Words and Photos by:
Josh Garcia
Gengstout…. What on earth does that mean?
To me it means a lot; Not a sticker, a shirt, not even a blog. It’s a name that was derived from a joke, but this made up name means more to me then most. It’s the name of a group of friends who have now expanded from our little sliver in Massachusetts, to up and down the east coast. What started as a shot in the dark has now turned into something that consumes most of my thoughts on a daily basis.
In 2009, with no clue how to operate a camera nor how to develop a website, I pressed yes on a mouse and was the proud new owner of Gengstout.com. I quickly called a good friend of mine and told him we have a project. At first we didn’t have any idea what to do, what the message should be or style we wanted to portray. Shortly after the brainstorming sessions we came to a very easy solution: Be ourselves, do what we do, and show what we love. So far the formula has worked and we will never shy away from our main goal, which is create good times, make good memories and meet lots of new people doing it. The cars bring us together but they become a subdivision of what we are.
Due to the name of Gengstout, I have met lots of new people and some of my best friends all because of this shot in the dark. Shortly after picking up a camera and continuing to wing what we were doing on the site, myself, Phil and Jay “Jiggles” received some interest from Mr. Jon Stairs. Opening that message was huge for us… actually it was gigantic. Jon immediately made a positive impact in everything we did and continues to do so today. We would truly be lost without this dude!
Now we had our team, if you will, more like a Motley Crew but that’s us! We quickly began hanging out at DarkStar Tattoo where Jon work’s and that has become a place where on almost any given day one, if not all, of us will be there hanging out or getting tattooed. As anyone who know’s us or has met us in person, you know we are into them.
With our core group set we teamed up with everyone at DarkStar Tattoo to lend our hand in helping with an annual gathering of cars. This is now known as “Dubs In The Sand.” Growing rapidly each year, we strive and push to create a show that reflects us. It’s laid back, fun and welcome to all. Be sure to check out our site for updates regarding the show. We will do our best to release the date early this year.
So let me get back to the good stuff. We love cars, yes…. like really really love cars. These big pieces of engineering madness are truly incredible. They can bring us from one point to another, bring us to tears when something happens to them or bring laughs when you lease expect it. These cars are a right of passage when you’re growing up, but most of all they bring us together. If it were not for these four wheeled devices, we would probably have never have gotten the opportunity to meet lots of great great people.
The cars are what lead us to meeting the likes of all of our Connecticut friends from the Get Low crew, all of the Broke Status crew, the awesome dudes at Banchwerks, and of course our Volkshore friends. There are truly too many people to name that we have met and become close to that we look forward to seeing every chance we get.
I guess through all of this text what I’m truly trying to say is that there is a lot of BS in the world so we enjoy the things we love; like cars, friends and o yea….Beer. It is awesome to see our little cult following grow. It makes us feel our work and thoughts are truly just not for us. We enjoy what we do and hopefully it shows. We enjoy drinking almost as much as we like cars. We never mix the two though (you hear that kids!) Due to our infatuation of fine beer and wines, another good friend of mine suggested he make us a batch of home brew. A few weeks later the Gengstout Beer was born! (Have you got the feeling I’m trying to have a little fun with this article yet? Hopefully so.)
Anyways, I said it’s great to see what we do grow, but what is even more flattering is when people that we have looked up to and respected for a while ask to be a part of what they do or show us great support. Matt Crooke and Brad Beardrow at Fifteen52, Kevin at Euro Image, Sam Dobbins and all of the west coast dudes, all of the guys that have contributed to the site like Jonny Najarian, Jake Austin, Frank West, Jon Dehate, Shawn Walsh, Jesse Godin, Matt Donders, Dan Crosley; There are truly to many to name but we thank all of you for the help and support.
What I’m truly trying to point out with this article is that Gengstout is a blog based website, we do sell shirts and stickers and will continue to do so. However the true meaning of it is friends and family, good times and memories. What started as nothing has become a part of our lives that hopefully is positive and fun and will continue to grow.
It’s been fun as hell and we are not stopping anytime soon. More shoots, designs and of course Beer will pop up soon. I would really like to Thank all the guys at StanceWorks for showing us support and asking me to contribute to their site. I hope everyone had a great car season. Try to stay warm this winter and keep building rad stuff for us to shoot!! (You west coast bastards better enjoy it!) Be sure to be on the look out for all of us at Broke Down in just a few short weeks!
Be sure to check out GengStout’s Blog as well as their Facebook page for all the latest!
