04.10

Very soon now I’ll discover one of the places most revered by wine lovers, and I’ve woken early with the excitement of a small boy who is about to go on a school trip. In my imagination I envisage a scenario in the vineyards of Priorato, just like the in the film Sideways, (one of my favourite movies) although down in the city, scandal is ruffling “la isla de la calma” (it seems such a long time since we could Mallorca that) My friend Juan Luis from the Vinoteca, is preparing to show us around his set up, with its tradition and techniques, old and new, that make up the wine making process. It all goes over my head, i’ll never remember it all, just like the chaos that has seized Balearic politics recently. Perhaps I am cleverer than he thinks, for it emerges that this man had been a tax inspector for the Spanish “Hacienda” whose famous catch phrase “Hacienda somos todos” or “Property belongs to all of us” has taken on a new meaning recently in the light of the Matas case. Not even the thirst for justice, or the threat of a massive bail payment, or even the greater pain of a prison sentence will remove the shame that has stained this Island.

Apparently this character landed on the “beautiful island” 40 years ago, to the sound of “Vuelo 502” by a group called “Los Mismos”, which was occasionally played on aeroplanes on arriving in Spain. These days Ryan Air play a trumpet fanfare signifying that they at least arrived on time, delivering yet more low cost, low rent tourists to Magaluf and Arenal to burn themselves alive, and get pissed to the point of unconsciousness every night for two weeks. Things change, “Vuelo 502” is just a quaint memory these days, and Mallorca is no longer an independent economy; everyone of us here depends on mass tourism in one way or another. The island has been exploited to the max to accommodate it. Everywhere you look you see evidence of cheap tourism; be it the new motorways cutting through the country side, cheaply made blocks of flats thrown up to house the industry’s workers, to the hotels built where once was barren piece of farmland given to the family black sheep. It cannot be denied: the prosperity of the island was born of cheap and quick money, and many have taken advantage of this, from humble bar owners to the man at the top, who just happened to get a bit carried away with things.

So on to the program this month: This month we will have Robert Rodriguez in the cabin at Garito. With a Spanish surname, he has a little Latin blood in him, and he has made the most of it. During one stormy night in 1998, his houseboat home was sunk along with most of his record collection and as you can imagine, pretty much everything else he owned. It ws then that he decided to launch a career in music production, and since then, building momentum he has released records on labels like Fusion, Freerange, Compost, and Raw. He is also involved with the Future Beats Investigators, and another project together with Lil Tony, his friend and countryman. Based in the cold of Helsinki, he is an artist of our own kind, and we welcome him to Garito

That’s it for now, see you soon, Nacho.