Wino: "Release Me"

Seventeen years after his first show with Saint Vitus, singer and guitarist Scott “Wino" Weinrich stands on stage performing the songs that help launched a generational flotilla of doom. It's July 1, 2003 at the Double Door in Chicago. The crowd for the only American Saint Vitus reunion show is packed near the stage, but there's standing room at the edges.

Weinrich recalls, "It was cool but also a little bit sad. It took however many years, and we couldn't even sell out the show." Five hundred devoted friends and fans — it's a respectable but modest turnout. After decades of playing to crowds ranging from handfuls to thousands, he still can't fill a medium-size venue.

This shouldn't be a surprise; in fact, it's expected. Weinrich has always been just under the radar, a musician's musician. Over the years, he's collaborated with a gamut of rock legends, including members of Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and Death. His fans include Henry Rollins, who says, "Scott is one of the heaviest people known to mankind. Just listen to the music; the man matches it well."

Dave Grohl recruited him, along with other celebrated heavy-metal icons, for his Probot project, where Wino contributed vocals for "The Emerald Law" and played guitar in a live version of the band along with Grohl and Motorhead's Lemmy Kilmister. Greg Anderson, who, as a member of Sunn O))) and co-founder of Southern Lord Records, is one of the parties most responsible for the current influx of doom bands, cites Weinrich as an "immeasurable influence. The intensity and passion of his playing are unprecedented. He is not in a class of his own. He is the class and the owner."

Everyone related to heavy music has a Wino story or two, the best of which are off the record. There's a duality about the man — he's well liked, always regarded as a generous, friendly guy, but also known as a fiend, perpetually recovering from one addiction or another. He's the most famous guy in heavy metal of whom you've never heard.

As a teenager, Weinrich helped synthesize the burgeoning DC doom-metal scene of the late 1970s, playing guitar in Warhorse, the band that became The Obsessed. Neither interested in mainstream glam metal nor the counter-culture thrash movement, The Obsessed and other local groups like Pentagram purveyed a slow, bluesy take on psychedelic hard rock.

Despite scant recordings — one eight-and-a-half-minute EP and a single — the band had a tremendous influence across the music underground. Fugazi's Joe Lally briefly lived with the band and remembers, "After Wino became the singer, that's when [the] intention behind his writing became clear to me. When Wino started singing, you really felt, 'Hey, this shit is serious.'" Though his range wasn't as wide as some of his contemporaries, Weinrich was nearly unmatched in his intensity and warm soulfulness. As he honed his musicianship and songwriting skills, he also crystallized an interest in motorcycles, booze, and crack cocaine.

The next several years saw Weinrich play in a number of bands. He moved to LA in 1986 to front rising band Saint Vitus, but after three years decided that he needed to write music on guitar again. He left to reform The Obsessed with new rhythm players, including the Melvins' Dale Crover and Kyuss' Scott Reeder back in Maryland. Paradoxically, his lust for chemicals rarely affected his musical prowess. "Back in the day, people used to ask how I could play so smooth when I was that wired, but you get used to it," Weinrich says. And despite more than the occasional binge, he's kept his friends closer than most.

"Fugazi was touring Germany in the [early] '90s, and I don't remember what city we were in, but between songs I heard someone yell, 'Joe!'" Lally recalls. "It was clearly Wino. After the show, he asked us for a band photo because Hellhound was going to release the first Obsessed record from 1985, and he wanted to include photos of friends. He didn't seem to be too together at the time, and I wasn't sure I'd ever see him again. Still, he carried that photo in the pocket of his leather jacket for the rest of the Saint Vitus tour, and it got on the record sleeve. I was pretty shocked when I saw it there." After The Obsessed parted ways, the mid-'90s ushered in the era of his stoner-doom project, Spirit Caravan.

"I got kind of tired playing in bands full time. It was really starting to become unproductive. At the end of the day, I asked myself, 'Do I really want to do this full time?' I didn't."

In 2002, Weinrich joined The Hidden Hand, his most experimental endeavor to date. Like every Wino trio, this one toured relentlessly, devoted to the ideal of DIY live music. While many players burned and dropped out, Weinrich kept at it, finding fresh musical allies. "When [we were] able to tour with The Hidden Hand, it was one of the high points of playing music for me, period," reflects Mike Scheidt, YOB guitarist/vocalist. "Wino has that killer balance of great songwriting, true heaviness, and honest emotional depth borne from living a hard life and surviving long enough to tell the tale."

Over the years, Weinrich's playing evolved, assimilating more progressive, psychedelic nuances. Politics also infiltrated his lyrics, which previously tended towards philosophical and metaphysical themes. The Hidden Hand disbanded in 2007 after some nasty in-fighting on a European tour, and Weinrich attempted to take a break from music.

"I got kind of tired playing in bands full time," Weinrich admits. "It was really starting to become unproductive. At the end of the day, I asked myself, 'Do I really want to do this full time?' I didn't." These are the kind of thoughts that lead one to record a swan song, but instead, Weinrich started a new project and booked six months of gigs. Jean Paul Gester, an old friend and longtime drummer of Southern rock band Clutch, had other plans. Weinrich says, "We're good friends and had always talked about recording a record someday. Jean Paul was so enthusiastic that it was contagious. It was all the push that I needed [to continue making music]."

The other piece of the puzzle was bassist Jon Blank of DC's Rezin. "I knew that he was good, but I didn't know how good," Weinrich says. "He learned all of the songs so fast, and there was really good chemistry." Given Clutch's tireless touring schedule and Rezin's waxing profile, the real challenge was getting everyone into the jam room and studio. "There wasn't a lot of putting stuff off," Weinrich says. "We knew that we had a time frame, and we did it."

The resultant album, billed simply as Wino and titled Punctuated Equilibrium, was recorded in two sessions, half of the songs at a time. Multi-session records are usually a hodgepodge of sounds or muted by digital normalizing, but that's not the case with this record. The album sounds as if it was recorded live in a practice space. Weinrich says, "This is the best-sounding record yet."

The music is all over the place, spanning the gamut of styles that Weinrich has refined over the years, including doom, blues, hard rock, and psychedelia. Weinrich's relaxed but limber guitar playing makes it sound easy. Punctuated Equilibrium is a twisted mass of tree limbs, each song reaching in one direction only to bend in another. "I think [the album] is vaulting Scott into a new arena," says Bobby Liebling of Pentagram. "There is some incredible ear candy, and he's branching out towards much more diversified material than ever in the past…not to mention the guitar playing, [which is] murderous."

The most ethereal (read: "trippy") song on the record is "Wild Blue Yonder," a six-and-a-half-minute ride on a spaceship. "We went into the studio with just the framework and guitar melody — that's all we had," Weinrich says. The result is an acid-rock freak-out on guitar that's anchored by a relentless bass line and drum work that wrap time signatures around multiple phrases. It's seamless; you'd think these guys had been playing together for years.

Other songs on Punctuated Equilibrium bare the distinct stamp of the accompanists. "One thing about Jean Paul is that he loves crazy timing," Weinrich says."It's fun for me too, especially on songs like 'Eyes of the Flesh' and 'The Gift.'" The latter of these is a bonus track from the extra 10" record. Weinrich says, "I've only ever played it with one other drummer who understood it. Jean Paul and I hammered it out in two or three nights, and Jon learned it in one fucking night." "Eyes of the Flesh," along with other tracks like "Secret Realm Devotion" and "Gods, Frauds, Neo-Cons And Demagogues," showcases Weinrich's uncanny ability to wail out sustained notes and slow bends. Tracks such as "Silver Lining" exemplify his ability to scream melodic leads that don't soil his warm, monolithic guitar tones.

Punctuated Equilibrium is an ambitious and varied record, showcasing musicians at the top of their games, and other musicians have continued to take notice. In April of 2009, Weinrich headlined the 14^th annual Roadburn Festival in Tilberg, Netherlands with a once-again-reunited Saint Vitus.

Meanwhile, an acoustic version of his solo band played South by Southwest in the States. Last January, Weinrich announced yet another new band, Shrinebuilder, an underground-metal supergroup of sorts, featuring Scott Kelly of Neurosis, Al Cisneros of Sleep and Om, and Crover. The group will release an album in September of 2009 and is planning a brief tour. Kelly has commented in interviews that "Wino has been the keystone of this idea from its inception. It wouldn't have been worth doing, and it wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been part of it. Lightning." That's to say nothing of Weinrich's rumored electronic project as well as the acoustic affair, Peckerwood. No one can accuse him of being a slouch.

When asked about the last time he had a drink, Weinrich cracks a joke: "Ten minutes ago [writer's note: it's 9 a.m.]…nah, just kidding. I gave up drinking and hard drugs a long time ago." Not that he doesn't knock back a cold one every now and then. As for the cocaine, he's remarkably candid. "It was fucking great — that's why I did it," he says. "It just becomes a lifestyle choice. You have to stay on it, tear apart your house every day, or you live a normal life. There came a point when I just had to live a normal life."

That life includes three kids — Nick (who wants a Moog keyboard), Maxwell (who wants his papa's gold chopper), and Alexandra — as well as an estranged wife, Diana. "I was a stay-at-home dad," Weinrich says. "I raised them from the cradle. Once Diana and I stopped seeing eye to eye, things changed rapidly." When he's not spending time with his kids, hunting down vintage guitar gear, or watching The History Channel, he's struggling to figure out new technology. "I traded a friend of mine for a G4 laptop. I need to figure out that phone thing to talk with the kids while I'm in Europe…Skop?"

Punctuated Equilibrium has had a positive reception with both critics and fans. "It's about timing," Weinrich asserts. "It's always been about timing, and it's never been right for me before. For some strange reason, things are coming together now." He relates his touring schedule — wall-to-wall shows with the Wino project on the road with Clutch, more Saint Vitus reunion shows, Shrinebuilder, and miscellaneous engagements through June 2009. At age 48, 30 years into his career, it's an odd time for a foray as a solo artist, but it's just what Weinrich needs.

"To be honest, this sort of gave me a shot in the arm. I felt like this record made me feel better about things; it made me want to keep playing."

Download the podcast for This Week’s Best Albums: January 18, 2011 and subscribe to This Week’s Best Albums for free with iTunes.

Stream the podcast for This Week's Best Albums: January 18, 2011.
This Week\'s Best Albums: January 18, 2011

Steven Drozd: The Heart Is A Drum Machine (The Score) (Twinkle Cash Co.)

Steven Drozd: "Born"

Steven Drozd is a multi-instrumentalist and the third-most-tenured member of The Flaming Lips; live, he usually plays guitar and keyboards and sings a bit, but he began his stint as the band’s drummer. Now he’s releasing the nearly instrumental accompaniment to the documentary The Heart is a Drum Machine, a film by the producers of the Moog documentary that attempts to explain what music “is” and how it affects human beings.

The music shares a lot of characteristics with the Flaming Lips of the past dozen years – synthesized grooves, big rock beats, fuzz bass, airy keyboards, and different instrumental flourishes weaving in and out. Listeners are unlikely to confuse the two, however, and the score succeeds as a standalone album as well as a film accompaniment. Maynard James Keenan of Tool and A Perfect Circle provides guest vocals on a cover of Elton John's "Rocket Man," which feels a bit out of place when listening straight through, but it’s a unique rendition of a classic-rock hit.

Beep: City of the Future (Third Culture)

Beep: "Robo Pup"

A genre-bending electro-rock-meets-experimental-jazz trio, Beep is a Bay Area band that began as a more traditional jazz outfit.  But with its third album, City of the Future, it has moved into a category all its own. Accessible beats and upright-bass grooves build into keyboard leads and polyrhythmic breakdowns, and though a few passages become harder to follow, it doesn’t take long for Beep’s powerful melodies and rhythms to come back to the fore.

The best contemporary comparison here might be a group like Kneebody, which expertly combines some of the best elements of rock and jazz. Beep, however, adds more disparate elements in the way of wordless vocal harmonies, an electrified mbira, woodblocks, and electronic squiggles, and City of the Future pulls all of that together for a swirling jazz-rock odyssey. Ultimately, beyond the style shifting, it showcases a real knack for melody as evidenced by the final track, "Robo Pup," which premiered last week on AlarmPress.com.

Ghost: Opus Eponymous (Metal Blade / Rise Above)

Ghost: "Con Clavi Con Dio"

With its debut full-length, Swedish metal band Ghost — not to be confused with the Japanese psych-rock band of the same name — has quickly built buzz thanks to its infectious mix of classic metal riffs, sing-along vocals, and abundant melodies. The overarching satanic themes and high-priest visual aesthetic don’t hurt either in appealing to the band’s target market.

Opus Eponymous, out now in the USA on Metal Blade, is being billed as a black-metal album.  There’s a bit of that in the darker moments, but truthfully, it falls much closer to classic rock with its organs and vocal harmonies. The press materials recommend it for fans of Judas Priest, Mercyful Fate, and Blue Öyster Cult, but there are just enough left-field elements – Benedictine-style chants, church bells, spaced-out keyboards – to separate these guys from the pack.

Braids: Native Speaker (Kanine)

Braids: "Lemonade"

Another promising debut this week comes via the highly orchestrated indie-rock creations of Braids – not to be confused with indie-rock favorites Braid from Champaign, Illinois. The pluralized version is actually a group of kids, still just a few years removed from high school, who skipped college, moved to Montreal, and began making a record. The result is an album that’s mature beyond its years, with musical dynamics that many bands never achieve — and chops that aren't too shabby either, perhaps best shown by rapid, looping guitar work.

The durations of Braids’ songs are another indie-rock anomaly, often eclipsing seven and eight minutes. Thanks to that and the band’s other elongated, reverberated guitar parts, it has a fair share in common with post-rock and bands such as Mono, even if the music is topped with sugary pop vocals. But even those elements are turned on their heads at times, and vocalist/guitarist Raphaelle Standell-Preston, who’s also capable of Björk-style power, borders on manic shrieking in the song “Glass Dears.”

Joel Harrison String Choir: The Music of Paul Motian (Sunnyside)

Joel Harrison String Choir: "Misterioso"

Guitarist/composer Joel Harrison has a head-spinning discography, spanning world music, ethnic folk songs, country and Appalachian tunes, avant-classical music, experimental jazz, blues, hymns, and more. Now the boundary-defying songwriter has undertaken another ambitious project: translating the music of legendary jazz drummer Paul Motian to fixed and improvised chamber renditions.

Having played with Bill Evans and Thelonious Monk in addition to recording dozens of albums as a bandleader, Motian has a wealth of material from which to choose. Harrison, in these new versions, does an exemplary job of balancing classical orchestration with improvisation. And he accomplishes this (for the most part) with two guitars plus a string quartet – omitting bass and drums, which usually are crucial jazz elements.

Honorable Mentions

Amina Alaoui: Gharnati, En Concert (Music & Words / Saphrane)

The Decemberists: The King is Dead (Capitol)

Electric Wizard: Black Masses (Rise Above)

Eulogies: Tear the Fences Down (Dangerbird)

Fergus & Geronimo: Unlearn (Hardly Art)

Ion: Immaculada (Restricted Release)

Daniel Martin Moore: In the Cool of the Day (Sub Pop)

Aaron Novik: Floating World Vol. 1 (Porto Franco)

Smith Westerns: Dye it Blonde (Fat Possum)

Social Distortion: Hard Times & Nursery Rhymes (Epitaph)

ALARM is stoked to present "Acid Hand," the title track to the first of three Saviours 7" EPs coming June 23. Backed with "Slave to the Hex," Acid Hand showcases the group's characteristic high-octane, metallic sounds.

Recorded by Scott Ecklein at Dirty Dave's in Saviours' hometown of Oakland, the collection, which will be released on Kemado Records, also includes the Burnin' Cross 7" EP (backed with Saxon cover "Fire in the Sky") and the F.G.T. 7" EP (Judas Priest's "Running Wild" on the flip side).

The collection is just a little taste of what is still to come in 2009, as the metal four-piece heads back into the studio to prepare its upcoming third album, which our expert forecasters here at ALARM predict will be fuckin' sweet.

Saviours: "Acid Hand"
Saviours: \"Acid Hand\"

Saviours: www.killforsaviours.blogspot.com
Kemado: www.kemado.com