About WinoVino: eternal seekers of the descriptive adjective

WinoVino was formed in the summer of 2006 when Forrest Johnson and Sanford Krones crossed paths deep in the center of Texas. Both were fresh off the boat in Austin: Sanford having arrived when his life sank to the bottom of New Orleans after hurricane Katrina, and Forrest looking for solid ground to hang up his traveling shoes for awhile.

The two had very similar musical interests and aspirations and soon were compiling a stock of original material. In search of a rhythm section they were able to turn up Derek Hansen with his multitude of percussive tricks and talents (as well as a practice space). Peet Murray came spinning along next, boarding the ship perched atop a tall bike with juggling pins and a violin strapped to the front of it. Assuming the role of bass--or any other instrument that can be played on a unicycle--the then quartet was rounded out.

WinoVino started playing regularly around Austin, slowly trying to carve out a niche in the seemingly saturated rock and blues music scene of the city. When Peet's other group split up because the leader decided to move to Europe (the anti-fascist Italian folk trio Brigante), WinoVino was able to get one Joe Egnot on board as accordionist extraordinaire.

Everyone in the group brought their own song writing and musical stylings to the forefront and began honing in on the co-operative WinoVino sound. The core of the band stayed strong through different incarnations including trombone, clarinet, and alto sax.

The Reverend Flint Fancy came in and stayed in bringing her uncanny percussive skills, stage presence, and some much needed estrogen to the group. Now six members strong, WinoVino filled out stages and filled out dance floors throughout Austin.

In the summer of 2008 the group went into the studio to record their first full length album at Coyote Creek Studios in Elgin, Texas. Joined by Marc Utter with his recording and engineering expertise, David Gilden on trumpet, and Roy Coon on clarinet, the album was recorded and produced within the WinoVino family.

Now just over two years after it's birth, WinoVino is an eight piece act with visuals, stage performance, and the occasional seductive dancers. Look out for WinoVino in your area in 2009.

Sanford Krones

guitar, vocals

Sanford has been a dissonant guitar and string player extraordinaire as well as a composer since 1982.

The founding member of many groups, Sanford's bands have ranged in style through post-punk, jazz, experimental, noise, and music for homemade instruments. Additionally, he has created music for the theater, to accompany archival film live, and for art gallery soundscapes.

Some previous groups include:

1986: Grogshop (Los Angeles, CA)
1990: Enochlight Presents (New Orleans, LA)
1993: Potential Sound of Music (New Orleans, LA)
1994: Tennessee Jackson Ward (Richmond, VA)
1997: Tamachk (Richmond, VA)
2002: Finneal

Forrest Johnson

mandolin, fiddle, vocals

After being run over by a car in the summer of his 14th year, Forrest started diligently picking up his father's guitar and learned to play some chords. At the age of 17 he formed a punk rock band and also started dabbling in the mandolin.

Traveling the western hemisphere added an appreciation for acoustic music. Jam sessions in the pubs of Ireland, Spanish classical guitar, a bluegrass/folk duo, a dash of railroad blues, and finally the intoxicating melodies of Eastern Europe all contributed to Forrest's wide taste.

At the age of 25 he set out for Austin with two guitars, a mandolin, a violin and the clothes on his back to form WinoVino.

Joe Egnot

accordion, piano, vocals

Joe's early performance career involved: singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" at the Northway Mall Santa Claus Pancake Breakfast in the mid 1970's, recording satirical songs like "I Hate The Kennedys" into the hot microphone of his portable cassette recorder, assuming the arduous responsibility in the mid 1980's of lead and rhythm guitar for an Adam and the Ants lip-sync trio that toured rural western Pennsylvania and made it to public access TV, writing all the music for a post-punk pre-emo cassette duo called Bastard Toadflax, continuing solo multi-tracking and distribution with such beloved cuts as "I Hate You" and "My Cat is Dead" into the early 1990's (until the Grunge movement shut him down), and singing German language versions of David Bowie songs in transsexual karaoke bars in San Francisco CA in the late 1990's.

But it wasn't until his 2001 move to Austin TX that Joe's career truly began to blossom, smoothly transitioning from his ersatzdeutschebowie to vocal and piano accompaniment for divas and strippers on the Austin burlesque scene. The next year, Joe began writing satirical multi-genre songs that would go on to be performed by his power pop trio, Dreamsickle, in which he sang lead vocals and played electric bass from 2004-2006.

A chance collaboration in 2004 between Joe and Ian "Jefe" Everett in a noise performance called 50 Gallons of Urine led Joe to play his new accordion for a CD of Ian's rock songs translated into Italian in 2005, which then led--after a brief stint with marijuana smokers and sometime bluegrass band, Herb Pharm--to rejoin with Ian in the spring of 2006 in the Italian worker-folk/Rebetica/gypsy swing trio, Brigante. Rounding out the trio on every instrument imaginable was Peet Murray, who later introduced Joe to WinoVino.

Brigante played a beloved 3-4 hour set every other Friday at Spiderhouse, leading Joe to break over 30 shot glasses within a 10 month period playing Rebetica. When Ian finally admitted that he was moving to Italy and breaking up Brigante with less than five days notice, Joe inquired about Peet's other band, WinoVino, who was searching for an accordionist.

Joe is still tickled and a little weirded out when he looks into an audience and sees complete strangers singing songs that he wrote.

Peet Murray

upright bass, fiddle, vocals

[snarko! did this...]

Peet can also juggle whilst standing on this thing.

Peter Murray is one of those insane musical masterminds you can lock into a closet with any named instrument for an hour, and comes out it a complete expert.

I'm pretty sure he bleeds strings.

I first watched this under-aged drunk play fiddle/ bass/ violin/ guitar/ juggle/ do-anything with Brigante, and boy-howdy, was I impressed by his ridiculous tenacious energy to just go at it, no matter what it was.

This man has no fear.

If he doesn't bother to write his own bio, let it be said Peet Murray is a wit that can't be wrathed. Talent isn't the right word. Closer to God.

Derek Hansen

drums, percussion, backing vocals

Metrosexual mountain-man, peltic polka-dancer, avid alliterator: Derek was conceived in a cow pasture somewhere between Montana and Maryland. He spent the stranger part of his childhood tinkering with percussive contraptions in the basement of his New England home and listening to Abba.

Over the years he's played in marching bands, jazz bands, concert bands, country bands, salsa bands, drum ensembles, smoke-filled cabarets, and musicals. His greatest influences have been New Orleans--the place he called home before Katrina--and the Muppets (Swedish Chef and Animal).

In one of his weaker moments, Derek sang back-up for Shania Twain. He also had a hand in (mis)guiding high school bandmate, John Keefe, now drummer for Boys Like Girls. Derek likes long bike rides in the woods, Blue Bell ice cream, and Cuban rap. Oh, and Etna, his new Craig's List lover: a 28-inch marching bass drum.

Reverend Flint Fancy

washboard, percussion, backing vocals

It was a cold cold winter in the blizzardy plains of South Dakota circa 1985 when Reverend Flint Fancy received her first snare drum. Marching bands and pep rallies never knew what a girl could do with skins and sticks until the then Miss Fancy stepped on the scene. Embarking upon the snare - then taking on the quad drums & xylophone - sheet music and stuffy gymnasiums soon proved trite for this percussion student.

Timpani and auxiliary instruments satiated for a short time until Flint formed her first band in college, Gutwrench, a short lived basement noisegasm consisting of halfway-house dropouts.

Since then Flint has toured the continent with such bands as The Groinmurders, Bixby, and the NYC punk rock trio Molotov Cocktail, as well as performance art troupes such as Maskourage and the Hot Toddies: at times, in the middle of nowhere setting large drums ablaze and beating the flame right out of them!

After a brief hiatus she likes to call "birthing her future band", Rev. Fancy took up the washboard on a dusty old porch in east Austin whereabouts That Damned Band was born. Then known as the East Austin Short Hackberry Jug Band, TDB could not quench the thirst of her need for yet even more percussive frenzy. Now calling WinoVino her family, Reverend Flint Fancy graces the stage (or parade route) with a variety of tricks, treats and percussive delights, sometimes donning several washboards at once. She'll even marry you! (To someone else, that is.)

Roy Coon

clarinet, backing vocals

Since the age of 10, Roy Matthew Coon has been playing woodwind instruments. It began with the saxophone, continued through the clarinet, and began again with the of study music at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

After college he played in various groups in Colorado, including The Tao Jones and The By All Means Band. He moved to Austin in 2007 and plays in several other groups throughout the city in addition to WinoVino.

Roy's favorite color is orange, and his primary influence is Franz Kafka.

David Gilden

trumpet, backing vocals

David played trumpet in school bands until he went to college where he quit after a single season with the UW wind orchestra.

Later he started playing again with the ill conceived notion that his daughter would want to play duets with him on her saxophone.

His first experience in a band was with the Free Brass Cartel, which led to meeting Thomas and playing with MelodyMann. That led to meeting Bill who introduced him to Robin who introduced him to Roy. Roy introduced him to WinoVino.