This might come as a surprise: the Reykjavík Grapevine has always been rather involved in the Reykjavík music scene—and not just in terms of loving on and covering it. To name some examples, the magazine’s first editor, Valur Gunnarsson, has released several records, both on his own and as part of a band (Jóndi, one of the magazine’s co-founders played bass in one of those bands, Ríkið). Grapevine’s current editor-in-chief Haukur is part of the band Reykjavík!, and our head of advertising, Aðalsteinn operates a solo noise outfit he calls AMFJ. And then there’s one-time editor Bart Cameron’s band, The Foghorns, which once was manned entirely of Grapevine staffers (including photographer Gúndi and the one and only Paul Fontaine, on bucket!).
Bart currently operates The Foghorns out of Seattle, Washington. Since they left Iceland, the band has been going from strength to strength. They even have a radio hit now (!), which you can download here (it is our “track of the issue”).
To celebrate this new hit, Bart and his current co-‘horns decided to make a video—the band’s first ever! Check out Grapevine’s exclusive premiere below (and then read on for some words from Bart about the video):
Hey Bart. Did you have any particular inspirations in mind for the video?
Honestly, I don’t watch many videos. I think the Mountain Goats are one of the few bands who’ve made a video I enjoyed. We’ve only been focusing on live shows, but when “Ain’t I A Man” got picked up on the local radio station, we decided we’d try a video, to show people at home what we’re doing (we’re not touring any time soon, as we haven’t finished recording the album this single is attached to).
How did you go on about making it?
The photographer Jason Neuerburg has been photographing our live shows. We worked together on shooting a video the way you hear it. So the choir, the bass clarinet, the drums, they move depending on how prominent they are in the mix. The video was filmed in a public works building from the 1930s in Seattle that is still used exclusively for low income artists. It gives some idea what our band is like.
Let’s see, what else. Some people asked if we tried to look old timey. That wasn’t intentional. We’re that out of date, and a few of us had to go from work to the video shoot. I’m a mid level government bureaucrat. Uh… now that I’m writing about it, I’m thinking I wish I had a bigger concept. At the time though I just wanted a video that conveyed the feel of the band without overinterpreting the lyrics.
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