Les Welcome
Whether by intent or tragic mis-typing, you’ve landed on the home of Les Garagistes winery collective. If you’re new to our dark cabal, a rich and heady stew of bad French grammar and subterranean winemaking awaits. But where to start? Here are a few suggestions:
- First, you might take a quick stroll through last year’s vintage escapades, accumulated over the two critical months of September 2009 and October 2009 (remember that the posts are presented with the earliest at the bottom of the page).
- Then, who are these Garagistes and where do they get off? And didn’t I hear they were dead?
- We sully the fine pages of Fine Cooking Magazine
- Winehenge: the movie. If that’s not enough to get you to click…
- A French oak barrel primer
- Red, Rex Sox (Yankees fans, be forewarned)
- Plastic capsules and why we switched to paper
- Lastly, mourn with the Moody Blues as they appear to lament the end of a Les Garagistes harvest.
Thanks much for stopping by. We’ve got fruit lined up for 2010 — with new varietals ensuring we’ll be making even more up as we go along — so another exciting vintage is just ahead. Hope you can join us for it, and let us know what you think of what we’ve cobbled together.
Rodrigo y Gabriela
I tried to think of something witty to write about Rodrigo y Gabriela, somehow tying them to wine in some tangential way as a flimsy excuse to blog about them in these vinous pages.
But what the hell. I can’t remember the last time a performance made my jaw drop like this one. Buskers from Mexico City by way of Dublin, Rodrigo and Gabriela squeeze every last sound out of two acoustic guitars: lyrical picados, thunderous rasgueados, pulsing, primial cajónista percussion. It’s like flamenco crossed with ranchera crossed with raw rock ‘n roll. Check out their blistering performance on Letterman, or check out the video they’ve got posted on their site. They’re playing the Portland Zoo series August 31st.
See you there, vato!
[UPDATE: quick review of the concert in the comments]
3 comments3 Comments so far
¡Magnífico! An amazing evening with two people thoroughly into what they’re doing. E and I got (by sheer luck) great seats just above stage right:
A blurry cellphone pic, to be sure, but check out the image behind them. They had tiny cameras at their feet AND attached to the ends of their guitars, which someone cut back and forth between – a completely cool effect, especially considering how much of their action is on the fretboad, from picking to rhythm. The lower angle on Gabriela, head tossed back and fingers flying, couldn’t be more rock and roll.
At one point, Rodrigo remarked that they’d never played a venue with kids before (“so I probably shouldn’t say things like ‘fuck’… Fuck.”) And to be sure, their act isn’t a mellow evening of Spanish guitar stylings suitable for the whole suburban family. An amalgam of the trash metal they grew up with and the street performances that kept them fed for years in Dublin, their performance is stocked with Metallica, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd quotes. In fact, they led us through the first verse of “Wish You Were Here,” letting the audience do all the singing – not sure if the senior citizens in attendance chimed in, though.
Near the end of the evening, Rodrigo said “okay, we’re going to dim the lights so you can get out your cellphones and make some fuckin’ video for fuckin’ YouTube.” (He says “fookin,” the only trace of his time in Ireland I could hear in his English.) Who am I not to do as the man says? Here’s the end of the concert (note to attorneys: so little music, so crappy the sound, so many the links to RodGab.com) for your wonderment.
But I’m sure you’ll agree it’s no match for seeing them live, hombres.
Looks like they’ve been lured back to PDX for a Halloween show at the Crystal Ballroom.
… which has now been cancelled, tragically. To see if they’ll be busking in a town near you, check their Tour page.