The Icelandic punk museum opens
Below Bankastræti, at the intersection where cars wait without waiting to turn onto Lækjargata, is an official toilet called “zero”. It was at least what it was known for in its heyday, for reasons we leave behind in the imagination. The toilet was opened on June 17, 1930, “a big year for Iceland,” says Reykjavík musicologist Gunni læknir. “This was the 1000th anniversary of the Althing – a great celebration. So they open a public restroom. Hotel Borg opened and the state radio began … ”On November 2, 2016, the toilet door reopened on the other side of Reykjavík’s history: Look at the Icelandic punk museum.
As a Reykjavík musician in Reykjavík, doctor Gunni has written three books on the history of Icelandic rock. After collecting and compiling the pictures for these books himself, he has a great knowledge of what is available. So when Finn (at Dr. Spock’s) got a toilet a year ago and got the idea for the punk museum, Gunni was easy going.
With a blanket for outdoor activities, Dr Gunni has sewn together pictures, posters, videos and of course lots of music. “I was in a second-hand shop and a guy was working there and he said, ‘I took some pictures back in the sixties and eighties,’ and these turned out to be very good, unseen pictures from Strangler ’78 concerts,” the doctor tells us. “During the same trip, I found a glue box that was a drug of choice at the time. So this was a good trip to this junkyard. “
The material will focus on the period in the years 1978-1992 – starting with the first Icelandic punk group Fræbbblarnir (“The Staaamens”), which started as a joke at Kópavogur University and ended with The Sugarcubes dissolving. On December 1, the museum will hold a concert at the newly opened Hard Rock Café with the Department of Neurology, Jonee Jonee, Fræbbblarnir and Q4U. Welcome below the box, Pönksafnið Íslands.