I have a Robbie Fulks T-shirt I found in Indiana at a thrift store near The Swan's parents' river cabin. It has a line drawing of a face and says COUNTRY IS NOT PRETTY. Well, if ever there was a Voot Warnings T-shirt in my drawer, I'd want it to say VOOT WARNINGS IS NOT UGLY. Because the fellah is about as ugly in drag as a man-woman can get, and yet he's so charming, likable, attractive for one's attention.
Voot Warnings played often in Riverwest in Milwaukee in the early 90's before I left for Chicago, usually at tiny bars, and he was already a bit crusty scene veteran. Voot's music has the punk spirit, but it's not punk. It's bar band. It's rock. I'm not sure. There's not much exceptional about the music or the song structures but Voot's character is so strong it carries & captivates.
When I think of Voot, I think of him as the master in his own context, a bar like the Uptowner in Milwaukee, small, wooden, beaten, friendly and intimate. You can take Couch Flambeau out of the scene they thrive in here and they're still great rock and still funny as hell. I'm not sure I'd go out of my way to see Voot play at a bigger club, and I don't think I've recommend ed his music to my friends often, if at all. But I cherish him as part of the Milwaukee I love.
In 1995 Voot Warnings released Platinum, and two of my favorite songs if his are on it, "One Hundred Pennies" (about taking the bus when you're broke) and "Jesus Christ Is My Wife" an old staple of his, written back in 1975. The lyrics still crack me up: "the virgin Mary gave birth to a fairy / he's so blonde he's golden / what do you do when your saviour's a lush / and he won't die for your sins? / ... Jesus Christ / is my wife"
His most famous song, which leads off Platinum, is Dance Motherfucker Dance (cowritten with Glen and John from Milwaukee's Plasticland). The Swan may remember me wanting to play that in Forty One Rivers as a cover -- until I read the liner notes and found out the Violent Femmes often covered it live, and eventually released it as a single in Australia. That tidbit might have let me down, but this paragraph written by Dave Luhrssen got my attention:
"Coming of age in Milwaukee in the years preceding punk rock, Warnings had few forums for his music. Instead of forming a band, he joined Barnum & Bailey Circus and toured the country as a prop boy. He was discharged from the US Navy after a short stint. He hitchhiked to the West Coast carrying only his acoustic guitar and a knapsack, and played his decidedly non-folky songs in Minneapolis and Seattle coffeehouses long before either town became known as a music city."Platinum was produced by John Frankovic from Plasticland.
One Hundred Pennies
Jesus Christ Is My Wife
~Arum
