with a plate. We plot and plan and agree to meet up after naps and we all go nap for a while and then Jelena texts us that Boys in a Band are doing an in-store. We want to see them, but it's at the same time as another show, so we're psyched they're doing an instore. We go to this bookstore by Jelena and Kate's hotel and there's a huge basement coffee shop where the instore is going on. Boys in a Band are from the Faroe Islands and they look like a motley assortment of dudes - the keyboard player has a keytar and a frankie shirt and a giant black hacidic/fisherman beard, the guitarist is wearing long underwear for pants with the band's name on them. But they are tight and fast and hard and powerful and have a Nick Cave meets John Spencer thing going on and we all like them. Then we go to Jelena and Kate's room again and frontload more (we do a lot of frontloading in Iceland) and then we head out to the Reykjavik Art Museum and watch a bit of Jenny Wilson, who underwhelms us. So we head back to NASA and watch a bit of Retro Stefson, of whom I remember nothing other than thinking they were okay, and then the Teenagers who are awesome and good in that dumb rock 70's "jet boy jet girl" kinda way. We were thinking about leaving but Jelena attracted a posse of Mancunians on the prowl so we let that play out while we all got crushed by the ridiculous crowds. Then we headed over to Organ to see Kimono, and drank more and they were awesome and the club had a sign informing us that there were naked girls in the basement and amazingly I didn't go. Then we tried to go to the Art Museum again for Grizzly Bear, but there was a line. We probably could have made it, but we said fuck it and headed over to a new venue for us, Lido, where Duke Spirit was playing. Oh I guess we technically saw Sprengjuhöllen too but I don't remember them. There we met a nice anthropoligist guy who interviewed us about what we liked and didn't like about Airwaves, and why we came, etc. In turn we interviewed him about the history, bands, etc., and he gave us some good information about the past 8 years, to which he's been to all the festivals. Then we watched Duke Spirit and they were energetic and decent but not great. I think we had some brilliant after hours plan, or we got more hot dogs, or something, and then we headed home. Hot Dogs were definitely in there somewhere. Come to think of it, I think they were between Organ and Lido. Anyway, then bed.

Friday, October 19 Woke up late, decided to skip the free breakfast. Oh, no, wait. I went to it, I just went back to bed. Then I woke up again and Judi and I headed out to The Blue Lagoon via a minibus and then a maxibus. It was amazing. Unreal, surreal weird blue water, and warm swimming on a cold winter day and you had to shower naked and there was an awesome pounding hot waterfall for massages and mud masks and man did our skin feel soft afterward.

Back to the hotel and then we napped a bit, of course. What vacation is proper without napping? Then we met up with Ashley and went to 12 Tonar, the record store, to see an in store with Singapore Sling. That was awesome but PACKED and we were like 10 inches away from the band which was cool. Then we popped back over to the bookstore to see Computer Club, who we all decided we want to see because their bio said something totally shameless like "big fans of the cure and joy division." And they seemed like they would be good, only their drummer apparently got arrested in Scotland the night before, so they had to play without him, and decided to try and do some acoustic thing, and on top of that opened with a new song, so the whole thing was a bit dodgy, but underneath it all you could tell they had some potential. I'll check 'em out again. Then we walked by 12 Tonar again to try and see Annuals, but it was too crowded so we went and got pizza for dinner instead, and then met up with Jelena and Kate in their room for some more frontloading before heading to the Art Museum for Loney, Dear, who were just so awesome as always. Man that guy's vocals are so stellar, and that chick backing vocalist keyboardist is so radiantly happy you want to giggle. Then we stayed there and watched Trentmöller who was awesome in his dark techno genius with all his visuals and live band and manic energy and that was awesome. Then we headed over to NASA and boy was it clubarrific in there. Like Reykjavik's Avalon scene or something. We watched Motion Boys, who I liked. Judi said they were like the Scissor Sisters and they kind of were except for some reason I liked them and can't stand the Scissor Sisters, Then we watched Gus Gus who were hilarious in their goth technoness. Man they represented their 4AD roots. We got out of there after too long with the club kids and headed to Lido for Jon Spencer's new band, Heavy Trash, which was pretty much what you'd expect with him in it and a name like that and I think it delivered quite nicely. Then we went to the official after hours club and watched this AWESOME norwegian synth pop duo called Frost that made us very happy, as did the fact that they had jamison, albeit for $20 a glass. Still, though, Frost ruled. We then watched a smidge of Mental Overdrive but remember nothing of it. Jelena and Kate kept dancing the night away (Jelena's friend Baldur, who we had met earlier along with some friends just before Trentmöller went on) was the resident DJ so they stayed, and Ashley, Judi and I cut out at around 2:30. We tried to find a bar for a "quiet pint," but I think it's more or less impossible in Reykjavik on a weekend, especially during a festival. We gave up after Kaffebarrin was packed, of course, though Ashley reported finding on on the walk to her hotel. Curses!

Saturday, October 20: Woke up SUPER late. Mad vacation action. Then Judi and I met up with Ashley after breakfast and we all went to the Reykjavik flea market, which was super cool and quirky and local and fun and had lots of secondhand books and a fish market and all sorts of interesting things and I wish I took more pictures there and in iceland in general. It did not, however, have electronics, so I was sad about that. Then we cabbed up to a thing called "the pearl" and the "saga museum" and went through a hysterical diorama-laden tour of ancient iceland that made us all laugh as we listened to the audio guide because the woman was so insistent about it. Then we went up to this cool domed restaurant and had a snack and braved the elements on the balcony for an awesome view of Reykjavik and the harbor. They have a revolving restaurant there, too, but sadly it was closed. Then we went to the CD/DVD sale that was inexplicably on the ground floor of the perlan, but it wasn' very exciting. Then we cabbed it back to town, caught up briefly in our hotel rooms (I wrote postcards) and met up at the old catholic church at 6 to see Amiina. Amiina are part of Sigur Ros, sort of, and also opened with them on their past tour - a quartet of classical, multinstrumental icelandic women who make sparse, melancholy, ambient music. The church setting was awesome and they were was better than when I saw them open for Sigur Ros in boston, but it was HOT in there, and the sitelines were crap owing to the fact that we were in a 300 year old wooden church, so we cut out after like four songs.

Then we tried to check out another instore, for a band called The Ghost from the Faroe Islands, but things were crowded and the schedule seemed to be off, and we had a tight night, so we figured we'd take the extra time to get a liesurely dinner - our one non ham or pizza dinner. Oops. We picked some fancy looking restaurant we dimly remembered hearing good things about in the Rough Guide only to be completely ignored and wait over an hour for our food before we finally gave up in exasperation and paid for the soup we got and my glass of wine and left. It was so insanely maddening, and to boot it was cutting into our valuable frontloading time! So in the end we got pizza AGAIN, but hey, on the bright side we probably saved like $300. So we met up again with Kate and Jelena and frontloaded this time in Ashley's room, which was awesome. Ashley drank a bottle of wine in like 12 seconds.

Then we headed to a new venue for the Morr Music Night, which was pretty awesome. The venue was beautiful - like a mini versailles room - and we kicked it off with the Tied and Ticke Trio, who were solid but unremarkable, and then Ms John Soda, who I love and who were my favorite of the batch and a little bit more rocking than their albums with a full band but that just made it better. Next up was Seabear, who I skipped because in a fit of risk-taking I cut out for a while to go to the Art Museum to see first Hafdis Huld, an icelandic dance band who were good but mainly chiefly awesome because of their awesome closing number in the form of a madonna cover, and then Annuals who were much improved over when Ashley and I saw them a year ago. I liked them a lot. On my way back to the Art Museum I saw there was no line @ NASA so I popped in and caught most of Ra Ra Riot, who were more awesome than I remembered, I think I was a tough critic @ SXSW, though I'm pretty sure I saw them right after headlights and loney, dear, to which they couldn't hold a candle. Then back to the Morr Music night for Benni Hemm Hemm who were pretty awesome in their ragged big band icelandic enthusiasm, sorta like a teenage arcade fire with way more trombones and a proper sense of dada. Then, finally. Lali Puna, who were great, but boy was I getting tired, and isn't it weird she was wearing the same shirt as the last time I saw her? WTF?

We had all these plans to see more bands after Lali Puna, but the Morr Music night was the only event in all of Iceland Airwaves that ran late - like an hour so - so by the time Lali Puna was done, most everything else was over. Kate and Jelena had cut out early to go dancing with Jelena's friends, and we weren't up for the crowd so we called it a night. Yay iceland airwaves!

Sunday, October 21: KEF - BOS Get up noonish, and meet ashley for a ride back to Keflavik, after paying cash for our hotel expenses because my card had been turned off and I kinda suspected the hotel as being where my number got stolen so I didn't want to give them another one. We drove to the airport in a car instead of dealing with the Flybus to beat and avoid the crowd and it worked like a charm! Checked in and got through security no problem and killed time in the departure lounge/mall where I fell in love with a parka at 66ª North but they didn't have it in my size but intrepid ashley found it on Amazon so I ordered it! Yay! BRING THE COLD. Flew home and it was much more bearable than flying there. Shared a cab with Ashley back to central, picked up thai food, did laundry, showered, shaved, posted my flickr photos, checked and read LJ, posted some stuff to facebook, generally loved the internet then around 10:30 headed to the MIddle East to watch British Sea Power, who had the unfortunate lot in life to play boston the night they were going to win the pennant, so of course no one was there, but they did have the game on, which the band didn't seem to chuffed about, but they soldiered through with a solid set and played "lately" for me which was awesome - I am psyched they are still playing that when it's now two albums old. Played some new stuff and it was solid, and played a LONG time. Ashley cut out early, but Emma went the distance and we got a drink afterwards since I was only going to be in town like one night in like nine million weeks. Bed at like 2:20 ish.

Monday, October 22: BOS - NYC - LAX. Yep, get this shit. I got up ant took a 9AM acela to new york, popped into the office there, then went with Ann and Bruce and Keith to a dog and pony in mid town for two hours, then hopped in a cab to Laguardia, did a call with Shelby for Kashi and a call with Stephanie and tried to do a call with Sharoz but she was running late - the 5-6 hour was clearly my hour for calling women in advertising with names that start with S. Hopped on a plane and flew to Cleveland, then right onto another plane and am, now, flying to LAX where, if all goes well, Bruce will be meeting me @ the airport, and we will cab to the Roosevelt, while chatting about various issues on the way, and then grabbing a quick drink, sending and receiving email and going to bed before I deal with LA life tomorrow. Yes.

Tags: books, iceland, recap, rock, rocktourist, travel
Current Music: "Wayfaring Stranger" By Cash, Johnny from Unearthed