Iceland – Page 29 – Gemma D. Alexander

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Crash Test Dummies, pollyblog, When I Go Out With Artists

Pollyblog: When I Go Out With Artists (in Iceland)

Pollyblog: 1. When you don’t want to say too much, but 140 characters just won’t cover it. 2. Good ideas that haven’t got their legs yet.

Some people make things more interesting by adding “in bed” to the end of every statement. I use the phrase “in Iceland.” Anyhoo, this one time at band camp, I mean in Iceland, I interviewed many bands and it was very cool and I learned many interesting things. I am fascinated by what is, to me, the mysterious process of creating something new and beautiful. And the whole time I was doing interviews with bands in Iceland, this song was stuck in my head.

Here are the lyrics to “When I Go Out With Artists,” off the Crash Test Dummies 1993 album, God Shuffled His Feet. I copied them from this website because I’m too lazy to dig out my old CD and type them in.

When I go out with artists
They talk about language and the cubists and the dadaist
And I try to catch their meanings
And keep up with all the martinis
I don’t know which should be my favorite paintings

If I could see, if I could see, if I could
See all the symbols, unlock what they mean
Maybe I could, maybe I could, maybe I
Could meet the artists, and get to know them personally

If I were David Byrne
I’d go to galleries and not be too concerned
Well I would have a cup of coffee
And I’d find my surroundings quite amusing and
People would ask me which were my favorite paintings

What if the artists ran the TV?
All the ads would be for fine scotch whiskey:
Glenfiddich, Glenlivet, the whole single malt family

The artists of the future
Will make up new things and different nomenclatures
And they’ll stand amongst their pictures
And they’ll sing and laugh and quote from scriptures and
When they go home they’ll dream of brilliant paintings

ByGD

Iceland, Reykjavik, Reykjavik Art Museum, Ruri

Rúrí at Reykjavik Art Museum

Before the Iceland Airwaves Festival started, I spent a few days as a tourist in Reykjavík, mostly geeking out on saga and settlement history. But I did make a hurried stop at the Reykjavík Art Museum, which turned out to be one of many serendipitous epiphanies experienced in Iceland. Read More

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Airwaves, Airwaves12, Atrum, FM Belfast, Lay Low, Low Roar, Of Monsters and Men, Purity Ring, Sudden Weather Change, We Made God

The Ones That Got Away: Shows I Missed at Airwaves

I can’t believe I’m not seeing Swans. I do that a lot. I just miss bands that I love.

Birgir Thorgeirsson, Kontinuum

I do that a lot, too. In regular life, there are so many obligations that can get in the way of a night out watching bands.

Iceland Airwaves by the Numbers

Uber-geek Souvenir

In science there is only physics. All the rest is stamp collecting. – Ernest Rutherford.

Maybe it’s because I used to be a stamp collector (molecular genetics lab tech), but I can’t resist the urge to measure things that don’t really need to be measured. Iceland Airwaves was a five-day MFA program in music that quite literally changed the way I hear music. When I came home, I put on my old CDs and sometimes I could barely recognize the once-familiar music – I just heard different things.

That should be enough. But no, useless data must follow.

Chaology: A Post-Airwaves Lesson From the Reykjavik Art Museum

The northern lights failed to create the proper cinematic effect after Sigur Rós’ concert, but the morning-after rain was a perfect visual for the movie version. I tried to write, but it was useless. Such a wide variety of music juxtaposed over such a short time had sparked more new ideas than I could process. My cup had run over so forcefully it toppled off the table and landed upside down on the floor. I had finally achieved the martial artist’s “empty cup,” the beginner’s mind. Read More

Category Archive Iceland

Pollyblog: When I Go Out With Artists (in Iceland)