Annie performs at the Icelandic Airwaves Festival
Photo: MTV News

REYKJAVÍK, Iceland — For 360 days a year, Iceland is home to just 290,000 people, three massive glaciers and legions of Björk fans, but for five days each year, the capital city opens its indie-rock heart for the über-hip Iceland Airwaves music festival.

For its seventh-annual incarnation, which ended Sunday, Iceland Airwaves heated up the chilly city with a sultry new theme: the pursuit of sexiness. Most of the more than 140 bands that played this year — including Juliette and the Licks, Fiery Furnaces, Junior Senior, the (International) Noise Conspiracy and the Zutons — eagerly embraced that theme with electric live shows that packed around 4,000 people into six main venues and a series of smaller clubs.

For five days, bands mingled with fans and the press while watching underground acts, enjoying a drink and grabbing the late-night Icelandic "delicacy," pylsurs (a.k.a. hot dogs). Airwaves is beloved for its late-night shows (some bands don't take the stage until 2:30 a.m.) and an intimate atmosphere that allows fans to race past Björk on their way into a club, or chat up Juliette Lewis at the Saturday afternoon "hangover party."

Denmark's Junior Senior were fixtures at the festival, showing up at different venues every night. During their own set, the pair got the packed room moving with songs like their 2003 hit, "Move Your Feet." The previous evening, platinum-tressed Norwegian dance-club sensation Annie, known for her sugary hit "Chewing Gum," donned an '80s-inspired off-the-shoulder top and stretch pants to perform tracks off her 2004 debut, Anniemal.

Juliette and the Licks headlined on Friday evening, with Lewis — clad in a skin-tight white shirt and equally clingy white pants — piquing the crowd's excitement with her thrashing, Iggy Pop-inspired movements and crowd-surfing stints. The Zutons' diminutive saxophonist, Abi Harding, gave Lewis some stiff competition in the category of favorite female musician, though, captivating the audience at the Reykjavík Art Museum (formerly a prison).

Icelandic acts like the keyboard-happy Apparat Organ Quartet, rockers Singapore Sling, and Gus Gus (who played the very first Airwaves festival), shone. Brooklyn's underground success story Clap Your Hands Say Yeah drew one of the festival's biggest crowds with lines wrapping around the city's central square, while fellow Brooklynites New Radio, who've yet to appear on the radar Stateside, made a roomful of new fans with their alternately sweet and rocking cello-driven sound and singer Atarah Valentine's androgynous cabaret-inspired style.

An opportunity for Iceland to make its mark on the musical map, the Airwaves festival kicked off in 1999 at an airplane hangar, with acid jazz/ dance-music group Thievery Corporation as one of the featured performers. In its early years, the festival functioned as more of an industry showcase but has since become a way to introduce Icelandic bands to the world, and international bands to Icelanders.

The festival has drawn acts like the Bravery, the Hives, the Flaming Lips, Keane, the Shins, Sahara Hotnights, TV on the Radio, Fatboy Slim and Citizen Cope to the country's most densely populated city (about 170,000 people live there).

The main event that sets Iceland Airwaves apart from all other underground music festivals is its annual hangover party, which finds fans and artists leaving the confines of the city to lounge in the country's famous Blue Lagoon — a warm, milky-blue geothermal pool — and listen to a set by Icelandic DJ Hermigervill. Try finding that at New York's CMJ Music Marathon.

For more sights and stories from concerts around the country, check out MTV News Tour Reports.

• Icelandic Airwaves Festival, Reykjavik, Iceland 10.19-23.05

• Juliette & the Licks
• The Zutons
• Junior Senior
• The (International) Noise Conspiracy

Junior Senior
Photo: Gregg Delman

Those sick of shaking their tailfeathers can start shaking their coconuts.

Junior Senior, the Danish duo behind the dance floor favorite "Move Your Feet," are eyeing the equally amusing "Shake Your Coconuts" for their second U.S. single.

"It was actually one of the first songs we ever wrote, so it's kind of a Junior Senior classic in our world, " singer Jeppe Laursen, otherwise known as Senior, said last week. "It'll be nice if it gets some airtime."

Laursen and Jesper Mortensen (Junior) are currently reviewing reels from directors who want to work with them on what will be their fourth video from D-D-Don't Stop the Beat (see Junior Senior: Anarchistic Odd Couple Wants To 'Move Your Feet' ").

Along with "Move Your Feet," the duo have made videos for "Rhythm Bandits" and "Boy Meets Girl," the pair's second singles in the U.K. and Denmark, respectively. Swedish collective StyleWar (the Hives, Moby) directed the latter, which can be viewed on their Web site (www.stylewar.com).

Junior Senior will not be rushing another video on the air, however, since "Move Your Feet" is still picking up steam. The memorable clip — directed by Shynola, the team behind Radiohead's "Pyramid Song" — features the unusual activities of an amateurishly animated squirrel.

The video was rushed into development in the spring of 2002 as the song was taking off in Europe.

"Nobody knew about us and we're kind of control freaks, so we made this long list describing who we were, what we were into, what kind of graphics and stuff," Laursen explained. "We took all these stills from all these videos we like ... it was very detailed actually, and we got all these reels back from directors that were just ripping us off. All these things we said we liked, they just put in. And you got to be a little more creative than that. So we started contacting people ourselves and we saw some stuff Shynola had done and we could see they were really creative and had their own thing going.

"We like the simplicity of it," he continued. "It's like the music, you can see what's going on."

As for the song itself, Mortensen penned the beginnings of "Move Your Feet" in 1999, but came up with the catchy bridge just days before Junior Senior were heading into the studio. "He just wanted that Motown feeling, that soul feeling in the singing," Laursen said.

Junior Senior just played a couple of West Coast dates, but will launch a larger U.S. tour with Electric 6 on October 15 in Milwaukee.

The duo are anxious to start another record, but that won't happen until sometime next year, depending on how well "Shake Your Coconuts" does.

Fans might be disappointed to know there are no plans to record the group's cover of Salt-N-Pepa's version of "Twist & Shout," a staple of their live show.

"Their version of the chorus was a bit lame and Jesper does it really well, but it's like blasphemy recording 'Twist & Shout,' " Senior said. "You just don't go there."

• Junior Senior

That Smash Mouth, always sweet-talkin' the ladies. "You are My Number One" is the first single from Get the Picture? and acts as the band's requisite summer single. Also on the album are the succinctly summarized tunes "Hot" and "Fun."

Killing Joke's latest self-titled album features drumming by Dave Grohl. Meanwhile, the Libertines release the EP I Get Along alongside '60s guitar god Jeff Beck's Jeff and Junior Senior's Euro-pop album D-D-Don't Stop the Beat.

Blues Traveler get honest on Truth Be Told, on which the jam band makes an effort to keep its songs from wandering. On the other hand, drummer Josh Freese (A Perfect Circle, the Vandals) drops a solo album under the name Stripsearch and tries his hand at some improvisational sounds. The self-titled album features his brother and music mate Jason Freese on the saxophone, plus bass player Mike Elizondo (Eminem) and guitarist Michael Ward (Wallflowers).

Finally, with the exception of a song extolling the virtues of Zoloft and some routine wordplay, wacky Ween tone down their act a bit and get more serious on Quebec. Ooh la la.

Out Tuesday, August 5:

• Paolo Angeli - Bucato (ReR/Cuneiform)
• Arraya - Arraya (Volcom)
• Jeff Beck - Jeff (Sony)
• Terence Blanchard - Bounce (Blue Note)
• Blast - Alta Strata (ReR/Cuneiform)
• Blue October - History for Sale (Universal)
• Blues Traveler - Truth Be Told (Sanctuary)
  Buy Now: Truth Be Told (Sanctuary)
  
• BT - Emotional Technology (Nettwerk)
  Read:"BT Secretive About 'NSYNC Payback On Upcoming Album"
  
• Canterbury Music Festival - Rain & Shine (Rev-Ola)
• Nikki Cleary - Nikki Cleary (Jive)
• Cruxshadows - Frozen Embers (Dancing Ferret)
• Division of Laura Lee - Trapped In (Burning Heart)
• Enchant - Tug of War (Inside Out)
• Found Cats - Full Gospel Rockabilly (Golly Gee)
• Funker Vogt - Revivor (Metropolis)
• Jeff Golub - Soul Sessions (GRP)
• Shaun Groves - Twilight (Rocketown)
• Hocico - Disidencia Inquebrantable (EP, Metropolis)
• Hyperions - Under My Sombrero (Surprise Truck)
• Javier - Javier (Capitol/Priority)
• Wynonna Judd - What the World Needs Now Is Love (Curb)
• The Juliana Theory - Live 10.13.2001 (Tooth & Nail)
• Junior Senior - D-D-Don't Don't Stop the Beat (Atlantic)
  Read: "Junior Senior: Anarchistic Odd Couple Wants To 'Move Your Feet'"
  Buy Now: D-D-Don't Don't Stop the Beat (Atlantic)
  
• Killing Joke - Killing Joke (Red Ink)
• Lake Trout - Another One Lost (RX/Palm Pictures)
• Ben Lee - Hey You. Yes You. (F2 Music)
• Jeffrey Lewis - It's the Ones Who've Cracked That the Light Shines Through (Sanctuary/Rough Trade)
• Libertines - I Get Along (EP, Sanctuary/Rough Trade)
• Charlotte Martin - In Parentheses (EP, RCA)
• Mr. Criminal - Criminal Mentality (Thump)
• New Amsterdams - Worse for the Wear (Vagrant)
• Pinebender - The High Price of Living Too Long With a Single Dream (Lovitt)
• The Poor - Poor (Rev-Ola)
• Robert Randolph & the Family Band - Unclassified (Dare/Reprise)
• Don Ross - Robot Monster (Narada)
• Rachael Sage - Public Record (Mpress)
• Smash Mouth - Get the Picture? (Interscope)
  Buy Now: Get the Picture? (Interscope)
  
• Steadman - Revive (Elektra)
• Stripsearch - Stripsearch (Magna Carta)
• Tampa Tony - Y-Not (Empire Musicwerks BMG)
• The Derek Trucks Band - Soul Serenade (Sony)
• Turbulence - The Truth (Sanctuary/Ras)
• Velvet Acid Christ - Hex Angel: Utopia-Dystopia (Metropolis)
• Ween - Quebec (Sanctuary)
• Luther Wright and the Wrongs - Guitar Pickin' Martyrs (Back Porch)
• Various artists - Supertones Surf (Golly Gee)
• Various artists - "Uptown Girls" soundtrack (Nettwerk)

August 12:

• Pat Benatar - Go (Bel Chiasso)
• Dashboard Confessional - A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar (Vagrant)
  Read: "Dashboard Confessional Singer Heals Scars, Stops Singing The Blues On New LP"
  Buy Now: A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar (Vagrant)
  

August 19:

• Kraftwerk - Tour de France Soundtracks (Astralwerks)
• Neil Young - Greendale (Warner Bros.)
• Various artists - Neptunes Presents: Clones (Arista)
  Read: "Summer Music Preview: Neptunes' Star Trak Presents ... Clones"
  Buy Now: Neptunes Presents: Clones (Arista)
  
• Bow Wow - Unleashed (Columbia)
  Buy Now: Unleashed (Columbia)
  

August 26:

• Hilary Duff - Metamorphosis (Disney)
  Read: "Hilary Duff: Not Just For Kids"
  Buy Now: Metamorphosis (Disney)
  
• Peter Frampton - Now (33rd St.)
• Anthony Hamilton - Coming From Where I'm From (Arista) Read: "Eve, D'Angelo Can Testify: Anthony Hamilton Is 'Hellified Powerful' "
  Buy Now: Coming From Where I'm From (Arista)
  
• Outkast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (La Face)
  Buy Now: Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (La Face)
  
• Triumph the Insult Comic Dog - Songs in the Key of Poop (Warner Bros.)
  Read: "Eminem Enemy Triumph Previews LP; Beefs With Bow Wow, Benji"

September 2:

• Mariah Carey - Remixes (Sony)

September 9:

• John Mayer - Heavier Things (Sony)
  Read: "John Mayer Tries Hip-Hop With Help From Roots' ?uestlove"
• Seal - Seal (Warner Bros.)

September 16:

• Elvis Costello - North (Universal)
• Bubba Sparxxx - Deliverance (Interscope)
  Read: "Bubba Sparxxx Softens Bumpkin Image, Teams Up With Justin For A 'Hootnanny' "
  
• Carnie Wilson - For the First Time (KMA)

October 7:

• Jin - Almost Famous (Virgin)
  Read: "Ruff Ryders' New Dog: Jin"

• Smash Mouth
• Killing Joke
• Junior Senior
• The Libertines
• Blues Traveler

• Junior Senior

Hot Hot Heat frontman Steve Bays performs at SXSW
Photo: Rahav

Roughly 3,000 people flooded the streets of Austin, Texas, last week for the annual South by Southwest music conference with the exhausting goal of catching as many of the 1,000 bands as possible.

The traditionally eclectic lineup ranged from the unsigned, like Philadelphia's the Capitol Years, to the unjustly unsung, such as New York's the Realistics. But there were also veteran acts, including new-wave piano man Joe Jackson and the Yardbirds, who, with only two original members intact, performed for the first time in 35 years behind a new album. A favorite of many guitarists, the Yardbirds drew Slash, Steve Vai and Jeff "Skunk" Baxter to their set, which featured selections from Birdland, due April 22.

Austin favorite Willie Nelson headlined the Lost Highway showcase, which also featured Lucinda Williams, the Jayhawks and Tift Merritt. (Earlier in the week, Nelson and Williams recorded a duet of her song "Over Time" for the country legend's next album.) The Americana twang was balanced by Brit rock from the likes of Supergrass and surprise guests Blur, who performed without bassist Alex James because of a visa ensnarement. But it's the "next big things," such as Hot Hot Heat, the Rapture, the Coral and Junior Senior, that make SXSW a music fanatic's fantasy.

Vancouver's Hot Hot Heat performed at Saturday's Sub Pop showcase with Iron and Wine, who were pleasant but far too quiet for such a rowdy affair. A day earlier, they heated up Spin's afternoon barbecue with Sahara Hotnights, the Black Keys and D4. Surging beats and the ebb and flow of Steve Bays' vocal melodies had the crowd frenzied on both occasions, especially with "Get in or Get Out" and "Talk to Me, Dance With Me," two swaggering tracks from Make up the Breakdown. When Bays used his keyboard as percussion, the crowd couldn't help but surge to the whining pulses. And when the keyboard melodies combined with Dustin Hawthorne's rolling bassline, it was impossible for anyone to stand still.

The Coral used their outdoor stage show to soar with their throwback garage quirk — something of a cross between Alex Chilton's Box Tops, Middle Eastern subtleties and Mersey beat bop. "Goodbye," with its slightly Byrdsian verses, and the gritty "Dreaming of You," both from the band's self-titled debut, were the biggest crowd pleasers.

The death knell of chunky, three-chord indie rock sounded Friday night when the Stills proved to be as dull as their name, despite performing amidst free-flowing complimentary brew at the ultra-hip Vice magazine party. Their successors, the Rapture, succeeded where the Stills fell short by underlining most songs with a dance beat and punctuating others with avant-garde sax farts.

Goodtime music was on the rise with Denmark's Junior Senior, who played a showcase for their Danish label, Crunchy Frog (where the Raveonettes got their start), and had everyone in the room raising the roof to make room for the elevated adrenaline levels. Even the most jaded rock critics were on the dance floor shaking it to Michael Jackson's Off the Wall-era "Move Your Feet," from D-D-Don't Stop the Beat.

Also on the feel-good tip, the Polyphonic Spree, whose 24 robed members looked like a cross between a cult and a church choir, never fail to inspire awe and good cheer with their assemblage and orchestral twee pop. St. Louis native and all-around concert freak Beatle Bob even abandoned his traditional dancing in the front row for some onstage kung fu a go-go.

Other highlights included an afternoon set by twang-rockers Drive-By Truckers, who offered glimpses of their new Decoration Day and favorites from the 2001 double LP Southern Rock Opera; Mooney Suzuki singer Sammy James Jr. throwing a tantrum when their plug was pulled prematurely because of a scheduling lag; Bigger Lovers kicking off a Yep Roc showcase that also featured the Minus 5, led by Young Fresh Fellows' Scott McCaughey and R.E.M.'s Peter Buck; Yo La Tengo kicking things off with the frightening but funky "Nuclear War"; and the furious Puny Human, which features MTV News' very own Iann Robinson on drums.

Live music is just a portion, albeit a large one, of SXSW. Producer Daniel Lanois (Bob Dylan, U2), who said he's staying out of the studio for a year to support his Shine LP, due April 22; gave the keynote address. And Liz Phair, who performed a few tunes from her June 24 eponymous LP, hosted a Q&A session.

• Hot Hot Heat
• The Yardbirds
• The Polyphonic Spree
• Drive-By Truckers
• Junior Senior

MTV News: You Hear it First: Junior Senior

• Junior Senior

MTV Exclusive: Junior Senior Photos

• Junior Senior