Their tenure was brief, but the Wino trio nonetheless hold a place in the lore of their namesake guitarist/vocalist, tragic though it ultimately turned out to be. Formed with Scott “Wino” Weinrich himself, drummer Jean-Paul Gaster of Clutch and Rezin bassist Jon Blank, the Wino trio released their only studio album, Punctuated Equilibrium, through Southern Lord in 2009. It was very well received (one of my favorites from that year) and worked in a lighter, jammier spirit than did The Hidden Hand, which had dissolved in 2007. Of course, it was still plenty weighted and had no shortage of crunch and fuzz, but the grooves Gaster worked around Wino‘s riffing and the warm, natural low end brought to the material from Blank made the record a joy to listen to on multiple levels. It came out in winter and made you long for summer.

I was fortunate enough to see the Wino band at Roadburn in 2009 as part of a weekend that, no bullshit, changed my life. They killed, as one would expect, and later released the set as the aptly-titled Live in Roadburn 2009 on Burning World/Roadburn Records (review here). The chemistry between the three players was fully locked in, from the balcony in the Green Room at the 013 in Tilburg, they looked to be having a great time, and they looked like a band who could very easily go for a long time doing whatever they wanted in between Gaster‘s commitments to Clutch, jamming and rocking out tunes like “Wild Blue Yonder” and “Release Me,” “Smilin’ Road” and “The Woman in the Orange Pants.” Given that, how on their game they were, it was all the more horrible when the band returned to the States and Blank died of an overdose a short time later.

Wino joined Clutch on a tour that summer with Gaster pulling double-duty on drums and Dog Fashion Disco‘s Brian White filling the bassist slot, but it wasn’t ever going to be the same, and by the fall of 2009, Wino was beginning the unplugged explorations that would result in his 2010 solo acoustic debut, Adrift (review here), the trio effectively defunct. There isn’t much quality live footage around of them — not every cellphone was an HD video camera in 2009 — but this clip of them playing “Skybone,” the centerpiece from The Obsessed‘s 1994 final studio album, The Church Within, at the German Doom Shall Rise festival on that lone European tour makes it plain that they were something special in their time.

Enjoy and have a great Wino Wednesday:

Wino, “Skybone” Live at Doom Shall Rise 2009