 "Photo: Maxx Scholten; The Daily Texan")
Craigslist is a hyper flea market, its simple design belying its astonishing power to satisfy our need for material wealth and community. Need to sell your prized Les Paul to support your habit of floatin’ down Whiskey River? You’re covered. Looking for a gay quilting club? No problem. Trying to form a band? The local folk collective Wino Vino found its core through Craigslist.
After Hurricane Katrina struck, Forrest Johnson, who plays mandolin and fiddle and handles vocals, relocated to Austin and posted an ad on Craigslist, looking to jam with somebody. Drummer Derek Hansen and guitarist/vocalist Sanford Krones, who also happened to be New Orleans transplants, responded. The band later found accordion player Joe Egnot and bassist Peet Murray when a trio they had played in abruptly disbanded.
Hansen was initially reluctant to respond due to Johnson’s ominous prose.
“It described a sound of pirate ships sinking in the sand and dwarves dancing around, and trash cans making spooky sounds,” Hansen said.
Wino Vino is a celebration of European folk music. the group’s songs deal with the cycles of life and death — death especially, as the members described themselves as “children of the apocalypse.”
The band’s instruments are all acoustic, but with its boundless energy, amplifiers seem to be for wimps. Egnot is heavily influenced by Diamanda Galas, and Hansen is inspired by the street musicians and brass bands of New Orleans — all of whom don’t need a big sound system to affirm their presence.
“We can bring the energy level of a rock band only with acoustic instruments and keep the energy level going,” Johnson said.
The band postulates that the “um-bop” beat common in European folk music is the key element to getting crowds worked up. Hansen finds the reaction encouraging, because his transition from New Orleans shows to Austin shows was rough.
“I was pretty discouraged at first about the lack of dancing; I’d go to a show and I’d be depressed because I’d love this band and I’m rockin’ out and I look around — are you guys having fun?” he said.
The band’s influences do present some labeling woes — “the dirty G-word,” as Egnot puts it.
“Since we’re European based in our acousticness and traditionality, the temptation is to say ‘gypsy,’” he said. “I call us post-gypsy.”
Johnson doesn’t reject the gypsy label entirely, given how the band was formed.
“We’re all a little nomadic; we all kinda happened to land here by accident,” he said.
Wino Vino is not a small ensemble by any means, and combined with the band’s onstage chemistry, there is a strong sense of community to the band. Egnot suggests that “you should smell your friends” and “sing as if nobody else can hear you” when watching the band perform live.
“Picture a campfire: We’re like the fire, and there’s people around keeping warm and feeling good and going off on their own little perspective of what the fire is about,” Krones said.
This is partly due to the fact that most of the band resides in East Austin. Krones said it reminds him of the Ninth Ward in New Orleans. Gentrification — the other dirty G-word — looms over Wino Vino’s heads, but the band doesn’t think the trend will last. Like members of any good band, their focus stays on playing kick-ass shows with good friends and good beer.
Percussionist and washboard player the Rev. Flint Fancy likes playing in East Austin in such venues as the Victory Grill that allow the band to resonate with people who wouldn’t typically attend a performance.
“We’ve played shows … that have touched 90-year-old Hispanic grandparents of friends,” she said. “It’s such a range, and without that kind of family feeling in East Austin there wouldn’t be a place for art or music.”
In addition, the band prefers small venues — ones in which 30 to 40 people constitutes a sellout. To Wino Vino, Emo’s might as well be the Erwin Center. If the band is on the same level as the audience, it’s going to be a rowdy show.
“You’re in their face. They’re in your face. The energy exchange is more direct,” Johnson said.
Wino Vino will be playing Café Mundi tomorrow and The Parlor’s North Loop location on the Feb. 26.
