June 26, 2003 – By: Will HermesDo you suffer from skammdegispunglyndi? For manyIcelanders, the cure for this brand of wintertime depression--inaddition to drinking--is making weird pop music. And with theunlikely success of majestic drone-rockers, Sigur Rós, theworld is looking to the tiny island for the sounds of tomorrow It's early Sunday at Reykjavík's den-size Grand Rokk club. The Czech Budweiser is flowing, and, as usual, the local music-scene aristocracy is holding court. Georg Holm, bassist for Icelandic-rock ambassadors Sigur Rós, gives tour tips to his cousin Bjarni Grimsson, drummer for dream-rock up-and-comers Leaves. They're waiting for Sigur drummer Orri Páll Dýrason, who is en route with Hössi Olafsson, the MC for local rap-rock punks Quarashi.

June 26, 2003 – By: Chuck KlostermanA strange package arrived at the Spin office bearing abook that may alter the course of history as we know it To see the living words of those who have left our world is a chilling experience. It is as chilling as seeing the corpse of a Rwandan refugee; it is as chilling as watching the torture of a blind Dalmatian puppy; it is as chilling as forgetting your sweateron a day that is literally chilly. A diary of the dead is a metaphorical kick in the emotional jowls. That's why a recently released book has so shaken our collective bones. It's a book that captures both the power of music and the fragility of human existence.

June 26, 2003 – If you did something dangerously fun and outrageous in the late'80s and '90s that your parents didn't like, you can probably thankPerry Farrell and Jane's Addiction. Stalking out of Los Angeles'seedy underground after hair metal wilted, they revolutionized whatrock music sounded and looked like, and became thegodfathers of the Alternative Nation. This is their shockinghistory--from wiseguys and Fila headbands to goth surfers,transsexuals, Siamese twins, Lollapalooza, and Carmen Electra.Proceed at your own risk. If you did something dangerously fun and outrageous in the late '80s and '90s that your parents didn't like, you can probably thank Perry Farrell and Jane's Addiction. Stalking out of Los Angeles' seedy underground after hair metal wilted, they revolutionized what rock music sounded and looked like, and became the godfathers of the Alternative Nation.

June 26, 2003 – Joe Strummer was the soul-rebel idealist who gave punk a cause It was fitting that his final London gig was a controversial benefit for union workers. Though Joe Strummer will be remembered for generations as the singer/songwriter of the historic punk band the Clash, he will remain beloved for his humble, restless idealism. Born John Graham Mellor in 1952, in Ankara, Turkey, a British diplomat's son who became a worldly pop star, Strummer never forgot the people beside him every day on the street. He chose his everyman stage name because he saw himself as a folk singer spitting raw information and emotion. When I first met Strummer in 1976, he was squatting in an old ice-cream factory with Clash bassist Paul Simonon (who was spray-painting incendiary slogans on the band's thrift-store clothes). And despite his later success, Strummer never lost that youthful grit.

June 26, 2003 – Who: Composer Warren Fischer and his Art Institute of Chicago schoolmate/vocalist Casey Spooner. Dancers, backup singers, chocolate-syrup wranglers, and wig fluffers flesh out the duo's live performances. Sound Like: They've been lumped in with Brooklyn's '80s-plundering electroclash scene, but Spooner doesn't believe in the much-idealized decade: "The '80s are a fiction. Everybody is re-creating a culture that never existed." The duo's debut album, #1, draws from late-'70s influences like Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder. Why You May Have Heard of Them: Their single "Emerge" is already a club smash. Or maybe you've been studying abroad? If you rolled up their European press clippings, you could housebreak a dog. "The mythmaking is out of control," Spooner says.

June 26, 2003 – For one night at New York City's Madison Square Garden, the reconstituted Guns N' Roses didn't suck--they rocked. The rocked extremely hard. And then they were no more There was a sense that the entire existence of Guns N' Roses--a tenuous entity if ever there was one--hung in the balance on December 5, 2002. It was the day of New York City's first major snowstorm of the season, and the evening of GN'R's sold-out performance at Madison Square Garden. And 10 p.m. was make-or-break time for the winter of Axl Rose's discontent. For most of last year, the elaborately braided Midwestern madman had an appetite for miscalculation: His MTV performance last Augustwas suspect; the subsequent Guns tour sketchy (there was a riot after a no-show in Vancouver, and there were half-empty arenas across the Midwest).

June 25, 2003 – James Mercer, Rosie Thomas, Sam Jayne and Sam Beam (Iron and Wine)Knitting FactoryNew York CityFeb. 1, 2003 "There's some amazing shit coming up and I don't use that term lightly," gushed a giddy Sam Jayne after a bare-bones cover of the Kinks' "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains." Jayne, who also fronts Olympia freak-out rockers Love as Laughter, was the first of a traveling caravan of Sub Pop artists to perform at New York City's Knitting Factory earlier this month. The evening's sole female performer, Rosie Thomas, opened the show, cracking jokes in-between short and engaging melodies about falling asleep in the back seat of a car and wanting to fly away on paper airplanes. Thomas' heartland vocals had surprising depth, belying her pixie-like speaking voice and helium-tinged giggles.

June 25, 2003 – Damaged art school grads or the nü face of electronic music? It's no surprise that the success of Fischerspooner, New York's best-known, most-loved nü-electro guerillas, may have moreto do with the group's mythology than the actual music they produce. By their own admission, Fischerspooner is both an "art project" and a "popband," though one can never be sure where one ends and the other begins. Educated at a Chicago art school and partially funded by Deitch Projects (a prestigious downtown New York City gallery), Warren Fischer and Casey Spooner sink their pedigreed fangs into performance-art deconstruction and explorations of pop culture much like Whitney's finest Biennialists. "I am a prop," says Spooner nonchalantly. "To me, it doesn't matter whether I sing or I don't sing.

June 25, 2003 – Who are the most important artists right now? The Donnas (right)are ripping up NYC (#24), desert-nomad future-gazers Queens of theStone Age make hard rock fun again (#15), while the White Stripesare quickly becoming America's favorite rock 'n' roll fantasy (#3). Who are the most important artists right now? The Donnas (right) are ripping up NYC (#24), desert-nomad future-gazers Queens of the Stone Age make hard rock fun again (#15), while the White Stripes are quickly becoming America's favorite rock 'n' roll fantasy (#3). 40. Sleater-KinneyThe den mothers of the grrrl-rock nation and one hell of a guitar band. Upcoming: An April mini-tour with Pearl Jam. 39. Jimmy Eat WorldThe best arena-rock band in emo America. 38. 50 CentEx-crack dealer and mad-flowing mix-tape king teams up with Dr. Dre and Slim Shady. 37.

June 25, 2003 – The Blood Brothers Who: Brilliantly spazzy Seattle punk-metal quintet featuring pinched-nad shouter-singers Johnny Whitney (far right) and Jordan Blilie (second from right). What: On their new album, Burn Piano Island, Burn, the band rock NASCAR tempos, turn-on-an-atom arrangements, and glockenspiel, subverting mosh-pit convention with Yes-like song titles ("Cecilia and the Silhouette Saloon") and surreal lyrics. Courting ControversyThe band insist that previous album references to "golden crotches" and illicit horse-human relations were strictlytongue-in-cheek. "It's not like, 'Oh, we should write a song about bestiality--that'll be awesome!'" notes Whitney. Adds Blilie: "It wasn't followed by a round of high fives or anything." Not Mach Enough? "I get the feeling that kids are kind of into us," says guitarist Cody Votolato (center). "But they don't want their friend to know.