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Wino Wednesday: Spirit Caravan Honors Jason McCash in Tennessee

Posted in Bootleg Theater on April 16th, 2014 by JJ Koczan

The Spirit Caravan reunion US tour is over as of last night, but I expect we’ll be seeing videos still coming out from it for a while. One of the best I’ve seen, or at least the most heartening, is this one from Tennessee. Playing The Hideaway in Johnson City just last week, Spirit Caravan bassist/vocalist Dave Sherman took the time to shout out fallen The Gates of Slumber bass player Jason McCash and say a few words about him and the underground doom community as a whole — subjects about which he knows no small amount, to be sure. Though Spirit Caravan won’t have had the chance, Sherman‘s own outfit, Earthride shared gigs and festival bills numerous times with the Indianapolis trad doomers, and The Gates of Slumber were always embraced by Maryland’s passionate scene — a haven of believers if ever there was one.

That remains the case, actually, since Baltimore’s The Sidebar will host a benefit for McCash‘s family on July 12 with Earthride headlining and Pale Divine, Argus and Beelzefuzz on the bill. It’s one of several tributes to McCash set for the coming months with the money going to his widow and children. More info on that here.

Spirit Caravan head to Desertfest next week and continue their reunion in London and Berlin. After that, it’s something of a mystery. Saint Vitus are set to begin their 35th anniversary tour on May 8 (dates here) and that will run through most of the rest of the month, and beyond that, I’d presume either Europe or recording with one band or another. The Obsessed are still ostensibly “active” too, though at this point that’s the reunion that has resulted in the fewest shows, sticking mostly to festivals in the US and abroad.

Whatever comes, I’ll do my best to keep up with it, and in the meantime, enjoy Sherman, Wino and drummer Henry Vasquez as they honor Jason McCash with “Fang,” which comes off their 1999 debut, Jug Fulla Sun. Have a great Wino Wednesday:

Spirit Caravan, “Fang” Live in Tennessee, April 6, 2014

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Wino Wednesday: Acoustic Set Live in Johnson City, Tennessee, Nov. 18, 2013

Posted in Bootleg Theater on December 11th, 2013 by JJ Koczan

Saint Vitus‘ October tour had ended on the 25th in New Orleans, so whether Wino just stayed on the East Coast or was back to the West and then over again to play this acoustic show in Johnson City, Tennessee, I don’t really know. It seems to have been somebody’s birthday or some other such occasion, held at The HideAway, and also a stop on the Samothrace tour — local sludgers Navajo Witch played as well — so a more than solid bill one way or another. Wino played a 42-minute set to an increasingly tanked crowd, as you can hear in the sundry whooping and hollering in the clip below, and along with covering the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Motörhead, also broke out a couple new songs.

I might have one of the titles on the new cuts wrong (it sounds in the video like he’s saying it’s “Freedom something” but I can’t make out quite what), but otherwise, this is how it breaks down:

Green Speed
Hold on Love
Crystal Madonna
Adrift
Whatever
I Don’t Care
Dark Ravine
Shot in the Head
Iron Horse
Waltz Across Texas
Freedom…
Dead Yesterday
Forever Gone

Of those, “Shot in the Head” is Savoy Brown‘s, “Waltz Across Texas” is Springsteen and “Iron Horse” is Motörhead, everything else is original. By the end of their touring cycle in support of the collaborative Heavy Kingdom album (review here), Wino & Conny Ochs were performing “Crystal Madonna” regularly, though it has yet to surface in a studio version, and “Freedom…” and “Forever Gone” are new songs. The rest, and indeed “Iron Horse” and “Shot in the Head” come either from Heavy Kingdom, or from Wino‘s 2010 Adrift acoustic debut (review here).

It’s a cool show and seems like both Wino and the crowd are having a good time, so between that and the new songs, it was an obvious pick. Hope you enjoy and have a great Wino Wednesday:

Scott “Wino” Weinrich, Live at The HideAway, Johnson City, TN, 11.18.13

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