Nu Rave It is tuesday, not that you need to be told that, nor do you really care, I am just giving a timeline here people. I am only just recovered from the VOTE 90s night. Not because i was smashed or anything, but because I danced in the DJ cage for about 6 hours solid with nothing more than redbull type drinks to keep me going.
We ruled.
I am so pleased and excitable and happy. It may be very uncool to shout about how much fun I had but screw it. Apart from one persons dark presence the whole night was incredible. It was heaving, all night. There was a queue right accross the street and up the road from about 1 until 5am.
People smiled and danced and waved their glosticks like good little ravers and i looked accross the room with a manic grin for hours. Admittedly my mask prevented the grin from being shown all night but the people were happy with the tunes we were playing and they made me happy in return.
Curver and I donned our home grown smiley face white outfits and I opted for nowt but underwear under my boiler suit and next time may in fact just go for underwear for it was extremely hot work.
Next is our set at the Bright Nights festival in a few weeks..... Bring it on, Bring it on.
But first is Reykjavik Tropik (www.reykjaviktropik.com) this weekend and I am not sure exactly what it will involve but I believe I am running round with some cameramen being a little mental, or so i have been told.... should be fun at the very least.
I cannot work out if I have grown as a person since being here or if I have just regressed to when I was 17. I certainly seem to have grown in confidence in being silly. For all my general confidence I haven´t felt comfortable being really silly for a very long time. Its flooding back and I am enjoying it. Perhaps its the Team KikiKikness for Sir Kalli brings the silly giggling girl out in me. Perhaps its the shedding of what was essentially a long stint in London which I still love, but the job and the bombing and mugging and the long draining relationships of days gone by being left behind has produced a chrysalis to butterfly effect. Perhaps its the youth of The Fox filtering through, you´re only as old as (those) you feel apparently and she doesn't require me to look after her like an emotional invalid. Perhaps its the fact I can do crazy things, creative things and people smile and encourage or at least laugh with, not at, me instead of berrating me for wasting time or money or throwing 'shouldn´t you be more responsible than that' at me.
Whatever it is ladies and gentlemen, I am enjoying it very much indeed. I am sure something wil come and shit all over the party at some point, but until then, I´ll be the one grabbing opportunity by the short and curlies.
THE Rave is almost upon us. Tomorrow that is. Ahead of the impending kaos (sic) the media machine has been cranked into gear quite appropriately. But before that, lets backtrack a week...
Last friday i was informed by new bossman that i would be accompanying him to a global messaging conference/expo in London town of all places for a few days. Of course i was more than amiable to this suggestion.
I skipped home via Elvis and arranged with Krummi to go to some cod music thing at Nasa later that evening after a quick drink with Danni Sometime at Sirkus for Bigital´s birthday. When I arrived I collapsed giggling as did Danni, for we had (more or less) matching outfits on. Our hair is already somewhat similar and the jackets, jeans and baseball top comparison was classic.
I left there after a few drinks, and pootled my way to see some bands at Nasa. It was nice to meet up with Krummi but at one point he had to spend some time talking to someone regarding some music and I was left with the rest of the rabble backstage. Fairly swiftly, I decided to go home for there was way too much of the supposed cool coke scene going on.
Fuck that for a game of soldiers. London is of course rife with cocaine abuse and i was around it there with monotonous regularity. I don´t like it. Dont get me wrong, back in the day I have entertained my own fair share of various substance abuse, to the point that at some points I couldn´t deny being more than just a party user.
These days however, I tend to avoid such situations. On top of which there appears to be some sort of scene credit points here for shoving that shit up your nose. No one in any other country I have visited has attempted to sell the idea of taking coccaine as something cool. If you take it its your business, enjoy it, its your body, your money, i have done enough of my own brand of partying to even attempt to lecture on consumption. But, don´t even begin to try and tell me that requiring amphetamines to be an asshole and/or enjoy yourselves is in any way, shape or form BLING. Fuck off you knobjockeys. Take your shrivelled dicks and suck them.
Drugs, especially of this ilk, make you look ugly, talk shit and behave unlike your usually wonderful self. They can feel lushious, be very enjoyable, they can make experiences great as well as lame and sometimes its nice to behave like a prize tit, but please dear lord in heaven save me, don't play it to me as 'cool'.
Additionally, considering you've spent a considerable amount of money on the cut-to-fuck white powder you so highly cherish, don't insist I take some, don't get shirty if I do not feel the need to join in. I am more than capable of talking about myself, over other's conversation and generally being an asshole without it. You might have noticed. /rant>
Anyway, Saturday morning Sruli very kindly brought me breakfast of bagels and coffee, we had a lovely chit chat and then i tarted myself up and tottered over to babysit Curver´s flat and take a new pinup set.
It looks the nuts. Especially with the background of Bettie Page cutouts, approximately seventeen hundred guitars and zebra striped soft furnishings. I am a little at two and eights over SG as they have sent an updated contract to be signed. I can see why they have made changes they have in light of certain recent legal battles, but they are stepping a touch too far considering it is not actually 'employment' but 'services paid'. Anyway, I cannot go into depth about this until I have decided whether to sign or not. I also cannot publish any of the shots until they have been copyrighted and logoed. Make note though...... hot isn't even close to validating it.
Fast forward to Monday. I was called by Frettablaðið for a phone interview re: 90s party and they sent a photographer to Curver´s flat for accompanying images.
Tuesday I left my house at 5.50am with Totí to fly to London for the expo. I won't go into details but it was lots of people talking about mobile messaging and portals and interfaces etc for a few days. I met with The Fox after we had set up the stand and we ate some lovely gastropub food, something i miss very much indeed, followed by several games of terribly played pool with Gemma and Jess in Camden.
It was almost the end of the first expo day on Wednesday and I was beginning to lose enthusiasm when in slithers Jodie Marsh doing her PR bit for an adult content messaging company.
I practically skipped towards the burnt orange glow and took a photo with her much to Totí's amusement. My word, she is the pinnacle of tackarama, never before have i seen such a colour, nor such a depth of foundation on a face so young. Very very wrong. And thusly it made my day.
After work I met with my old boss Andrew for Wagamamas (dear mr owner of wagamamas please come to iceland) and then down to the island queen in Angel where I had advertised I would be. An amazing crowd turned up and I felt very loved and enjoyed it apart from the feeling I wasn´t spending a decent amount of time talking to any one person at a time. it was wonderful to see you all, takk takk takk takk for coming, especially given the weather.... love to you all in no order; Fanny, Clare, Justin, Darryl, Neil, Jodie, Chris, Sonam, Lisa, Ben, Matt, James, Bjorg, Laura´s folks etc.
I missed more than a couple of people who couldn´t make it but the very plus side I have been informed I shall be flying to and fro for work quite regularly. yayness untold.
The following day was work again, alas with no D list celebs to entertain. I met the Fox for lunch and felt like I had cheated her of time, or time had cheated us. I was in London for 3 days but yet didn't seem to spend enough time as us. Luckily she will be winging her way over here within 3 weeks anyway, and it seems I am not the only person on these shores looking forward to her return.
The day was very long, we took the evening flight back and oh I was pleased to be one of the smug fuckers in business class. Exhaustion meant I appreciated the larger seat and the snuggly blanket tenfold. Besides which, when I opened Frettablaðið and found the article on me along in which i was called a British Singing Diva I felt no diva would settle for standard class after all.
At lunch today I nipped down to the Grey Cat cafe to await Curver and the photographer for Morgunblaðið, as they too are publishing a story on the 90s night. I sat with my coffee and picked up a copy of Sirkus, spying the headline '90's hið nýja 80's' thinking that the 90s trend must really be picking up. I spat my coffee accross my lap when I opened the front page to find an even larger article with a big photo of me, along with more divatalk.
Hilarious. I just hope the disposable boiler suit the Fox got me fits well enough....glosticks here we come
EDIT. and here is the Morgunblaðið entry. i am laughing at the fact i am so lame at arm wrestling.
Friday, May 19, 2006
We are saaaaaaailing
Last saturday saw the passing of the Grapevine newspaper´s annual party. It took place on a whale watching boat with tunes and plenty of free booze. The day was wonderfully sunny but was ´window weather´ as it was frikking freezing. The kind of biting wind which makes you feel like your nipples have been chopped off.
Regardless, we partied on, in an almost british stubborness full of honour and determination. Well, that and the fact there was more than ample free booze drifting about and we were going to be stuck on the boat for 4 hours whether we liked it or not.
There were a few 'nots' actually but this was due to the fact that the sea was more than a little enthusiastic in its to-ing and fro-ing. A few people spent most of the time gripping onto anything stable. I, on the other hand, was anything but stable. Perhaps wearing 3 inch heels and shiny buck rogers trousers wasn´t the best move in a rough sea plus free beer equation. Ho hum, i´ll know for next time.
Once we stepped ashore the crew (The Fox, Curver, Gunni and Einar) hunted down some burgers and generally made a nusciance of ourselves on the journey to Sirkus.
We stayed briefly before The Fox, Curver and I headed downtown via Prikið to Gaukurinn just in time to see Sign play. Bless their cottons. We chitty chatted to Není and slowly made our way home at 5ish. We seemed to have gone everywhere yet nowhere. Very bizarre.
The week since then has been made up of working a la new job and a great deal of Team KikiKikness with the addition of Siggi and Svenni. Joyous indeed.
We went to see Coco Rosie play on Miðvikudagur and my my that was something. They were incredible. Their voices were so amazing alone I couldn´t believe i was at a live performance, let alone the music itself. The only fucker for me is that they played too many songs. I am not a believer in gigs more than 10 songs long unless you are someone very special indeed. The only gigs I have seen longer than this which haven´t made me want to leave were NIN and Prince. Talking of Prince i simply must get myself tickets for the no doubt atrocious tribute artist soon to hit these shores. I cannot wait. Tackcentral I expect.
This weekend I believe I will spend a great deal of time sorting through 90s dance tunes ahead of the gig next week. I shall do this in the comfort of Curver´s amazing flat as he and Ghostigital are on a US tour and I only have lame PC speakers and am utlising his kitchen to within an inch of its life. Now I just need to find a white boiler suit, a whistle and some white gloves....
Excitement untold! Having had the Fox here for 10 days and had her harping on about the face there is no grime here as there´s no crime, what do the Hexia office stff see this afternoon? No less than a SWAT team armed to the back teeth busting a house right opposite our window.
The gentlemen in bullet proof vests and balaclavas were not, i repeat not, amused by us all hanging out of the window taking photos and filming them with mobile phones. But its a hard life and an office full of webloggers were hardly going to let that one slip by unnoticed.
Disappointment reigned when it became apparent it was only a practice. the sad truth is that my absence from London has already turned me into someone who considers it an exciting event when there are police and guns involved. pish.
well at least the snipers had a chance to enjoy the weather once they were done.
'The party never stops on Selina Kyle's answering machine'.
Many many many things have happened since I wrote earlier in the week. So many in fact that I am starting to feel like I am stuck in a kind of time warp with events unfolding at an unprecedented pace.
First and foremost is my new job. Yes, already. These lovely people at Hexia and I have agreed to swap money for me doing writing and internet things. Its a full time grown up job which means, provided my 3 month trial goes well, I won’t have to worry about money anymore. As I am sure you will have guessed, this makes me very happy indeed. I cannot even begin to pretend that I am sad about leaving the hotel work. Oh no.
I won’t write too much more about what exactly it is I will be working on as I am not sure of the confidentiality etc, but I will tell you I am looking forward to working there, not only have I heard good things about the company but 2 of the members of the band Sometime, my namesake, work there too. Happy happy joy joy.
So in celebration on Wednesday night the Fox and I pootled to Sirkus to see the incredible Ghostigital play in close proximity. They managed to scare and excite the masses as normal and afterwards Curver djed some incredible 90ness ravetastic which I danced to until my makeup slid off. He included Kiki-Ows ‘Too Sexy’ track, to which people danced and to which I basically squealed like a teenage girl over.
Many many beers were drunk, as was the black stuff until my head started to spin in a way I suspected there was more than an outside chance of it falling off. The Fox was drunken too so we opted for the most painfully obvious drunk foreigner way home of pushing her in a shopping trolley until the cops came.
The next day we had booked a girlie night with Begga eating pancakes and listening to records, which we executed with panache and style. Svenni joined us and we ate enough calories to floor the marshmallow man. Disco classic ruled supreme and there was much giggling and dancing.
On Friday Kalli came and took us on an adventure to the moon or any of the star trek planets.
Or at least somewhere which resembled outer space in the brilliant sunlight and on to a town I cannot remember how to pronounce let alone spell about 40mins from Reykjavik where they have much geothermalness and we ate ice creams and burgers in a place called Eden. It was the tackiest most wondrous surroundings. Full of tropical plants and weird décor. I felt incredibly surreal for the seventy millionth time this month. We also visited the 80s90s store which is straight out of a twisted drug movie. I found a thoroughly disgusting luminous fuschia pink jogging suit, the top of which I am wearing now. In other news, yesterday I received a call asking if I would like to present a documentary on a summer festival thing here, naturally I said yes, so I am awaiting news of its progress. It turns out as well as the Sunday paper my photo was in a trash mag this week, akin to Heat, the media whore in me is so pleased with this, for it is the pinnacle of tack. I am also going to be writing a column for the revamped ticketmaster type site here, and tonight we are off to some movie thingamy organised poser party on a whale watching boat with free booze.... There will be more up here on that soon.
I am in the middle of a heat wave. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a London town heat wave, this is a Reykjavik heat wave. I think in actual fact it is more enjoyable than a London town heat wave. The Fox and I are sat on the balcony patio of Babalu coffee house drinking Earl Grey in the clear sun. It is currently 16 degrees, an incredibly comfortable and joyous 16 degrees. The average temperature for Maí is 6. Heat wave indeed.
This weather has lent an even more increased summer feeling to the city which already began a week ago.
A week ago, well less than, last Wednesday in fact, Curver took me to see Iggy Pop at the museum. It was way rad. Especially as we managed to walk to the front row. I have seen Iggy twice before in the UK and there is no way of scrambling your way to the front row. We watched his royal litheness shake his stuff from this prime position and also from the balcony.
Throughout the gig I swung from awe to near distress. This man is 60ish, i am not entirely sure how old, he is still lithe as fuck and managed to throw himself all over the place, stage diving included. But every now and again I would look at his face and see a haggard old man and wonder whether there was any chance of him collapsing, maybe he would be better off with some slippers and a hot toddy. His performance however said nothing but 'fuck you i still have it'. Yes he has, and you can call me Mabel if it isn't so.
I was very happy that the gig was over by about 10pm, including a fleeting introduction to Bjork, as I was to start my new job the following morning at 10am. I opted for a hotel job which might not sound great but it suits me just fine for the moment. I have spent all my cash and need some coming in asap. This job is from 10 til 2 everyday is brainless, low key, low maintenance. Plus the place is small and like some David Lynch set and they feed me breakfast and lunch within the 4 hours. Given my love affair with food, this placates me more than enough.
Anyway, Curver and I left the gig and headed for a ´quick drink´ at Sirkus. Sat calmly and quietly we sipped our drinks and I made noises about going home due to the new job. Over a second drink some hairy pencil dick decided to hurl a full pint glass at the ceiling above our heads. We were covered in shards of glass and beer. Our barnets were full of little clear splinters, i had a cut on my arm and Curver had a few on his face.
My adrenalin went apeshit and i was quite willing to glass the fucker’s face but he had already left so we went downstairs to clean up and drink some free shots. It was heading to 1am and I knew I should be in bed but when I came out of the bathroom Curver informed me that we were to go home, grab some cds and go to Bjork’s where there was a mini party in need of some 90s tunes.
So we did.
And the impending feeling of doom began for I knew there was no way i was going to be sober and feeling remotely like turning up at work. Never mind, life is full of surprises. We got there and danced around and drank champagne and danced some more. My myspace infamy came into play yet again as both Daníel Águst and Krummi from Mínus came and chit chatted about having seen my ´space (which means my tits basically). Then some friend of Krummi´s brought out some moonshine which tasted dangerously pleasant (note to self: gin, beer, topas, champange and moonshine doth not a healthy kitty make).
More dancing, more chatting and then I lost Curver. I found him upstairs with the lady of the house listening to some new stuff which was exciting to say the least.
Then the cops showed up. Which in my opinion is just rude. How dare they interrupt such a start to the summer, pish to making too much noise at ungodly hours. Although on one hand i was vaguely indebted to them as it meant we headed home and i had at least 3 hours sleep. Work was painful. but hey. I knew Curver and Krummi at least had to go to work in the morning too and was certain they wouldn't be feeling much more rosey.
The next few days were a touch of a haze, I awoke on Saturday with more energy than should have been natural. I managed my 4 hour shift at the hotel in 2 hours, sped home, pampered myself a bit and then popped to the studio with Viddi to polish off the Kiki-Ow ´Too Sexy´ track.
What that man has done to it is incredible. I am getting very excited indeed. It shall be a 12inch release with an obvious but twisted B side which will be worked on with Curver in a couple of weeks. Between now and then Kiki-ow has a video to make. She has been asked to play a festival in early June here, but I am not ready for that. I don't have enough material as far as I'm concerned and that I do have needs fine tuning. So at the moment there's a chance of me either playing just one track live (their suggestion, not mine) and or showing 3 videos as a 'piece' so to speak. The 2 Kiki-Ow videos and the one i did for Ghostigital. We'll see.
I left the studio on Saturday, collected by the angelic Ásta to go to her and Siggi's place where a bath was already run for me. These two are amazing. And so was having a bath. I have a shower at my place and have always been a bit of a bath addict. It was lovely. I went home, got dressed up and pootled to one of my favourite burger bars with my laptop, dressed up to the max, glimmer and all, and watched CSI over my beer and burger combo. Bliss.
I had to nip home by 10.30 as Viddi came over to take me to the airport to collect The Fox. Viddi is a hero. He was playing a gig that night for The Madchester thingamy with Echo and the Bunnymen, Elbow and Badly Drawn Boy, came off stage, collected a car and came to play taxis instead of staying with the band and partying. Amazing.
We picked up a very excited (she has not been here before) yet tired Fox and dragged her home for white russians then over to Sirkus for obscene drunken behaviour, dancing, drinking, near death due to speaker crushing, forced Brennavin thanks to Sruli (who suffered for it the next day) and general misbehaviour.
We left around 4.30am, collected some beer on the way and sat on the shore in the amazing light eating our kebabs and admiring the surroundings. Welcome to my new home.
Its so beautiful here it kills me sometimes.
The next day, yesterday, Sveinbjorg took us and Sruli to the Blue Lagoon which was as enjoyable as ever. So incredibly surreal and incredibly relaxing.
Its more or less in the middle of nowhere and the surrounding landscape is as lunar as you can get. I think it will take a considerable amount of time before I am no longer impressed by how it looks.
We stopped on the way back to look at the fish hung to dry. I have driven past this sight many many times but never stopped. It is bizarre and ghostly somehow. The skeletons of previous batches line the horizon and the absence of anything for what looks like miles gives it an eerie feeling.
The fish themselves look like the skin off of hundreds of forearms, hung to dry in the sun. The stench is appalling. The image is amazing.
To top the day off Sveinbjorg's dad called to tell her we were in the Sunday paper Timarif Morganblaðsins in the society pages for our attendance at the Sílvia Nott party, They left an E out of my name the fools. Svenni looks like she has a finger up her bum and doesn't like it and I look like I have a finger up my bum and am loving it and Curver looks like he has all the bitches. Comedy.
