Quimi Portet was born in the town of Vic. His first contacts with the performing world were inside a puppet show theatre set up each year during the Vic town festivals. Concentrating hard on the puppet's movements, Quimi's eyes would pop out of their sockets and he dreamed that when he grew up he would be one of those figures and would act alongside other protagonists that he himself would invent. The hardest part was when the show ended and he had to return to stark reality. Thank goodness the next day he would return to that magic place.

At seven he had his debut playing the guitar at a family party, and at ten he joined a group of troubadours at his school. He was determined to become "a guitar player in band". His parents exclaimed, "This kid is going to be a Beatle".

Despite his claim that technically he is an agnostic, the truth is that Quimi was also an acolyte in the Sanctuary of Núria in the Pyrenees, in exchange for being allowed to ski free on the slopes of the valley along with the children in the Catalonian Ski Federation.

For Quimi, the radio was "the enemy of the home, the soundtrack of a sordid, squalid and moth-infested world ". However, he was able to show some enthusiasm for a few television programs, especially Rin Tin Tin and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Together with made-for-television films, Portet listened with great attention to the records his mother bought: Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, and the artists on Atlantic Records' Hits & Soul collection, in addition to the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. At private home auditions, he tried to imitate the fans he saw on television by pulling out his own hair.

Quimi's childhood was characterised by geographic comings and goings. Life in Vic was alternated with the town of Centelles, the Barcelona neighbourhood of Guinardó, or Taradell, a happy summer tourist area in the region of Osona. Reminiscing about happy times in the latter, he says that since then his vocation is to be a summer tourist.: "Like Lluís Massana says, we've come into this world to go on vacation".

His childhood heroes were Pepe Gotera and Otilio, Botones Sacarino, Mortadelo and Filemón, the tenants of 13 Rue del Percebe, Rompetechos, the characters of the cartoonist Coll, and the fauna found in the Pulgarcito, Pumby, TBO, Din-dan and Tíovivo comic books.

During his adolescence Quimi only seemed to be interested in motorcycles. In fact, he practised cross-country motorcycling and took trips on a Gilera 49 and, later, on a Ducatti 250. When he lost his wheels due to economic misfortune, he decided to become a musician, "which was the second thing I most liked in this world ". He began playing a Spanish guitar with steel strings, until a friend loaned him his first electric guitar. Somewhat later Quimi attended the first concerts of the groups that performed in Barcelona, among which Santana stood out. But if any left him astonished on the stage it was Sisa. For Quimi "Sisa was sublime. I didn't care how many kilometres I had to travel to watch him perform ". He also loved Las Grecas.

In 1976 with other musicians he formed the group Kilimanjaro's, a group that brightened up the revelry of the younger generations in the Osona region.

Taking advantage of his secondary school years in Vic, Quimi wrote "La Biblia de las Aves", a sizeable work of minor literature comprising a conglomerate of prose, drama, poetry and varied aphorisms, with influences gleaned from pop culture, surrealism, the philosophy of Zen and the ideas of Dadá. One of his sayings proclaimed "all literature is the onomatopoeia of noise that man makes when he writes."

In 1979 he formed The Dumpers, a powerful hard rock band in which the Australian vocalist Rodney Reay took part. In 1980 Quimi Portet formed Kul de Mandril, a trio that performed throughout Catalonia in 1980-81.

During this time Quimi survived economically by working as a welder, harvesting potatoes, directing the grotesque program of Osona, Manos Arriba, or delivering towels from a van.

He summarises his experience in this constellation of mediocre groups saying, "a good group with mediocre musicians is always better that a mediocre band with good musicians". And Quimi has good memories of the ill-fated rumba singer Gato Pérez, who during those lean years constantly encouraged him not to give up his determination to make his mark in the extravagant world of music.

In 1981 he met Manolo García and became a guitarist in Los Rápidos, a group with which he played in five or six concerts. The truth is, life is hard. Despite good reviews and a goodly number of fans, the truth is that economically Los Rápidos were in shambles. After unsuccessfully attempting to record another album, their patience gave out and Los Rápidos decided to call it quits.

After Los Rápidos disbanded, Quimi and Antonio Fidel began to create songs for Los Burros. Their principal hit, according to Quimi, was "a Los Burros version of the famous folk song Frêre Jacques. That was the one that the folks liked. We also sang in a non-existent language ".

After a while, Manolo García took the post of singer while Fidel took on other tasks and other musicians joined Los Burros. After a few gigs with Karma and Boira, they recorded an album, "Rebuznos de amor", and continued their concerts with erratic success. Their performances were staged with plastic fabric, barrels that were used as drums, showy explosions of talcum powder and wars wages with coloured smoke.

In 1985 the adventure of Los Burros became El Ultimo de la Fila. Quimi Portet and Manolo García initiated a new phase in their artistic careers. That same year, after trying to find a record label that would pay them some attention, "Cuando la Pobreza entra por la Puerta el Amor salta por la Ventana" appeared, followed the next year by "Enemigos de lo Ajeno". From that moment until 1996 there was no stopping: five more albums as "El Ultimo de la Fila" (new mixes including "Como la Cabeza al Sombrero," "Nuevo Pequeño Catálogo de Seres y Estares", "Astronomía Razonable", "La Rebelión de los Hombres-rana"); another album as Los Burros, "Jamón de Burro" in 1987; a solo album for Quimi, "Persones Estranyes", also in 1987; and various tours throughout the country (long, successful and active).

"Persones Estranyes", which was written, recorded and mixed in 15 days, contained ten songs in Catalan and two instrumentals. Quimi sang and played various instruments, Antonio Fidel, bass and Ángel Celada, drums. The album was produced by Quimi and Manolo García. However, Quimi didn't offer a concert or participate in any other promotional activities, since at that time his work with El Ultimo de la Fila was so demanding.

El Ultimo de la Fila's last tour ended in April of 1996. After a short rest Portet once again threw himself into "the second thing I like most in the world," that is, making music. The twelve tracks comprising "Hoquei Sobre Pedres", released at the end of September, 1997 were the result of four intense months of animated studio work and was very well received by the critics. As an example, Lluís Gendrau of Enderrock said it was "a brilliant album created by a musical genius. It reflects warmth, melancholy, sensitivity. A record full of feeling".

"Hoquei sobre Pedres" received the Enderrock Critics Award for the best album in Catalan in 1997, and in October of 1998 the X edition of the Sant Boi cited the artistic quality of the album, granting Portet one of its awards.

In the spring of 1999, Quimi Portet released his third album in Catalan which is in a certain sense the first in his solo career. El Ultimo de la Fila no longer exists and, thus, they no longer share parallel projects. Portet wrote all of the tracks, recorded, produced and mixed the album, and plays all of the instruments (guitar, bass, drums). It includes a total of 16 songs under the title "CANÇONER ELECTROMAGNÈTIC".