In one of a very long list of guest appearances, Wino played guitar and sang with Royal Trux vocalist Jennifer Herrema on a cover of the Rolling Stones‘ “Sway” that was used as the B-side to a Herrema collaboration with Kurt Vile released as part of Volcom‘s vinyl series a year ago. The plugged-in studio version of the track was premiered here to mark the release (by amazing coincidence, it went up while I was in Europe last year), and it was something different from nearly everything else in Wino‘s sizable discography, even the acoustic stuff.

But it’s that acoustic stuff — namely his late-2010 mostly-unplugged solo debut, Adrift (review here) — that had Wino doing an in-store Jan. 15, 2011, at Volcom‘s L.A. retail store, where Herrema joined him in front of some snazzy pairs of slacks and button-downs to take on “Sway” live. I don’t know how the duet came about and if it was this performance that perhaps sparked the studio version that would be released more than a year later, but it’s out there and as well as it worked in the finished product, I think I might like the live version even better.

Not to mention Herrema‘s poncho looks comfortable as hell. Here’s the live version of “Sway,” recorded in Los Angeles on Jan. 15, 2011. Please enjoy and have an excellent Wino Wednesday.

Wino & Jennifer Herrema, “Sway” (Rolling Stones cover) live at Volcom in L.A.

I don’t think I’m going out on a limb to say that in more ways than one, 2003’s sophomore outing, 13, is the most pivotal of the three Solace full-lengths. Not only did Agnostic Front and Pentagram covers help define the blend that made the New Jersey doom rockers the vital, aggressive and grooving act they became throughout their own material, but the songs even a decade later remain as memorable and urgent as they are natural sounding and likely drunk. It’s a doom record for doomers, but with its roots in punk as much as stoner rock, Solace found a niche for themselves and delivered what I still consider one of the best heavy albums my beloved Garden State has ever produced.

Among the many highlights of 13 — released by MeteorCity as the follow-up to 2000’s Further debut — is the track “Common Cause,” which features a slide/lead guitar and vocal guest contribution from Scott “Wino” Weinrich. At the time, Wino was post-Spirit Caravan and making his beginning statements with The Hidden Hand while also taking on a role alongside Victor Griffin in Place of Skulls for 2003’s With Vision — an unfortunately short-lived collaboration — so it’s not as though he had nothing going on, and yet the performance stands out for both sonically alongside the other Solace tracks and for how comfortable Wino sounds in the band alongside guitarist Tommy Southard, bassist Rob Hultz and drummer John Proveaux.

The Jersey bruisers, who are more or less defunct despite popping up now and again for an appearance as they did at Days of the Doomed II last year, released two more EPs, a slew of videos and, finally, 2010’s triumphant — fucking brilliant, go put it on again — A.D. (review with ironic headline here), before their split, and even that last album, which took more than half a decade to make, was viciously energetic and seemed to portend good things to come. But some you win, some you lose, and if three brick-wall-solid full-lengths and a handful of other releases is what we get to take away while chasing down subsequent projects and waiting for reunion gigs, it could be worse.

Bottom line is whatever the circumstances, 13 remains a special moment in the band’s ever-tumultuous run, and as I’ve been holding it in my back pocket for a while, I’m glad to finally feature “Common Cause” for Wino Wednesday.

Enjoy:

I have good reason to believe this clip of Wino joining Rotor on stage for a rendition of The Obsessed‘s classic “Neatz Brigade” was filmed at the 2010 South of Mainstream festival, which is put on every year by the label Exile on Mainstream — purveyors of such Wino-ly provisions as the Adrift acoustic record and Heavy Kingdom collaboration with Conny Ochs, among others — but I don’t have confirmation on that. For what it’s worth, it’s Rotor‘s YubeTou channel that put it up. Either way, it’s Wino joining the Berlin-native instrumentalists on stage in 2010, and that’s definitely “Neatz Brigade,” so that’s enough for me. The South of Mainstream banner in the background of the clip could also be a clue. Ha.

Rotor are no strangers to the song, having included it on their aptly-titled 2010 fourth album, 4 (review here), on which it was Nico Kozik handling vocal duties. Nothing quite like going to the source, however, and as one might expect, Wino kills it on the track, which comes from The Obsessed‘s 1994 major label flirtation, The Church Within. I’ll be the first to admit the sound is less than optimal here, but the video itself is pretty excellent visually. You won’t often hear me advocate for listening to Obsessed songs with the volume low — or Rotor, for that matter — but that might help too in this case.

Either way, it’s a cool curio for the last Wino Wednesday of 2012, and I hope you dig it:

Compared at least to the discography he’s amassed in bands like The Obsessed, Spirit Caravan, Saint Vitus, etc., Scott “Wino” Weinrich‘s acoustic catalog is pretty small. There’s two collaboration releases with Conny Ochs, his own Adrift full-length, the Songs of Townes Van Zandt tribute, and the split 7″ with Scott Kelly. Actually, I guess that’s more than some acts put out in their entire career, but this is Wino we’re talking about, so it’s fair to say that he’s still probably just getting started in the form.

Nonetheless, one of his most powerful unplugged cuts to date is the politically-driven “Manifesto.” In classic protest-song fashion, it’s a lyrical recitation of belief, living up to its title with an innate sense of defiance and lines like, “I believe religion is a tool of war.” At the same time, there’s also something affirming in it, an aspect of hope that’s not lost in the seething tension Wino creates on guitar or in his vocals.

Watching this clip of Wino performing the song in Belgium on an early acoustic tour in Oct. 2010, that hope is all the more prevalent as he hops down from the stage to sing it to the crowd on the crowd’s own level. No mic, no P.A., just as raw and natural a performance as can be — one person and one guitar. The camera here is perfectly positioned to capture his expressions and the passion at the core of his delivery, and of all the Wino Wednesday clips I’ve posted in the last 65-plus weeks, this one might be the most intimate.

Check it out and have a happy Wino Wednesday:

Whatever your political affiliation, I think it’s safe to say at the very least that the middle of the last decade was an interesting time to be an American. Still reeling from post-9/11 paranoia about terrorism, the country having split into vehement factions either for or against going to war in Iraq (for all the good it did, either the war or the protests leading up to it), George W. Bush‘s reelection in 2004 — things seemed to be tripping over themselves to fall apart. But you know, you had to go buy an iPod or the terrorists won.

Through all this mass psychosis and jingoistic fuckery, The Hidden Hand released their second album in 2004’s Mother Teacher Destroyer. In my opinion, it’s the strongest of the Wino-led trio’s three albums — striking a balance between 2003’s punkish Divine Propaganda and 2007’s more progressive The Resurrection of Whiskey Foote — but more to the point, it’s a solid and concise chronicle of the sentiments in both the public conscious and unconscious. Together with bassist Bruce Falkinburg and drummer Dave Hennessy, Wino made some of the most explicit social commentary of his career.

To wit, the third song on the album, “Desensitized.” At six and a half minutes, it was the longest track on Mother Teacher Destroyer, and while other songs delved into Zeppelin-style epic themes and tales of battles lost and won, “Desensitized” and “Travesty as Usual” stood in the tradition of protest songs, each driving riff serving as another mark of resistance. The lyrics echoed this sentiment as well:

Sad times are here today all around
Strange vibes here to stay to bring us down
For the people they don’t care
Pushing all into despair

No, it can’t be true
It couldn’t happen to you
Hey, it must be clear
They’ll try to keep us in fear

Disinformation is the tool
Media controlled, divide and rule
Anxious minds their questions lead
To the structure of deceit

No, it won’t be true
Don’t let it happen to you
Hey, it must be clear
They’ll never keep us in fear

Note that the last chorus ends in a hopeful tone, but there’s something too in the verses that seems to know the size of the struggle being engaged. Wino‘s always had a socially conscious side to his songwriting, but that was never quite so prevalent as in The Hidden Hand, and they were nothing if not timely in their arrival.

Here’s “Desensitized” in HD. Happy Wino Wednesday:

I actually went back and did a search, and though it seems unfathomable to me, all signs point to this being the first time that Clutch‘s “Red Horse Rainbow” has been featured as part of Wino Wednesday. Please, try and contain your surprise. Seriously, quiet down.

The track is a classic Clutch groover from 2001’s Pure Rock Fury, and guesting alongside Tim Sult on guitar is none other than Scott “Wino” Weinrich. More than half a decade later, Wino would bring in Clutch’s Jean-Paul Gaster to play drums in his short-lived Wino trio (Gaster kills it on 2009’s Punctuated Equilibrium), so the ties between the two entities are longstanding and manifold. They toured together in 2009 — Gaster pulling double-duty — and Clutch finished their headlining set by bringing Wino out for a jam on “Red Horse Rainbow” that, at least when I saw it in Jersey, was phenomenal.

It’s on my mind again now because Wino is joining Clutch (as well as Saviours and Mondo Generator) on their annual holiday tour this year, so there’s a good chance the same thing might happen again. If you get a chance to see it, obviously I’d recommend doing so. Here are the tour dates:

Clutch Holiday Tour 2012 with Mondo Generator, Saviours & Wino

12/26: Washington DC @ 9:30 Club
12/27: Asheville NC @ The Orange Peel
12/28: Lexington KY @ Buster’s Billiards & Backroom
12/29: Columbus OH @ Newport Music Hall
12/30: Allentown PA @ Crocodile Rock
12/31: Worcester MA @ The Palladium

They were originally slated to hit Jersey on the 30th, but the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville unfortunately flooded out from Hurricane Sandy and they don’t think it’ll be open in time, so the show was moved to Crocodile Rock in Allentown. More of a drive, but extenuating circumstances are extenuating circumstances. Some shit can’t be helped — unless you, you know, reduce carbon emissions and whatnot.

Because I couldn’t find a decent live version of it on the Tubes of You (hopefully that’ll happen this tour as well), here’s the studio “Red Horse Rainbow” as it appears on the Pure Rock Fury album. Happy Wino Wednesday:

I actually watched this whole April 2002 set from Spirit Caravan before I decided to post it. That didn’t make for the most productive morning ever at work, but it was kind of cool to see the trio’s performance in its 67-minute entirety. I’ve posted clips from this tour before for Wino Wednesday, but never a whole show from so late in the band’s tenure. You’ll forgive me I hope for not knowing if this was their last run, but if not, it was damn close. After ripping it up on bass the whole set (and vocals for a couple songs), Dave Sherman says they’ll be back next year, but of course that didn’t turn out to be the case.

Sherman would release the first Earthride full-length, Taming of the Demons, just months after this gig (their self-titled EP came out in 2000), and Gary Isom would float around for the next several years, playing drums in Valkyrie before joining forces for a time with Pentagram and reuniting with Sherman in Weed is Weed, and Wino would hardly miss a beat, releasing the debut album from his next trio The Hidden Hand, Divine Propaganda, in 2003. Spirit Caravan ended their tenure with the So Mortal Be single before MeteorCity‘s The Last Embrace compilation put the cap on their discography, but if you’ve gotta go out, a tour with Place of Skulls and Throttlerod is a decent way to do it.

So enjoy the show below, presented in full by Lepers TV, who taped it at the Creepy Crawl for local access, and as always, have a great Wino Wednesday:

Next Saturday, Oct. 20, will mark three full years since Shrinebuilder‘s self-titled debut was released on Neurot. The most super of supergroups unleashed five tracks and just under 40 minutes of exploration, at times devastatingly heavy, at times contemplatively ambient, but always in motion and never predictable. Three years later, I still don’t think I have a grip on all of it — though I did a review when it came out — and even though the status of the band is unclear at this point, I’m not sure more time is going to help.

If you have to be outclassed, though, Shrinebuilder is the cast to do it. I’ll run down the list because it’s fun: Scott Kelly (Neurosis), Scott “Wino” Weinrich (The Obsessed, this feature, etc.), Al Cisneros (Sleep, Om) and Dale Crover (the Melvins), all contributing to the complex, driving psychedelic heaviness that successfully blended the approaches of its members. I spent a year in fanboy nerd-out mode waiting for it, and when it came, was certain my days were well spent.

I’ve griped about the longevity of Shrinebuilder‘s Shrinebuilder before, that I didn’t go back to it after 2009 and so forth, and I suppose that’s true, though I think it’s more on me than the album. In any case, with zero prospects of a follow-up anytime soon, I figure the full-length is ripe for a revisit, and if you’re gonna listen to a record with Wino on it, Wednesday’s the day.

Enjoy and have a great Wino Wednesday: