Saint Vitus originally released V on Hellhound Records in 1990. For the subsequent 22 years until the release of 2012’s Lillie: F-65, it served as the doom legends’ final album with Scott “Wino” Weinrich on vocals. He was replaced by Christian “Chritus” Linderson (now of Goatess and Lord Vicar) for 1992’s C.O.D. and original singer Scott Reagers would make a return on 1995’s Die Healing. Meanwhile, Wino himself went on to reform The Obsessed and release Lunar Womb and The Church Within in 1991 and 1994.

A Southern Lord reissue in 2004 — when the label was arguably at its most doomed with releases relatively concurrent by Goatsnake, SunnO))), Sourvein, Earthride and Place of Skulls, among others — helped bring V to the attention of a generation of heads who comprised a post-internet market not previously exposed to it. The next year’s revisit to 1990’s Live would only further the band’s resurgent reach. As such, when at the start of the 2013 clip of “Patra (Petra),” Wino says Saint Vitus have had a lot of requests for it, it’s not such a surprise. True, it’s not a standout cut like “Ice Monkey” or “I Bleed Black,” but with V winding up as a landmark in the band’s catalog, it makes sense that a track like “Patra (Petra)” would find an audience 23 years down the line.

This footage was shot in Bologna, Italy, on March 23 at the Zona Riveri. Saint Vitus is Wino on vocals, Dave Chandler on guitar, Mark Adams on bass and Henry Vasquez on drums, and the band was touring with Mos Generator at the time in support of Lillie: F-65.

Please enjoy “Patra (Petra)” and have a great Wino Wednesday as we continue to the countdown to the 100th edition.

Saint Vitus, “Patra (Petra)” Live at Zona Riveri, Bologna, 2013

Hard to believe, but this week marks the one-year anniversary of the very first Wino Wednesday post. It was a Premonition 13 video for the song “La Hechicera de la Jeringa,” and I said when I put it up that I’d probably be able to get a year’s worth of clips out of it easily, since Scott “Wino” Weinrich always had so much going on. Well, in that time, The Obsessed reunited, Wino put out a collaboration acoustic album with Conny Ochs, a Townes Van Zandt tribute with Steve Von Till and the recently-interviewed Scott Kelly, the first Saint Vitus album with him in the band in 22 years, also hitting Roadburn and Maryland Deathfest, and touring both Europe and the US. As a matter of awesome coincidence, I’m going to see him play tonight in Brooklyn.

It’s been a lot of fun bringing you these Wino Wednesday posts, and to celebrate the first birthday of this weekly landmark, I thought we’d turn to one of the most pivotal of all Saint Vitus‘ tracks: “Angry Man” from 1990’s V. Arguably it was the 2004 Southern Lord reissue of V that kicked off Vitus‘ resurgence — kind of a chicken and the egg thing there, I guess — but either way, “Angry Man” boasts one of the best Mark Adams basslines ever and the kind of stripped down Dave Chandler lyric that’s anthemic almost in spite of itself. To wit, the chorus:

All I want it to live my life
Easy and free
I don’t need
No human bullshit
Prejudice, down on me

Doesn’t get much more Vitus than that. “Angry Man” gets kind of overshadowed by the likes of “Born too Late” and the title-track of their 1984 self-titled debut, but its sensibility is among the band’s most vitriolic. Freedom through doom, doom through freedom. Fucking a right.

Happy Wino Wednesday, and here’s to the next year to come: