The Drop-In #13: What We Talk About When We Talk About Bubbi (with Óli Palli)

The Reykjavík Grapevine has been published in downtown Reykjavík for more than 20 years. For most of that time, its offices have been next door to the "World Famous Hot Dog Stand.” Every day, people drop-in to our office for various reasons. Sometimes they tell us interesting stuff that we want to share with you, so we interview them, for your pleasure. There is no theme.

In this episode we are joined by Icelandic radio veteran Ólafur Páll Gunnarsson (Óli Palli) to discuss the upcoming 70th birthday of Iceland's bestselling (in Iceland) and extremely influential musician, Bubbi Morthens, who was featured on the cover of the latest issue of The Reykjavík Grapevine. Óli Palli discusses Bubbi's profound cultural impact, his prolific songwriting process, and his decision to stay and flourish in Iceland instead of pursuing an international career. This conversation attempts to contextualize Bubbi for an English-speaking audience, examining how his career has mirrored the Icelandic experience, from his punk-rock roots in Utangarðsmenn to his lasting influence on the nation's social and cultural landscape, including his role in normalizing views of the gay community in the 1980s.

Highlights:
00:01:42: How Bubbi’s music inspired Óli Palli to get into the music business as a radio host.
00:08:25: Bubbi as an artistic "sponge," drawing influence from a wide range of authors and musicians.
00:11:36: Bubbi’s decision to remain "a big fish in this little pond" (Iceland).
00:32:01: Bubbi's first band, Utangarðsmenn, and their role in creating Reykjavík's 1980s live music scene.
00:33:11: The social impact of the 1984 song Strákarnir á Borginni (The Boys of Hotel Borg) on the gay community in Iceland.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Hello and welcome to the drop-in where uh we here at the regular grapefan help people to drop in at the office to talk about various things. Uh this time around uh Olipale is with us. Olipale has been a feature of Icelandic radio for decades, and we wanted to drag him in here to talk about uh no other than Bippi Mortens, Iceland's best selling musical artist locally.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Yeah, sales dum and also most influential, but yeah. Yeah, but uh I'm Jon Tristan, the publisher of the Regpan, and with me is Bart Cameron.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Uh welcome to the show, Oli. Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

And so sorry for doing this in English. It's our English audience. Uh and we really wanted to have you specifically because you yeah, run Icelandic language radio, but with such uh finesse and um such the crafted programming that I think our English language listeners uh they kind of miss out, but also they'd be fascinated to even dip into it. Even if you sp are learning Icelandic or use Icelandic a little bit, it's a great program, especially Rockland. It's something I thank you very much. I as a touchstone for my ex existence in Iceland. It really is.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Or if you just want to listen to somebody speak Icelandic which you can't comprehend while playing good music, you should also be in good hands.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Yeah. But we brought you in because our cover story is on Publi Mortens, who's celebrating his 70th birthday on June 6th. And um I wanted somebody who could help us contextualize Puppy, and also fascinatingly enough, you and I have both watched a rehearsal of Puppy Mortens. You were saying as I was begging you to come, um that Puppy inspired you to get into the music business.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Yes, in a way. You know, he he re he released his his first album when I was eleven.

SPEAKER_03 2:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

And I remember the the uh advertisements in the in the newspaper, Thjulwilin. I was I was at a friend's home and his father said, What dick is this? And and then uh at that time I I I I hadn't heard his music. So a bit later there was there was a little bit on TV, there was like a a video on TV. And then he was in Utangarsman and they released uh Keyslavkir, Radioactive. Right. That's my favorite Icelandic album ever. And that kind of it, you know, it changed so much. It changed my life and and uh and I had always always been interested in musik but when Utankarsmen uh when they uh released their album and I started listening to that it changed like my view on music. It it inspired me so much. So uh I have sometimes said that that if not all for Puppy, I'm not sure if I would be doing my job today because he inspired me.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Yeah. Yeah, he changed the way one uses a language even in in song with that first album, as I understand it.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Yeah, in Icelandic. I have this uh sort of random anecdote of somebody describing a similar experience, or like for you know, hearing Puppy for the first time, and it was my math teacher's teacher from from Loyowat, who must have been in his mid-thirties when this happened. Yeah and he said, I was just listening to the radio, and this song by Puppy can't comes on, and I'm like, You you can you can do this in Icelandic? Uh-huh. This is allowed. And he was just completely blown away by it. Yeah. Not he would he would have not been in the sort of age group or or you know the general audience of Puppy, but he was just completely masmerized by the force and the language of of Puppy.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

And uh that was a profoundly new thing he said as an experience listening to Icelandic music. Yeah. But you you've then professionally followed most of his career uh as a uh radio Tier from um from the 90s onwards, right? From the early 90s, if I'm not mistaken. Uh and kind of gotten an opportunity to interview Bippe to observe his career, uh, and and therefore, and that's part of the reason why we tried to have you come on here, and thanks for being here, is that you've been basically reporting on Bippe as that goes and his music uh for your whole career. And that spans Oh I hadn't thought of that.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

So I can't I can't help it.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

I can't help it.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

Yeah, it's like uh it's like the institution of Iceland Icelandic music almost.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Which in terms of like durations also spans uh up to about 80% of Bibi's whole career. Because you you've you started sort of a decade or so into his career. But before that, obviously you would have been listening to Bibi and and possibly seeing him live and stuff like that. So, because like one of the things that uh the article, the feature article, sorry, I'm taking a long time to get into this, and to pose a question.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Uh one of the difficult things for an English language magazine to do is to try to explain Puppy to a foreign audience. He's a very sort of he's a massive part of Icelandic culture. Uh, everybody has an opinion on Bippi, everybody's heard Puppy. Everybody hears Puppy all day, really, if you listen to the radio.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Yeah, if you're Icelandic, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

If you're Icelandic. And yet at the same time, Bipi has never like had a an extensive career abroad, and he's kind of like insulated within the Icelandic context, making it like whereas like every Icelander instinctively kind of knows what Bippi is or who Puppy is, uh explaining it to somebody who isn't from here comes with like a whole package train of context. So there's a lot of things you kind of have to explain along with that. And I was hoping we could kind of like make an attempt of talking about Bippi in that way. And I think you kind of like you opened this kind of perfectly by saying, like, you know, this was just amazing when you heard it first. And I and I gave this context of a then 35-year-old man or something like that, having a similar experience. Uh and he Bippi has then obviously had a very long career, which is like he's experimented with all sorts of different music style styles, and and uh he's you know grown up and and his lyrical uh inspirations have differed based on you know what his life is like, but yet I feel at the same time that that journey of his kind of um mirrors the journey of many of many Icelanders in life. So I'm just gonna open with this.

SPEAKER_02 7:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

And uh just to like try to set the stage for people who may not know who Bebe is. And um should we then just kinda should we just start with kind of just vaguely like sort of describe his career as as much as we can on the go here? Do you wanna do you wanna sort of start?

SPEAKER_00 7:46

I I would I would maybe uh like to start uh to say that he's he's uh you know uh like one of his idol idols is Bob Dylan. And he he's a bit like Bob Dylan. He's kind of a I don't have a better word than a better word than than than Sponge. You know, he he you know there's all kinds of influences that he hears and sees and makes it into his you know own. And I think that is very common with a lot of of of good artists. You know, they are taking inspirations from all around and and making something new out of that. And and he is he's like that. He has always and uh you know I have been uh talking to musicians now for more than 30 years, and they are not all of them interested in music. Some of them hardly listen to music, they're just interested in their music and what they are doing, and that's that's fine.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

He is always great point, great point.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

He is always interested in music and has been since since he was a kid. And he was always from like when he he got his first guitar when he was like ten or something, and he was always he carried his guitar with him all around. And he was he was reading a lot of a lot of books, you know, like like like heavy books, and he was listening to music, he was listening a lot to Dylan and the Beatles and the Stones and all that, and he was also listening to a lot of of music from from South America. And he was listening to Leonard Cohen. So in in some of his songs you you hear, oh, this is Leonard Cohen.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

You do hear okay, I hadn't thought of it.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

This is from South America, this is from Neil Young, this is from Bob Dylan, and then he uh like like Utankatsman, his band, then he was you know, he was in in the leather trousers that came from Jim Morrison or Icky Pop. He was naked on top, that's icky, and and and um and Jim Morrison in in in like Echo, the the band number two. There's a lot of influence from uh from the doors there, and and with Utangersman, it's partly class, it's partly the Rolling Stones, it's partly Icky and the Stuches. So it's all kinds of influences, and then and then he he just you know it's it's like you said, he has tried a lot of different styles. It's but it's it's just all music, it's just all interesting music, it's just like uh maybe new soundscapes here and there. It's just all music and he is he's doing his lyrics in English. He tried to to go abroad. He had uh had a record contract in Sweden and it was going fine. And the and the owner of the record company the the company was called Mysler. It was the home of of the of the band Imperiat, which which is also a big influence on Pibi. He was they were very disappointed uh w w when he said I don't want to do it. It it it just didn't feel right. And if you listen uh to his his English album, he did one, yeah. It's not it's not something right. He said, you know, I if I can't um like express myself one hundred percent I don't want to do it. So he just wanted to be here like a big fish in this little pond instead of of trying something something else.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

But he's but he ba but he seems to have based that decision on sort of like it's kind of like for artistic reasons. He tried it, he didn't like it, he didn't do it. Yeah kind of a thing.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

I think it's like that's like uh that's like yeah, and I also think I mean 20 years ago I actually wrote in the in the grapevine that he's the embodiment of the big fish in a little pond, and I meant that in the pejorative. I thought that he was so difficult because uh if you don't agree with him, or if you're just not in the mood because he takes up so much oxygen, you're like, well, I just can't stand to be in the same environment as Bubby Morton's is too much for me. But looking back on it now, you would have this narrative of if you're so great, go to America. And Bob Dylan went to New York, you go to New York if you're so great, you know. Because I mean, um come on, he's got a better range than anybody else. He's you know, and now all that view of like a shared uh shared world, a flat earth kind of thing, I feel like that that doesn't make sense anymore. Like now it's like it makes more sense to people for people to have stayed and developed their local community. And um it's it seems silly that to have to have ever suggested anybody should go anywhere else if you could develop here, especially knowing the effect he had here. So I feel like uh yeah, my mistake I make obviously I make a lot of mistakes on a daily basis, but I feel like that one um not that I want to take back, but I just it looking at it now, I feel differently about it. Um I mean, yeah, as recently as like three weeks ago, I was saying I I I can't stand Bobby Morton's because he's he's talking about his his cars, you know. Like I don't want to hear him talk about cars. I want him but having now had spent not had to spend, but spent a huge amount of time with him, I realize he's a man who does not filter.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Yeah. You know, if you if you look at let's say Neil Young, yeah, on so many of his albums, there are even songs about cars. He's also got he chose to write a book. I think Booker has not written a song about his car yet, but that might be. And you know, it's it's he he he has opinion on everything. Uh on on one of his albums that he released maybe five years ago, there was a song called Ye Have Incas Golden, I Have No Opinion. So he was kind of talking to himself, the uh meaning I don't want to be talking about everything all the time. Yeah. And it's better to just, you know, you can be more at peace with yourself if you don't have an opinion on anything, writing something on Facebook or something. So and and and people have said, you know, he has gotten on people's nerves all his career. And I know people that say, you know, I like his music, but he said shut up. But that's that's part of it. I have often said if he would if he was not like who he is, you know, then he would not be who he is. Yeah. So he is it's uh it's uh it's a package. If he will he if he he would be different, if he would not be having all his opinions on everything and nothing, he would not write these songs. Yeah. So it's like you just have to take the whole package. And and and uh he was the first one that I remember that said it's it's healthy to change your mind.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

So he and and uh I I have I have been reading, you know, interviews with him and books and see him on TV and talking to him and listen to his music. And I think he always means what he is saying at the time. Yeah. Then time goes, you know. Time time changes and he changes his mind. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

But he's such a walking conduit too. Like watching him practice, watching him. I ha when I was interviewing him, he'd wrote one day he came in saying he wrote a song that morning. Yeah. And dedicated to our because he gets up at five in the morning to write a song. He has the inspiration, he doesn't stop. I feel like this is like he's taking the filters off in his brain to write, and that comes out in communication. So you get these really bold songs expressing things that I've even made fun of it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, come on, dude. That's that's you're bleeding on the page about your divorce.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

But for people who are, you know, it turns out as we have a coworker who's like, you know, when I went through my divorce, was listening to Bubba's divorce albums was amazing because this guy had blood on the page for me. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

It's yeah, so so it's like that. It's it it's always, you know, it's always honest, he's not uh uh not filtering himself, and he writes, I think he writes song every day. And and the guy who who was working now now as his um music director and and record producer, he is he is my friend, and he has uh has told me that he has you know he sends him ideas every day.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

And and and and he and he told me recently it's not just some ideas, it's full songs and lyrics. Yeah. Like every almost every day. Something that you could just like take and finish and release it.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Yeah, and I think maybe our listeners and readers might be surprised at the uh other musicians in town who know what Puppet does and respect it. Because I've had feedback to this feature, late night conversations where people talk about the craft that goes into this, and they're they're completely different styles of music and they respect the way Puppy works. They know they they are aware of this 5 a.m. rush songwriting and they know what he's turning in by seven. It's full songs, full bridges, full um it's amazing. I'm sorry, but going back, you mentioned the Bob Dylan thing. Now, of course, Bubbi actually hung out with Bob Dylan when he was here, right? And you were there for that, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:50

I was there. I I will I saw the show and I've never seen him so nervous.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Bobby is so nervous. Yeah, he was very nervous. Jesus Christ, of course.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

He was he was the the guitar was out of tune, if I remember it right, and he was it was the in my memory it was the worst uh worst performance of his ever uh at that time.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

And I had seen him at that time many, many times. You know, I saw him for the first time in my hometown in the in the um sports hall in my hometown when I was thirteen, I think. It was with Echo.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

With Echo, which is a f of uh we'll go back to it, but that Rocky Reiki Vic movie performance is one of the more staggering.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

That's great. And and and I have a memory they were playing uh Utankersmen were playing a show in my hometown when I was when I was eleven, maybe. And I got to stay in the like in the Forstowater?

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Uh forstower This is a hard one. Uh the the where what is the property?

SPEAKER_00 19:05

In the like uh like lobby of the house. The lobby is the cobweb, yeah. Okay, yeah. They were playing. And uh I got to stay there for a few minutes and they wouldn't let me in. I I wanted to go in and and and no. It it was not not the band. They were they were like doing sound check.

SPEAKER_03 19:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

So that was I I almost saw saw them there. And then I saw Echo, and then I saw him many times uh alone with his guitar and with bands. And when Uertangusman reformed 20 years later in 2000, uh I was involved in that. I was the I was the like the host of the of the shows in the DJ, and I went with him uh um around Iceland.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

Okay. And they did play the same sports hall in Akranis, your hometown again, didn't they?

SPEAKER_00 19:51

No. They didn't know they played. They started there, then it was Akuri, and then it was uh Porcanes, it was like a uh a small like airplane hangar, and the electricity went out, and there was just one light bulb above the stage. Oh, that's perfect. And it was raining and it was just it was draping in and it was like almost like a violent show. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

And then Logan is the one we were talking about in the feature because that's where they famously performed with the Clash on the last day of the Clash's London calling tour. And then at the end of it went out and played soccer with them together, which is just an amazing visual.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

Yeah, that's that's that must have been a massive like imagine seeing that band on their last show of a tour. It must have been like just astonishing.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Yeah, so we've been we've been at the I just wish I had seen that. Yeah. I wish I was the I think.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

It has to creep into the soil though. Yeah. The greatest one of the greatest albums ever recorded, the last performance of that touring band is was here in Reykjavik, like in the heart of Reykjavik.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Uh I and and like speaking of Pippi and Eestad, I I went to a hair salon this morning and I was talking to a guy who was waiting with me, and and uh he he was German, he had moved to uh um Eestad in the late 70s. He's a geologist, he was doing work there. And then he was saying like, yeah, and then I was seeing some of the music stuff, and you know, I saw listened to uh Spielberg Thun, I thought it was pretty good, and then Susan Flocken came and uh thought that was great, and then Puppy showed up, and that was just yeah, that blew me away. Yeah. Um just to add to that folklore. Uh but uh uh what I was gonna say is like uh sorry that I interject, but just for context, uh because we talked about Bippi's ability to churn out songs every morning, every day almost. Uh I don't have the statistics in front of me, but I believe he's put out a solo album almost at least annually for his whole career. On average, I think we have around forty albums or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

If if uh if we count some of the in his perfect world there w there would be m much more. Yeah. I think he has done he has not released uh album every year now for the last years. No. But for the first like his first album was 1980. In 1984, he had released like ten or eleven or twelve albums.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

Yeah, he was.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Either solo albums or with his bands. It was Utangutsman, there were three, there were three Echo albums, it was Task Capital, and then some solo albums. You know, like the first four or something.

SPEAKER_03 22:42

It's incredible.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

So it's it's it's incredible, and it's so good stuff. There's so much good stuff on it. And it it it's it's not always the same album. It's it's different sounds. Some of it sounds like Neil Young Harvest, some of it sounds like The Rolling Stones and Dickie Pop. And you know, it's it's it's amazing. There it there is there is no one uh like this guy. No.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

And we uh often say like, you know, Iceland's Bob Dylan, Iceland's Bruce Springsteen, this kind of thing. But I, you know, have followed those other artists a great deal, and and I don't know that they're on the same product the production is not the same. Like he's working he has access to the same to amazing m musicians, and he works on on uh a manic level all year round. Like so I don't know if there's anybody else and I will say his musical training may surpass what people would expect from a troubadour. I don't I was watching his chord structures and this is pretty pretty alarmingly complex stuff that he does.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

And and and you know, he had been listening to so much music when he started out releasing albums and and practicing so much guitar, and he w he had had developed uh the the guitar style, you know, like uh like guitar picking and and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 24:10

Travis picking is really nice.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

Yeah, it's uh and you know uh we had not heard that here at that time. I think he was the first one who played like this, and he taught so many of us to play guitar. I you know, I w I would I would say that he, you know, I I play play a little bit guitar, and I I would say that he kind of taught me how to play guitar. I I watched his shows, listened to his albums, and and when he was on TV, I used to record that and watch it and learn to to play the songs. And it was there was no there was no internet, there was no there was no YouTube that you could like look look up the songs and see how how they're done and things like that. So and and he yeah, he he has he was so good at playing the guitar like that when he was so young. Did he guide he always he always carried his guitar around?

SPEAKER_02 25:12

Did he guide Icelandic taste uh in finding other songwriters? That what I'm saying is was he the introduction to say Bruce Springsteen or other songwriters, or was it just uh in the air and he was just along with it?

SPEAKER_01 25:28

I I think I have an answer to that one. Yeah. Uh I I wonder what your take on it is. But like like we're talking about his ability to absorb a lot of mu different music styles and then kinda make his own variations of it, like as in like good artist uh borrow and great artist steals. Steal, he steals. So I think he is like if you're here and you know you're hearing him on the radio, he's a good gateway into all sorts of different different musical styles and big foreign artists.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

And he states openly who he steals from, which shocked me. One of the first things he said was, you know, I stole these pants, like as I'm sorry, what?

SPEAKER_01 26:03

Yeah, from Tim. Nothing's original.

SPEAKER_02 26:05

I steal everything. And and you know, what didn't make it into the article was uh him explaining to me his favorite French artist that he listens to and where to find them on YouTube.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

Yes. It's it's like, you know, he I think this is how I think this is how everything works. I think this is how art works actually. You're always you know importing something and you make something of your own out of it. It's it's never it's never exactly the same.

SPEAKER_03 26:36

No.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

But you have this idea. I'm gonna write a song in that style, kind of, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna sing a bit like that, I'm gonna use these words. And I read I read a book that that that uh Jeff Tweety wrote, how how to write one song. Have you read that? I I have, yeah, yeah. And it's it's actually he's just he's just uh explaining how he writes songs. He's using all kinds of techniques. So it's all all about that. You know, you hear something, here you know, you you see uh like a line in a book or in a newspaper, or you hear something, someone says something on TV, you write it down, use it for later. So it's it's all about that. It's it's like yeah, you just opt around. Like everything in, yeah, put something out. And and there is one thing that is is very uh important here uh that we that we are sitting here in the heart of Reykjavik City. That in 1980, when when Urtankarsman uh uh started playing, there was no kind of music scene in Reykjavik. There were no music venues. There was no place like uh you know, there are not many here today. No, we have a bit of a problem.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

But the Ilno wasn't really a place where it's a very good thing.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

There was no there was no Ilno, there was no Koikurin. No Lemmy, no. There was no Lemmy, there was nothing. So if it's bad today, it was so much worse. It was just not. We had live music, but all the live music was, you know, there were bands playing like um dance. Yeah, they had community halls.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

So Iceland has like a series of so-called community halls all over Iceland, built in the 50s, 60s, and this is what the bands would do. They would kind of tour these places, and you'd have audiences out in the country to play for.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

And that was great. That was a lot of fun, you know. It was it was young people meeting in the weekends, drinking usually a lot of alcohol, and dancing and listening to some some some bands. Some were so some were good and and some were not so good. But Uttangsmen when they started their their first shows, it was in in Artunsholt. In Artum. There was like uh there was like this uh this this um this dance place for maybe middle age people that were like dancing on on Sundays on Saturdays or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

Lindy hopping or something?

SPEAKER_00 29:12

I I yeah I I I I never never saw saw that place. So they they they got to play there on Thursdays or something. And the people that came that that was the uh like the like the people that that that used to come there was just sitting like this, what's going on? Turn this down! And then were maybe like some ten, fifteen people that were following the band. And that's where they started. And after after a few shows, and then there was uh there was this thing somewhere in Kopovo where I was I was not there.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

It was like a half-built theater, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Yeah, it was like some kind of of a festival that was called Helpril Aiska. It was uh like a big thing, it was Freppladner, who was the Icelandic's uh first punk band, and then the Tangersman, and they smashed the guitars, it's a legendary show. I wish I had been there.

SPEAKER_03 30:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

So that was that, and then they asked the guy who was running Hotel Pork if they could play there.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

Oh, the legend.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

And the Hotel Pork at that time, I was there often with my with my grandfather who ran a store here here downst uh uh downtown. It was uh it was a place where the people from Altinke they wanted to have uh coffee or soup in the in the um like uh lunch, and then it was a party place, I think, on Saturdays, Fridays and Saturdays. And they they asked if they could play on Thursdays. And they they made this shitty deal that they got like ten percent of the of the ticket sell or something, and it was a full house. It was like 700 people that that showed up all of a sudden and they played there the the whole winter and they they got a lot of bands to open open for them and a lot of bands uh kind of of um formed to play with Utangertman at these shows. Like Ayner heard from uh from the circle cubes, he was the manager when he when he was 17 he he started uh uh uh uh Perkupilnik and the and the and the uh and and the roti uh Gunther who who's at the uh punk museum, he was the roti, he started Q4U. Wow and Rochereikovic and all you know and this scene that was actually uh documented in Rochireykavik in 1982, that kind of I think that would not have happened without Puppy and Dutangersman. And that movie was first supposed to be a film about Puppy and Gasman.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

Okay and instead became a film about Puppy and everything he kind of trailplaced then into existence. And that's it, like that's interesting. I've never really I had not heard that perspective. Wow. That's really interesting. That's a true story. That is that is very interesting. And I I mean I like to point out that Hotel Pork is still there, one of the few places in downtown Rekio that seems to be seem to be forever, been there since the 30s.

SPEAKER_02 32:35

We were we were just there watching the fall of civilization.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

Nah, you wouldn't call it that. We went there uh to the uh to the election party of uh the center party during the uh same thing, right? During the I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

Yeah, oh yeah, we said we were doing music in that politics.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

During the uh during the election night here in Reykjavik a couple of weeks ago.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

Um and and and it also features in one of uh Puppy's most celebrated songs, uh The Boys of Hotel Board.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

I don't know the I think I think actually uh like that. You know, he was at that time it was 1984. Yes, I was 15. And uh and I think that Puppy he did so much for the um for the gay community writing that song at that time and because it was like you know he was you know he was like the coolest cat in town. And when he's when he said hey guys leave the gay uh gays alone, you know, that they're okay. So I I think I I think that that uh changed changed so much. I think it you know uh uh uh because he was this he was this this uh singer with the guitar, he had been uh fisherman working in the fish factories like so many of us.

SPEAKER_03 33:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

So when when this it was like uh yeah, it was like an order from him. Yeah, leave them alone, they are fine, you know. I think that that actually did a lot at that time.

SPEAKER_02 34:13

I what's the name of the Icelandic of the song? I said Hotel.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

Straukanero Borgini. Yeah, then the line is like the one of the lines in that song is like the boys are okay. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

And and and because after that time things have changed so much. Yeah. The um the um like um guys at it or at Hotel Borg, which was the hottest place in town, they were they were like um uh they wouldn't let them in, the uh gay people.

SPEAKER_02 34:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

And they were like uh closing the doors and and uh No, I mean it's uh you know I think it's kind of well documented like with uh uh Hudot Torwa interviews and stuff that you know Hodot Torwa is one of the first and he's still around for one of the first sort of openly gay people in Iceland in the 70s. And this is like a rough patch, yeah. And getting to the point where we are now with like, you know, uh we have gay marriage and and nobody except for maybe Milflog thinks twice of it.

SPEAKER_02 35:17

Uh it's become who held our party and held up, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

It it has like the the the culture or views, cultural views towards uh being gay have completely shifted into being absolutely normal. And I think you are right there. I think Puppet did play a part because in 1984 he is you know he's the person that young people look up to. Yeah, he is taking active part in normalizing.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

It's like that. No one, you know, you know, of of course, Hurd he he changed a lot of things. He was the like first openly gay man in Iceland, and he he did so many great things. And then ten years later, this comes from from Buppy, and and I I think think for my generation it just changed everyone's views on it. And can I we said, Oh, you know, of course, come on. Yeah, exactly. Who gives a fuck?

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Yeah, who gives a fuck? Yeah. I mean that's that's great.

SPEAKER_02 36:17

We have such a finite amount of time because you have so many things to do, and I think that's such a great uh example of what this man has done in his career. I did want to say, because um, if we're able to tune into uh Ros Two, right? I mean, on in the Rouv radio. Yeah, the the national broadcaster, yeah. There's gonna be on June 7th, there's gonna be your what your like magnum opus on this. Your big piece on Boopy comes out on June 7th, right? On the radio?

SPEAKER_00 36:45

Yes, I'm making I w I was thinking, of course, I had I have done uh quite a few shows with him. And and and actually when I was I remember, you know, I never thought that I would be a radio man. It never occurred to me that it was even possible. I never thought about it. It just happened out of an accident really. And I've been so so um happ happy about it that I've always like did my best. It's it's uh it's like a it's like a luck. And I've tried to to uh like work on it as I've done my best always. And I remember when I was I think I was maybe 16 years old, I was working in a fish factory in Akronas. And and there was like a like a speaker system. We were like 10 people. Uh we were working on um on saltfisk.

SPEAKER_02 37:49

Um backlar?

SPEAKER_00 37:54

Yeah, yeah. And we were like uh dusting off the salt and and and taking out the small worms that are in it. And there was like a like a speaker system, and we were listening to Pilkan. I remember that. Yeah, yeah. It's like the first year of Pilkin, maybe. Yeah, that makes sense. I w I m made it may up in 17, okay? And and and a song by Puppy came on, and I thought to myself, I somehow remember this. I thought if I was a radio man, radio DJ, I would play Puppy every single day on every show. And it has been hard for me not to do it. Because it's it's just because I just like his music so much, and he has done so much, there's so many songs. So so we after Raus tour we are privileged in in that way. And I was I was head of music there for I was head of music number two on uh on the station. I I was head of music for maybe 10 or 15 years or something. And and it has always been a rule, even if we have have a playlist, we have like this doppel system. So we have the songs on the playlist that is like 50% of the stuff that you play during daily daytime. Yeah. So the radio host always has something to say. So we are like Tom Patty says on the songs, the last DJ. Yeah. And it's very old-fashioned, and it's very important that it it it uh it stays like that. So so if you have that like privilege, you you can play every day something you really like. So I've been it's been really it's sometimes been really hard for me to not play puppy. And and I've had you know emails throughout the years that says, you know, what's going on with you and this puppy Mortens? Is he paying your bills or something? So it's so it's like that. It's just I just I just like like his music.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

I get it too, like, because there is a puppy song for almost every lifestyle opportunity or experience.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

If you are in love, yes, there is a puppy, you can send someone a song. If you if your father dies or something, there's a funeral, there's uh hymn that that that he wrote. If you want to rock like crazy.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

Wait the hymn song, uh what what's the name of the hymn? Cvedia. Cvedia, that's the one I cited in the article. Yeah, that that's commonly played at funerals here. I think people would be surprised at a big rock.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

And it's a it's uh it's uh and I think it's it's it's in the hymn, Icelandic hymn book. Yeah. And it's such a beautiful song. And and and he wrote it just like this for someone who died some some years back. And and and you know, he he uh has sung it in so many many funerals. And uh I don't know if it's uh if it's a secret or not. No, I don't think so. You know, uh there's a lot of of of people that that's uh that has like singing funerals that is that is part of the job and I respect that 100%. He never uh charges anything for this. He don't want to play funerals, he just plays the funerals that that is like it's usually uh you know it's young people, like drug overdoses and things like that. And he always sings just this one song. You cannot ask him to play Blowing in the Wind or something. He'll just sing it. It's just this one song, and he's always up front, facing the uh the uh church guests. So there are there are many there are many, you know, interesting and endearing things about him.

SPEAKER_02 41:49

That was that yeah. Sorry, that is fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 41:52

That is fascinating, yeah. Yeah. I think uh I don't know if I wanna interject here with another sort of personal observation because I've been making a lot of those.

SPEAKER_02 42:00

Remember, time is money, time is money here.

SPEAKER_01 42:02

Yeah, but uh I feel like you know, I remember being in my early twenties moving to Reykjavik and Bippe in his late 40s kind of annoyed me, like, because that's what you're you're in rebellion and kind of those things. And then you get older, and what you kind of slowly come to realize is that there is nothing like Bippi when it comes to music that represent the re the the real lived reality of being Icelandic. You start kind of realizing that this music is at core about the Icelandic experience. And you start appreciating it when you get a little older, when you when you if you didn't before, which I think more people than not do. And you start realizing that yeah, he's he's gone through the same things I'm experiencing by living here, by by going through life here, by growing up, by having a family and all these things. And I think that's one of those things that uh make him so precious. He is just channeling the um sometimes difficult experience of of living on this desolate rock in the middle of the Atlantic.

SPEAKER_02 43:10

If that's I I agree with that, and I'll I'll do my segue though. Because I find him to be a frustrating human, but a deeply devoted human. And what happens is, and and I think this goes back to you, Ole Pale, is um there are humans doing these jobs. Uh doing there's a human here who's writing these songs and has dedicated his life and extra an extreme amount of energy to it. And you can see in Rokyrekivik him rehearsing and then going to play live and this unbelievable passion. Um and and I appreciate more and more humans dedicated to a craft. Your DJing, for example. I can listen to Rochland, I can listen to back issues of Rochland, and hear somebody who invested human effort into it. Whereas other people might put on Spotify. Like we're in an existence now where you could do all this AI, you can be stuck in AI and not have this human experience, or you can go and And find frustrating humans that are putting passion in, and you get a deeper way of living. Um, for me, and especially for Pupi, because I'm working on my Islandic again. I'm behind, but I'm working on it. It's it's there's there's a greater depth to this life because he's in it, and because he's working, and just as a craftsperson myself, trying to work on running a newspaper, um, seeing somebody that much with that much devotion and seeing yourself with that much devotion is inspiring. So that's why I jumped into this story, and uh and that's why I enjoyed writing it so much because I just couldn't believe somebody could have this. I mean, he as he said at the beginning and it didn't make it into the print, he's already booked his 90th birthday concert. He's he's expecting to do this on the long haul. And from his perspective, there's nothing that's gonna stop that from happening. But the the alarming thing is that he'll have written a song every morning between now and then.

SPEAKER_00 44:53

You know, he is 25 more albums. He is he's a bit like he's a bit like our Bono. Yeah, you know, I have been in Dublin speaking to uh uh Dubliners. And they they kind of yeah, of course we are proud of Bono, but we also hate him. So it's it's like that sometimes and and and and I think you know you know I am just from the the the generation that that that hurt him when he was starting out, and I think it's it's almost impossible to explain his influence at that time. You know, when I when I uh kind of noticed my my uh former future wife, which I have three children with, we were in the same school. Um she was you know I was just she was just a kid, she was like uh she was maybe 13 years old. She was in a group with with the uh they were like uh girlfriends, they they had the same jacket and they had echo like written on the back. So it was the echo gang. So it was it was it was there was it was so effective, it was so so um it was big. It was like the um first generation of Beatles fans, they can't explain how how to do it.

SPEAKER_02 46:30

Yeah, but this isn't children's music. Sorry, I hate the Beatles. I love the Beatles. I love the Beatles.

SPEAKER_00 46:37

So so it it it it it affected he he you know it's it's not just music. He he kind of he influenced he he uh he um I think he kind of changed Iceland a little bit. Yeah and in my opinion uh today as we are sitting here downtown my my grandfather who had this this close story here in Reykjavik, he he was uh friend of Carol's. Carol was not he man, he he he was a difficult man.

SPEAKER_01 47:14

Very difficult man.

SPEAKER_00 47:15

I think in my opinion, in my opinion, Puppes is like up there with Lachnis and Carol's.

SPEAKER_02 47:22

Yeah, in his fact he's like they were talking about Haldar Lachnes, who Puppy describes as Haldar Kilian. Yes, he uses the middle name when he talks about it. We talked about him. I just ran through books with Puppet just to see. I had heard he AMR Goodmanson had said that Puppin Mortens reads literature, and I said, which literature? He said all of it. Are you in trouble? Are we running out of time?

SPEAKER_00 47:45

A little bit.

SPEAKER_01 47:46

Yeah, let's let's let's end this. Uh okay. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming in. Uh this has been great. I hope we've given some context to to Bibby. Uh everybody listening and watching, thank you for that. This has been the drop-in. Thank you, Olipele again.

SPEAKER_00 48:01

Thank you for having me. It was a it was a pleasure and honor. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Bye bye.