Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.10.2015, Qupperneq 37

DINNER
6 COURSE MENU
STARTS WITH A “REFRESHING“ SHOT
OF THE NATIONAL SNAPS BRENNIVÍN
FOLLOWED BY A BITE-SIZED TASTE OF PUFFIN
OCEAN PERCH
Slow cooked ocean perch, beetroot purée, spicy
butter, serrano ham, beetroot
MINKE WHALE
Shallot vinaigrette, crispy Jerusalem artichokes
SEA TROUT
Yuzu mayo, truffle mayo, crispy quinoa, apple
PLAICE
Samphire, green asparagus, blood orange, lime beurre blanc
RACK OF FREE RANGE ICELANDIC LAMB
Lamb fillet, leeks, pickled onions, browned celeriac, baked
carrots, spinach and dill cream
Dessert by pastry chef Axel Þ.
CHOCOLATE ROSE
Chocolate mousse, raspberry gel, Sacher layer
7.990 kr.
Austurstræti 16 101 Reykjavík apotek@apotekrestaurant.is
ICELANDIC GOURMET MENU
Freshly caught seafood and free range lamb – with a modern twist
FROM 17:00
apotek.is
Amtmannsstíg 1 • 101 Reykjavík • +354 561 3303 • www.torfan.is
experience
classical cuisine
For six hours, we talked. He told me
about the time his dad beat his testicle
off, for example, and he also explained
how he held women’s breasts prop-
erly. He told me I had the devil in me,
which was a surprising thing to hear
from a man who had committed mur-
der and served time on a chain gang.
We drank moonshine, and we listened
to our new friend T Model perform
his raucous electric guitar and drum
blues to a crowd of three dozen blues
aficionados. The music was fascinat-
ing—expressive to its core, exciting,
full-throated. It is a night I will never
forget, and having made countless bad
decisions in life, I somehow came out
of that night with a feeling of redemp-
tion through art.
Fearless ‘Road
The Grapevine survived my bullshit
better than I did. So it was years after
my wanderings before I started to get
my bearings. One night after a long
day in an American office I shared
with a collector of unicorn lamps and
electric blankets, I met with the one
DJ in America who was interested in
my music. And he also loved T Model
Ford. And he turned me on to the band
GravelRoad.
GravelRoad found Mr. T Model a
little after I did, and they offered their
services—this group of three earnest if
exhausted blues fans helped T Model
Ford put out his two best albums:
‘Ladies Man’ and ‘Taledragger’. As
a backup band, they put T Model up
front, playing tastefully, with heart, in
a way very few bands have with a blues
singer. They did that thing that great
blues bands rarely do—they dropped
their egos entirely to allow a (90-year-
old!) frontman to genuinely cut loose.
This isn’t the last thing GravelRoad
did, nor probably the best thing they
did. American music critics love them
for ‘Psychedelta’ and their almost
punk-infused ‘El Scuerpo’. But when I
got the T Model records, I played them
relentlessly. I had the strange experi-
ence one night of explaining the im-
portance of GravelRoad to an extreme-
ly lubricated former office co-worker
who was starting a record label.
GravelRoad are now on a record la-
bel with me. Since they signed to the
label I’m on, they’ve released three
full-length, more and more psyche-
delic blues rock albums. They are fear-
less. They are one of the few bands
with the intelligence to touch the third
rail of classic rock without turning
into cliché.
This October, GravelRoad will
perform two shows in Reykjavík. If
you’ve ever enjoyed the feeling of
blues played through electric guitars,
if that joy has been drained by overly
rote performances by blues-by-num-
bers Stratocaster-bearing individuals,
I can’t recommend them more highly.
Their music stands on its own, and it is
joyous and clean and redeeming. And
of course they’ve also helped one of
the great bluesmen in history, a man
who once spent six hours with an
editor who sent this magazine into a
crazed nosedive from which it some-
how recovered. God bless those who
helped T Model.
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