Articles by: Valur Gunnarsson
Love In The Land Of The Midnight Sun
Or: Why there is no dating culture in IcelandIt’s nearing four o‘clock and the boys at the bar are tearing…
Icelandic Punkers Grow Old Gracefully
Punk rock faced the same problem everywhere. Whereas rock music grew up and became the soundtrack of Western capitalism, punkers…
Icelandic Rock and Roll in the Land of Lordi
A little bit like Liverpool in the ’60s, Reykjavík is a small coastal town that managed to turn local music…
Why Is There No Dating In Iceland?
“So how did you meet your boyfriend,” one of the girls asked. “At Prikið,” one answered. “At Vegamót,” another said….
1993: Last March Of The Supergroups
The year 1993 might not seem like a pivotal time in popular music, but in retrospect, a lot of narratives…
Hollywood Dreams Come True
Baltasar Kormákur just could be to Icelandic film what Björk is to Icelandic music. In the same way that Björk…
Backyard Babies
August is your last chance to see the cavalcade of classic Icelandic films that have been playing at Bíó Paradís…
Our New Government: Uniting The Left?
At least our new government is wasting no time. You have to give them that. First, destroy public radio and…
The Return Of Iceland’s Bell
Ask Icelanders about the bad old times under Danish rule and they will probably tell you about how the Danes…
Grapevine Milestones
by Jón Trausti Sigurðarson, Oddur Óskar Kjartansson, Valur Gunnarsson and Haukur S. Magnússon
FIRST SUMMER The first issue was published on June 13, 2003. As the reader should know by now, we publish…
Back To Normal
“I haven’t smoked a cigarette since 1995, but I am going to have one now,” says a woman at an…
What Most People Call Hell, We Call Home
Tom Cruise is slowly strangling himself in some post-apocalyptic desert landscape. Yes, we are watching ‘Oblivion,’ a dystopian future film…
What Can Obama Teach Us About Icelandic Politics?
The election of Barack Obama in 2008 gave us all hope. Not only was he the first black American president,…
Why Is The Independence Party So Popular?
According to the polls, the conservative Independence Party seems to have regained all the ground it lost in the wake…
Svavar Knútur: Ölduslóð
Despite (or perhaps because of) his sometimes aching sentimentality, Svavar Knútur is one of the more able English language lyricists…
Jónas Sigurðsson and Luðrasveit Þorlákshafnar: Þar sem himinn ber við haf
Jónas knows how to open albums in a kick-ass manner and “Hafsins Hetjur” (“Heroes of the Sea”) is no exception….
Growing Old, French Style
The magic is gone, but once upon a time things were better. Perhaps this is a natural conclusion for filmmakers…
Making Sense Of The Past, Perhaps
“How do I define history? Well, it’s just one fucking thing after another,” says a character in Alan Bennett’s play…
A Misspent Star Wars Childhood
As I sit down in Harpa’s Eldborg hall to listen to the Iceland Symphony Orchestra play the music from Star…
What’s So Super About Supergroups?
There was a time when supergroups walked the Earth. Their first recorded appearance dates back to the late ‘60s, and…
An Oldie But Goodie
There is something about the strange and perverse mind of director Hrafn Gunnlaugsson that makes him ideally suited to deal…
Waiting For Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer was late as usual. Apart from playing chess rather well and not liking Jews very much, it was…
So What Are Icelanders Really Like, Then?
“Dissecting the psyche of a nation is a daunting task. It is also doomed to failure.” So begins Alda Sigmundsdóttir’s…
High Hopes For Húsavík
The northeast of Iceland has been steadily growing in popularity as a tourism destination, and small wonder, as it has…
Love In The Time Of War
Aside from the bombing of the oil tanker El Grillo, whose hulk can still be found lying at the bottom…