When was the last time you listened to a song from a non-American/British artist? What about the last time you listened to a song in a different language? Ever wanted to expand your music taste to include songs from all around the world?
Well that’s the goal of this article series. I hope to help you expand your song taste to include songs from other countries, in other languages and from different cultures.
In Reykjavík, Iceland, there is a small museum hidden(ish) underground in what used to be a restroom. This museum is a unique punk museum filled with graffiti, newspaper clippings of the history of punk in Iceland, punk jackets you can try on and even headphones hanging from the ceiling playing punk Icelandic songs.
If you go just make sure to not start taking pictures until you have paid the local punk (Svarti Álfur) who runs the museum.
Like most punk history, Icelandic punk came to be as a way to protest societal norms and became more than just a musical revolution. So today we will be shining light on different Icelandic punk bands.
A little annoying disclaimer first: For all of these I could only find them on Spotify and not YouTube.
Fræbblnarn
One of the most popular and first Icelandic punk bands is Fræbblnarn. Some songs from them are “No Friends” and “Bjór”. Both of these songs are from their album before they broke up in 1983. They did get back together and are currently making more music. Their most recent album as of now is “Dót,” released in 2018.
Their songs are known for their fast lyrics with upbeat instrumentals which contrast the words/meaning of the song, similar to Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated.”
Tuð
Another Icelandic punk band is Tuð. They claim themselves to rant about problems of middle age “loudly and abundantly.” Their songs are pretty short, ranging from one song being 3 seconds to the longest being 2 minutes. They are fast paced, and even without knowing the language, seem anger-filled as claimed.
A personal favorite is “Vorlag” in the “Þegiðu!” album, which has a caricature of a punk old man with pins and a spiky mohawk. “Vorlag” translates to “Spring Song” in Icelandic. It is about a guy who gets locked out of his home in the cold and freezes to death. When looking up the lyrics, they remind me of something out of an Edger Allan Poe book.
In comparison, there is a song “Tilfinningamaðurinn” (The emotional man) which is about different good things happening only for something to go wrong. The good moments, however, are humorously contrasted by the screaming voice.
Nöp
The last Icelandic punk band that is newest with only five singles coming out during 2023-now is Nöp. Nöp have two songs in English (“My friends are dead” and “Shoot you in the face”) and three that aren’t (“Rifast,” “Eurobabble” and “Drullusama”). The songs are pretty similar instrumentally, with strong bass transitioning into heavy drums. Their songs, however, have different topics. “Eurobabble,” “Drullusama,” and “Shoot you in the face” have themes of social commentary and war/death, while “My friends are dead” is more about the meaning of life being nothing and becoming older and friends passing away.
I hope you enjoyed the first installation to the International Music series.
In an effort to become more of a musical elitist, I’ve started collecting cassettes.
Not just any cassettes, but obscure punk cassettes.
The most recent tape I got my hands on, “Aluminum-Free” by a band aptly named Deodorant, was release #4 of a collective known as Open Palm Tapes, a Chicago-based punk label and distro dedicated to “the sh–t that slaps.”
Open Palm Tapes has a cultivated image, with a strong DIY ethos evidenced by zine-style graphics and eggy illustrations. Deodorant — debuting with their 2018 LP “Smells Good” — is but one of many bands affiliated with the Open Palm.
Poster included with “Aluminum Free” EP cassette
Part of what attracted me to Deodorant — aside from the $3 price tag — was the eclectic artwork on the tape sleeve, which featured a collage of photographic images, illustrations and the beloved male leads from the 2019 film “The Lighthouse.”
A write-up by Ralph Rivera Jr. characterizes Deodorant thusly:
“…Deodorant: organic, time-tested, mother approved, Aluminum Free. Guaranteed to upwrench and unclench the stench of monotony from yer fetid pits, leaving only the Phunkiest of Pheromones behind.”
The “Phunk”
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I fed the tape into my cassette player, but the garage rock-infused freestyle rap of “Bunta Groovin’ / Boast Mk. II” certainly was not it.
It’s not uncommon for punk tracks to feature spoken word — Uranium Club, for instance, makes ample use of it — but Deodorant’s intentional rhyme scheme and old school flow was an unequivocal punk take on rap.
Laden with references to punk rock ethos (“smash the fash and them blue lives bastards now”) and subversions of opulence (“I’m slamming in some Gucci hand-me-downs”)
Cover for “Smells Good” by Deodorant
Conversely, track three (“Top”) followed the prototype of punk spoken word — rhyme and flow coming secondary to lyrical content, with instrumental backing serving as the figurative “spinal cord” — before devolving into genre-characteristic chaos.
The prior track, a viciously garagey guitar slant titled “King Samo,” kept up the EP’s frenetic energy.
Other tracks, like “Deodorant vs. Son of Baconator” and “Guitar Hero World Tour” smack of classic garage punk, ridden with distortion and maddening guitar riffs.
Hopscotch started early at the Rialto with a little help from power-pop darlings The dB’s and singer-songwriter, Kate Rhudy on Wednesday Sept. 4, 2024
What’s a better way to kick off our beloved festival days than with a meeting of old and new NC music at a tried-and-true old venue turned new?
For the uninitiated, The dB’s are an NYC power-pop quartet by way of Winston-Salem.
Guitarist and vocalist Chris Stamey was the first member to fly the Southern coop to NYU, making a name for himself as a member of Alex Chilton’s backing band “The Kossacks,” later persuading bassist Gene Holder and drummer Will Rigby to join him.
It wasn’t until Chapel Hill based band H-Bomb fizzled out in 1978 that the soon-to-be dB’s lineup would be complete with the addition of guitarist and vocalist Peter Holsapple.
A prime example of “your favorite band’s favorite band,” The dB’s saw rave critical reviews but never quite broke the mainstream in the same way their Southern college rock pioneering contemporaries did.
They easily could have and should have been apart of that massive boom, marching across college campuses arm in arm with R.E.M.
With the imminent reissue of their 1981 debut album “Stands for Decibels” on the horizon, their warm-up set was a celebration of the band’s multifaceted sound an more importantly their
Encompassing both Stamey’s nebulous and amorphous Beach-Boys-by-way-of-Big-Star baroque style pop and Holsapple’s straightforward, youthfully sneering guitar rock, their set was an effective love letter to not only their beginning but to the fans who have stuck with them through the years, and those who have joined along the way.
Kate Rhudy at The Rialto, September 4th 2024 – Photo by Emma Bookhardt
Supported by Kate Rhudy, the Raleigh-based singer-songwriter warmed the theater with an intimate and tender 45-or so minute set.
Tried and true coffeeshop acoustic, Rhudy cut an incredibly charming if not a little green figure on stage in her rhinestone go-go boots.
Standing alone with her guitar, she carried an air of vulnerability as she crooned and flipped her way through breakup songs and love letters to missing cats.
With each quasi-yodel and delicate vocal flips, she garnered easy comparisons to 10,000 Maniacs’ Natalie Merchant and Taylor Swift.
Perhaps a more direct line of comparison would be if a young Merchant managed Swift’s songbook.
Melding with what seems to be the over all ethos of the festival, Rhudy felt comfortably familiar to old favorites we know and love, while still keeping a unique image all her own.
Alternatively, The dB’s felt as fresh as they day they emerged from NYC’s basement clubs, now serving as a musical “Guess Who?” between their influences and the later influenced.
In contemporary terms, you wouldn’t have groups like The Lemon Twigs without The dB’s, nor would I hazard to guess one of Jack White’s many projects, The Raconteurs.
But that’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it?
Remembering why we love our favorite bands and finding something new to fawn over at the same time; a celebration of music’s circularity.
Together, The dB’s and Rhudy brought a show together for a an intimate welcome to the festival weekend and it certainly left me wanting more of the Hopscotch soup du jour.
