About The Band
Copenhagen in the autumn of 1972, the crucible for Icelandic hippies, where the Free State of Kristiania held the promise of a better world where everyone was equal, providing according to available resources, partaking as needed. We celebrated the one year anniversary of Kristiania gathered around a great bonfire and promised to turn the Free State into a model of cooperation, togetherness and solidarity – a sort of primal Christianity.
The club Revolution in Copenhagen was the place to listen to live
music, all the latest and freshest. Usually it was rather bland stuff, I found, but the there appeared this amazing rock band, so amazing that we were left gaping and staring – Icecross – hard as nails and supertight. When the boys had finished playing they mingled with the audience, having a beer or perhaps lighting up a pipe. It turned out they were Icelanders living in Kristiania with big dreams – fully justified judging from their performance that night.
For several reasons Icecross never made it. My understanding was that they got tired of the struggle abroad and wanted to go back home. They did, however manage to cut a record bearing the name of the group. A superb record I listened to a lot, until it gave way to newer music – lying in the stack but enjoying short-lived revivals off and on over the next few years until it suffered the inevitable fate: too scratched and contaminated with booze to be playable.
Decades later, searching for old music, I started to come accross the record here and there on collectors' lists and for no small change – one wanted to buy it for $200 and another to sell it for $500. People were starting to talk about “the legendary and mysterious Icecross” but there were far fewer sellers than potential buyers.
As time went more and more copies started cropping up and further investigation revealed that the record had been reissued in various places. One owner offered for sale a record which had been published in Holland, another had a copy from Italy, and suddenlty someone was advertising a CD made in Korea. Everything strictly illegal but showing the widespread call for this marvelllous recording.
The Internet revitalized the sale of Icecross. At the time of this writing, a simple Google search reveals at least five different bootleg publishers which bears witness to the place accorded to Icecross in the history of rock music.
Árni Valdimarsson
