Tómas Gabríel Benjamin
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Misþyrming Grows Stronger As This Planet Hurls Aimlessly Through The Ether
Newcomers on Icelandic Black Metal Scene, Misþyrming (“abuse”) are glorious. They’ve managed to perfect a poisonous mixture of volatile compositions, nihilistic worldview, and a spectacular live performance. Coming across a band like Misþyrming is a rare occurrence—most people go their whole lives…
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In The Company Of Cocks Are Pink Street Boys’ Enemy Band
Pink Street Boys have been tearing Reykjavík a new one with their extremely loud and dirty brand of garage rock. The name, they say, comes from the street their practice space is on, “Pink Street.” Although the band has existed in other…
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Uni Stefson Takes Centre Stage
Retro Stefson frontman Unnsteinn Manuel Stefánsson recently unveiled his solo project, Uni Stefson. He caught the public’s attention with his first release, a thoughtful rendition of Jónas Hallgrímsson’s poem, “Enginn grætur,” and has since played a handful of shows. Although a long-time…
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Bloody Young People Don’t Vote!
It is an age-honoured tradition to blame young people for things that are wrong in society—its moral degradation is invariably due to the youth’s laziness, lack of education, and perverse taste. Although youngsters, much like immigrants and the fair people of Florida,…
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Dominique Believes
Dominique Lameule is a self-confessed, bona-fide Icelandophile. The 38-year-old Frenchman-slash-German has travelled to Iceland at least once or twice per year for twelve years running, owns upwards of 180 albums of Icelandic music, and has attended the Airwaves festival more often than…
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Growing Pains
In the aftermath of 2008’s TOTAL ECONOMIC COLLAPSE, scores of Icelanders found themselves struggling to make ends meet as jobs became scarce and household debt skyrocketed. The nation collectively struggled to come up with ways to pull itself up by the bootstraps;…
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Workers Unite!
Earlier this month, a news story broke in the Icelandic media that a young Icelandic woman working at Lebowski Bar was fired after she asked to be paid minimum wage—effectively a pay rise over what she was getting. The story sparked shock…
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Schrödinger’s Volcano
On August 16, the Western media spotlight fell on Iceland once again. As is usually the case when the outside world likes to acknowledge our existence, an eruption was involved. Or was there? That day it became known that there had been…
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It Was My Way, And The Highway
On the Álftanes peninsula, a good ten kilometres from downtown Reykjavík, lies a unique lava field called Gálgahraun. The towns of Hafnarfjörður, Álftanes and Garðabær were all built around the 8,000-year-old lava, which is on the Nature Conservation Register and was immortalised…
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For A Better Society
It seems that in every mention of Icelandic women by the foreign media, Iceland is praised as a feminist utopia where women are completely equal to men on all fronts, and to a certain extent, these assertions are correct. Iceland had the…
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The Toll On Nature
For centuries, Icelanders have enjoyed the right to see first-hand all of Iceland’s natural treasures. The privilege is safeguarded by ‘Almannaréttur’ (“Everyman’s Right”) in Iceland’s Nature Conservation Law: “People are permitted, without expressed permission from landowners or rights holders, to walk, ski,…
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Rauðasandur Festival: It’s On!
The organisers of the Rauðasandur Music Festival have announced that despite some concern yesterday, thepotentially foul weather in the area has let up, and the schedule will go on as advertised! Due to yesterday’s concerns, the organisers of the steadily growing grassroots-festival had urged festivalgoers to camp by a community centre…
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Keeping It Clean
On a quiet Saturday afternoon, I make my way to a white van idling in the Red Cross parking lot. After knocking on the passenger side window, Hákon, a man in his sixties, opens the door and invites me in. The inside…
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May Your Urine Burn, You Cowardly Goat!
There are a lot of progress barometers when you are learning a new language, but for me, I’ve always been of the mind that you can’t count yourself as truly fluent in a language until you can effectively swear in it. And…
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Roosh V. Who?
Roosh Vorek, real name Daryush Valizadeh, is a 35-year-old American known for a series of books that give instructions on “how to pick up women” using various tactics and mind games (people like Roosh are often called “pickup artists or PUAs–the group…
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Icelandic Bar Life
Sigríður “Sigga” Guðlaugsdóttir’s induction into the world of running bars began by chance. She was working part-time at a bar in Boston while she was studying film in the ‘80s when the owners suddenly fired the managers and asked her to take…
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Election Poll Roundup: The Candidates On Immigration Issues
For the benefit of voters, especially immigrants who have resided in Iceland for at least five years (three if they are from a Nordic country), candidates convened to inform the public about their party’s immigration policies for the May 31 municipal elections.The…
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Moonwalks, Melancholy And Mayhem
Can the inhabitants of a small fishing hamlet on the outskirts of Iceland join forces and collectively host a music festival that features a whopping 26 bands and artists performing over two days—and do so successfully, without charging admission? (SPOILER: yes. Yes…
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Fighting The Good Fight At Eurovision
Iceland’s entry to this year’s Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) is Pollapönk, a four-piece band featuring members of locally celebrated punk rock bands Botnleðja (we totally gave them a legacy award at our inaugural music awards) and Dr. Spock, both of which competed…
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Summer Is Upon Us
Despite the fact that it’s still only April and it snowed last week, tomorrow is the first day of summer.Celebrated on the first Thursday after April 18, it is supposed to mark (you guessed it) the point where summer begins. Given how…
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Post-Set Breakdown With Highlands
We caught up with duo Logi and Karen of Highlands (now Young Karin) after their very first show at Harlem. They talk about their nerves after finally playing in front of a live crowd, how they met up and what it’s like…
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Election Poll Roundup
With municipal elections around the corner, it’s high time for the Grapevine to start its coverage. For those not in the know, Reykjavík citizens get a chance to pick their city council members by voting for one of the registered parties on…
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Do The Immigrants Votes Matter?
In anticipation of the upcoming municipal elections, the Multicultural Council of Reykjavík is hosting a Q&A meeting titled: “Do the immigrants’ votes matter?” Seven out of eight of the parties registered have confirmed their attendance, including Dagur B. Eggertsson (Social Democratic Alliance),…