“C” is for Cookie – Pixeled Passport

| 07-Nov-2014 | “C” is for Cookie is a coffeeshop around the corner from our apartment. Pleep is being his own monkey and going with “B” is for Brownie. 🙂

First stop today was Lucky Records – Ingvar was doing something a little different for the first set today: a “dance performance”. We had to see what that was all about – answer: odd. Pizza-by-the-slice at ’09 Airwave haunt “DaVitos” which is directly across from Lucky. Topped off lunch with mini street donuts.

Met up with Tristen and Andy at Jör to check out Fufanu. They’d seen a set at the location yesterday and advised us it’s a men’s clothing store. It is, and a very nice on at that. Some dude was trying to get a suit fitted while the store furnishings were being moved around to make room for the show. That’s Airwaves.

After Fufanu we strolled down to Shalimar for dinner, a Pakistani restaurant we hit every year. It never disappoints – snarky waiter included.

Bounced over to Slippbarinn to catch Young Karin, featuring Kelli of Agent Fresco on drums, Logi Pedro Stefánsson of Retro Stefson on guitar and electronics, and fronted by singer Karin Sveinsdóttir. They have an electro-loungy sound — great beats with Karin’s beautiful vocals over the top. Next up was Sykur, our motivation walking to the “far end of town” this afternoon. They’ve evolved since we last saw them and played a solid electro-pop set. Reminds me a lot of early No Doubt.

At this point we split up – Andy, Tristen and I went to Harpa (forgoing M-Band who we wanted to see but the set had already started and was 10 minutes away); Jeff and Norberto braved to cold windy night to double-back to KEX for HAM.

A rare food truck sighting. This one serving fresh mini donuts with your choice of toppings. We chose half caramel and half chocolate with a dusting of cinnamon and sugar.

What can only be described as a visual arts show at Lucky Records – I guess it’s “interpretive dance”.

Unnsteinn (left) was expressing one of his own RetroStefson songs while Gunnar (right) was sharing one of his Grísalappalísa tunes.

Mind you, there was no actual music playing. Props to these guys though – to perform 3 – 5 minutes completely by yourself is impressive and deserving of a respectful nod even if it’s not your cup of tea. And to Lucky Records for hosting such an interesting session in the midst of their wall-to-wall off-venue music schedule.

Fufanu at Jör, an upscale men’s clothing store on Laugavegur. We saw Hrafnkell Kaktus and Guðlaugur Halldór as a techno duo at Nasa in 2009, our first Airwaves. They’ve played every year since but this is the first time we’ve caught up with them since. They’ve evolved to a 3-man group with vocals now. The guitarist from Muck and another pal supporting on the electronics-side rounded out the five piece for this off-venue show.

Ketel One Vodka was serving shots and a light cocktail, both featuring their citroen vodka, to the festival-goers at Jör.

Sykur at Slippbarinn – another other band we haven’t seen since 2009 at Nasa. Agnes Björt Andradóttir has evolved into quite a front-woman, channeling her inner Gwen Stefani and owning the crowded bar.

She’s our first performer to wade into the crowd, commanding them to do her bidding, and they happily did!

Some HEAVY electronic shenanigans at Kaldalon in Harpa. I hadn’t been in this room before. It’s small and quite nice, but has theater-style seating which is odd for the kinds of performances they’ve booked into it.

Döpur (left) is the one-man experimental project of Krummi Björgvinsson whose bands have included Minus, Legend and Esja. It was loud. And heavy. And what’s up with the cat?

AMFJ (right) was intense. So much so that about half the people cleared out in the first 10 minutes of his set. It was loud and in-your-face. And he was pissed off. Reminded me a lot of KXP from a previous year … but maybe it was jus the red lighting…

While Tristen, Andy and I bounced around Harpa, Jeff and Norberto went to KEX to see HAM. When we talked to the KEXP folks earlier this week we learned that the HAM booking was somewhat random – another band cancelled so they reached out to HAM (who has no on-venue shows this year) and they confirmed almost immediately.

Apparently it was an epic performance which included an encore that was not part of KEXP’s live-streaming feed.

Anna Calvi at Harpa. She was playing songs from her newest release and the room was packed. Apparently she’s a big deal, commanding an hour in the largest venue on one of the biggest nights of the festival. Not particularly our genre of choice, but talented for sure.

The Mansisters at Harpa. This DJ duo is Kasper Bjørke from Denmark and Iceland’s own Sexy Laser. I was intrigued simply because I’ve wanted to see Sexy Laser for a number of years but his sets invariably start at 2 or 3am, in already packed venues. They played a great set and got the crowd worked up in preparation for FM Belfast.

Icelandic party band FM Belfast. We’ve seen these guys a number of times and they never, ever disappoint. They get the crowd bobbing and dancing only a few notes into the first song and it never stops. Complete insanity.