48 Hours in Iceland with Last Crack

March 30 1800 Central Standard Time: Last Crack and crew await boarding an Icelandair 757 at Minneapolis International Airport. To settle nerves some of the boys have taken to the bar and shot glass. Happy flights, next stop Iceland!

0630 Atlantic Standard Time: That’s midnight for us Wisconsinites. Our day starts waking up at Iceland’s Keflavik airport in need of transportation for our crew of nine plus gear to Reykjavik, Iceland’s capitol forty-nine kilometers to the west. Reykjavik is about the size of Madison and harbors two thirds of the island nation’s population.

An attempt was made to find the difference in cost between the bus and a rental car at the Hertz window when along comes a cab driver with an idea. Olafsson, the world’s only Porsche taxi driver, tells us he’s going to Reykjavik anyway so he’ll give us a good deal. He also suggested we rent a one-way car for the rest of the gear and guys and just drop off the car in the city. Brilliant idea! He saved us some money right off the bat.

0800 AST: After an intense drive past kilometer after kilometer of moss covered lava, mountains and volcanoes, Olafsson drops us off at the club we’re playing that night, The Grand Rokk.

Kalli, the owner, and his associate Jon (pronounced like yan but with a little yone in it) meet us and dole out cups of espresso by the dozens to the weary set of travelers, trapped in their lair. They tell us of Vikings, celtic lore and Icelandic customs, then take us to the guest rooms at the hotel Adam to meet host Ragnar and get some rest.

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Ahoora

Interview with Milad Tangshir (guitars)

The up and coming band from Iran, AHOORA, brings out their newest release, “Awkward Diary,” amongst seemingly endless turmoil in their own country. Their indie metal musings have developed from years of struggle, and the loss of a dear friend in the June massacres. As guitarist Milad Tangshir declares, “we sit where Muse meets Iced Earth,” and seven years of playing together has developed AHOORA into a melodically wandering, yet precisely heavy group. Tangshir shares some comments and thoughts about the national metal scene as well as the development of his Iranian forbidden band.

Maximum Ink: As simply as possible, how would define the sound of AHOORA?
Tangshir: We’re an indie rock/metal band from Iran. You could say throughout the years we’ve mixed aspects of Prog/thrash metal with alternative modern rock. 

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Bellydance Superstars - Petite Jamilla

Petite Jamilla has been belly dancing her entire life, bridging the generation gap between traditional folkloric style and modern belly dance fusion. Studying for over ten years, Jamilla toured the Southeast U.S. at fifteen, a seasoned instructor by seventeen, with two instructional DVDs before she turned twenty. A member of the BELLYDANCE SUPERSTARS for the past three years, Petite Jamilla was kind enough to answer a few questions in anticipation of her troupe’s arrival at Madison’s Union Theater on March 26th.

MAXIMUM INK: What are the biggest misconceptions about belly dance?

PETITE JAMILLA: Due to Hollywoods’ early depictions of ‘belly dancers’ I think the biggest misconception is that belly dance is done for exploitive and seductive reasons, but it really has become a self-exploratory and self-improvement tool for dancers in the U.S.

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Bernard Allison

“My dad told me to never be a copy cat,” emphasized guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Bernard Allison in a recent telephone interview. “He told me, ‘you’ll have influences and idols, but you’ll need to put yourself into what you play.’” Allison, son of late titan Luther Allison, has taken his father’s message to heart in a career that reaches back more than 15 years. “I’m doing what I’ve always done – mix a 12-bar blues tune with a couple of rock tunes, and a couple of funk tunes.”

Contrary to many perceptions, the senior Allison was not the foremost musical teacher in Bernard’s early career. “There wasn’t that much teaching at the musical level,” Allison said. “I taught myself how to play guitar and sing pretty much on my own, although he showed me how to play a few things. But Our relation was more like brothers than father/son.” Bernard did note that his father gave him sage advice on other aspects of the business, however. “He did teach me about the road – but I also learned a lot from my 3 years with Koko Taylor.” That apprenticeship with Taylor, and later with Willie Dixon’s Blues All-Stars, saw the teenage Allison emerge with more of his own voice, further developed through tutoring by Johnny Winter and Stevie Ray Vaughan. So zealots who expect – or hope – that Bernard will develop into a clone of his father will be disappointed. “A lot of our music is naturally the same,” Allison said.  “Early on, there was a lot more stuff where I sounded like him. But now, you can hear a song and tell if it’s Bernard or Luther.”

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Bif Naked

Just the name, Bif Naked, conjures up pornstar imagery right off the bat and certainly the Canadian rocker and starlet (whose scene was the highlight of the otherwise cinematic bowel movement, House of the Dead) isn’t afraid to take advantage of her sex appeal, but that doesn’t mean she’s invulnerable.

“I’m a real gullible girl and I always believe anything a boy will ever tell me. I get suckered a lot, but always get back up on the love horse,” she explains when discussing the songs on her latest album, Superbeautifulmonster. “I just came off a big heartache and was enshrouded in despair when I wrote [album tracks] ‘Abandonment’ and ‘After A While’. I like to think that I better my efforts, my songwriting, and singing with every record and this one’s a little darker and sadder, it’s much more guitar-oriented. There’s something that everyone can relate to. I’m crazy about love, crazy about the whole process. I keep getting knocked down, but I keep getting back in the ring.”

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Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath, the original four horsemen of the metal apocalypse, charged their reunited forces across foreign soil earlier this year, saving their triumphant return to America for a winter tour kicking off in Phoenix on New Year’s Eve. Working up to the live run, bassist Geezer Butler, guitarist Tony Iommi, fabled frontman Ozzy Osbourne, and drummer Bill Ward issued Reunion, a double live CD that smokes with the haunting Sabbath dirges and staunch, dark music of heavy metal’s most influential outfit. As Butler and Iommi indicated in a late October interview while doing press in New York City, the CD is just the tip of the iceberg.

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Bullet For My Valentine

There just may be something in Britain’s water supply that causes the country to produce some of the finest heavy metal bands the world has ever known. Black Sabbath, Cradle of Filth, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest…the list goes on and on. Now, 2008 is shaping up to be the year of the Valentine, as Welsh rockers Bullet For My Valentine unleash “Scream Aim Fire” on an unsuspecting public.

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