BlogSnorkeller

Icicles

Iceland is ear-tingling cold, though the Airwaves festival is warming our musical cockles. Only a quick post here, 'cos Colly's PowerBook is nearing the end of the battery... he's currently taking a break from blogging to eat toast, cheese and orange jam. At least it's not putrified shark parts, dill-pickled horsemeat or guillmot breast, just some of the local specialties.

Check CollyLogic for a more detailed run-down... we also sneaked in a full-day whistle-stop tour of the Golden Circle, taking in a range of amazing historical and geographical sites. Completely blown away by the country really... so stay tuned for the whole story, plus photographic evidence.

Beta the band you know

Hey, I'm in Iceland, and tonight we're taking the Adem stalking to new international limits at the Domino Records showcase at Reykjavik Art Museum.

But, if you're stuck back in Nottingham, don't worry. The woodland deviants over at Speakers have an exclusive DJ set from the The Beta Band kicking-off at The Bomb, Nottingham's best subterranean-sex-cave. There's probably not time to grow a beard though.

And finally, if the new Gravenhurst's Flashlight Seasons isn't the most beautiful thing you've ever heard, I'm sending Ian Brown round to cut your heathen ears off. There's also a highly entertaining interview with Nick Talbot from Gravenhurst over at Agenzia-mates Poptones. I particularly liked the line "If I read the music press it makes me want to kill people."

Bus-ted

I had the misfortune to hear an hour or so of Radio Trent yesterday. I'd forgotten that commercial radio cunningly plays the shittest music possible in order to make the wall-to-wall adverts seem like the best part. Anyway, in a delicious irony of advert programming, they'd put an ad for the Big Wheel, Nottingham's emerging integrated transport campaign (ditch your car and take the bus) next to an anti-drunk-driving ad (don't get caught or you'll have to take the bus). I laughed, inwardly.

So, tomorrow we're off to the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow, according to Led Zep, for the Airwaves Festival, and hopefully some seeing-of-sights. Really quite excited, and a cool way to end a year of music festivals that's taken in Glastonbury, Green Man and the sublime Homefires. We're travelling as a reasonably full compliment including Icelandic veteran Colly with Lapin following on Friday. And props to the rabbit for sorting press passes and super-cheap plane tickets...!

I'll bring you all back on icicle.