I returned home from Airwaves 12 to a clean house filled with the fragrance of fresh flowers; my children were even sweeter and cuter than I remembered; I had tickets to both Neil Young and Crazy Horse, and Insomnium on the weekend. The honeymoon was brief.

Old Hat

Life gets in the way

As I mentioned, I bought a very practical hat with appalling aesthetics, even for a society that prizes woolen knits (even for me, whose choice of hats is suspect). I brought it home, and my 8 year-old daughter, who loves the color blue, promptly put it on her head.

The next day, she came home from with a note from the principal announcing there was an outbreak of lice in the school. Do I even need to say that we found nits? Toddler butts needed wiped, cats vomited, dogs vomited, interviews needed written up, paying work demanded attention. It wouldn’t be November without a round of colds. Blogging kind of slipped to the bottom.

Mental Processing

The whole time though, my mind kept churning, processing all the new sounds and ideas from the Airwaves festival and tying up the connections. Was that Tilbury’s keyboardist playing in Valdimar? Yes. Hey, and that was their guitar player in Eldar with Valdimar? And yes, Agent Fresco’s bass player was on keys in the ULTRA MEGA TECHNOBANDIÐ STEFÁN show. In the middle of all the pop choruses and horns, I never noticed Lockerbie pulling out some Sigur Rós-style post-rock before… Oh, and look, Lockerbie and Angist follow each other on Twitter.

I watched the KEXP in-studio video of Sudden Weather Change and learned that they were a garage band before they worked with Ben Frost at Greenhouse Studios. It was a eureka moment that made sense of their music, and confirmed my choice not to drive in Iceland. How did I miss their show at Airwaves? I also read an article that talked about the wedding announcement made at Of Monsters and Men’s Airwaves show – something I had completely forgotten even though it was a pretty big deal at the time. And I discovered an email buried in my inbox from my first day in Iceland granting a major interview. There is nothing like travel to show you your limitations.

About the Wind

Since it was easier than writing coherent blog posts, I spent a little time online trying to find out more about that windstorm those two days in Reykjavík. I found several blogs asking the Sandy question (were the two storms related?), but no answers. There were many wind speeds quoted around the web, but the most reliable source I found said gusts reached 75 mph. So they were hurricane-force winds. I also found some cool videos that are much better than my shot out the window of the streetlight bouncing around. Here is one:

Another one comes with good information about the storm, and was filmed right outside the KEX Hostel where I was staying. It’s worth clicking through.

About the Hat

So about the hat. Of course, before the lice outbreak was discovered, the appalling blue hat went in the bin with every other hat my family owns. Many of them can’t be washed, and those that survive repeated washing in hot water will no longer fit my head. Once again, I find myself in need of a hat. This time, I think I will buy this one. Third time’s a charm, right?