D2D @ OTT

In case you're a spirits blog-only reader, I've got a few new interviews about drinking lined up for 2016 beginning with Gerald Casale from Devo. If your familiarity with the band Devo extends only as far as the hit single “Whip It,” then you owe yourself a good weekend of listening to their back catalogue (and watching the scene from Casino where Scorsese spins their cover of "Satisfaction"). Albums like Are We Not Men? We Are Devo and Freedom of Choice have long established the band as more than just new wave wonders. Devo is firmly in the realm of the intellectual and brilliantly wacky when it comes to rock and roll. Not only is Devo considered one of the most important and revolutionary rock groups of all time, their music and extreme creativity still holds up today. Founded by a pair of brothers from Ohio in the early 1970s (the Casales and the Mothersbaughs), David Bowie once called them “the band of the future.” He wasn’t too far off. Forty years later, their songs and ideas sound just as fresh, and the band’s comic warning of societal de-evolution perhaps even more dire. Neither the Mothersbaughs nor the Casales ever accepted the mainstream restraints of the modern rock band, however. Their artistic reach led them further into the realms of conceptual and visual art, and—in the case of Gerald Casale—to wine.

I was introduced to Gerald via a mutual friend earlier this year and he invited me to try some of the wines from his label 50 by 50: a Sonoma Coast pinot noir and a rosé from the same origin, both of which are in stock now at K&L. Not only were the wines delicious and interesting, in true Devo style there was much more to the project than simply fermented grape juice. The 50 by 50 (you can learn more by visiting the website) is also an architectural quest; an agricultural vision; an attempt to fuse core elements of calculated modern design with the uncontrollable forces of nature. Something like that, I think. Maybe I should let Gerald tell you.

Read the interview here. Then come by the Hollywood store on July 14th and meet Gerald in person, shake his hand, and ask him: "Are we not men?" Previous interviews are archived here.

-David Driscoll