Photo by Veronica Rusnak
Paul Lawson at Trashfest
Paul Lawson at Trashfest
Trashfest turns 40 this Saturday at Polish Falcon, 7 p.m. with a lineup of Milwaukee’s great trashy artists. But it will be missing its trashiest artiste. One of the event’s prime movers, Paul Lawson, died recently leaving a long legacy in Milwaukee music.
For some four decades Fly, along with original cohorts Darrell “Da Brains” Marten and Voot Warnings corralled, prodded and set free hundreds of ids, leaving egos and superegos at home for the night.
Long gone venues like Irene J’s, Toad Café, Blues Oasis and the Odd Rock Cafe “saw the best minds of its generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night…” Or something like that.
This year’s lineup includes nervis virgins, unpeeled Banana, Dick Taste (like Frito), Sha Na Not, Uncomfortable Moments, Ted Jorin, Fox & Hound, The Galaxy MF and Meat Puppies.
Among the brilliant concepts Fly helped bring to Trashfest’s past stages include Cheese of the Goat’s heavy metal polka and The Supremes Court, an act built on revised Supremes hits sung by nine members dressed in garbage bag robes. Another year Immortal Plants mashed up Sun Ra and KC and the Sunshine Band—yes, space was the place.
Paul Lawson aka Fly aka Paulette D'Amour
Fly was a guitar slinger and songwriter who mixed punk, garage and rockabilly sounds. In a series of significant Milwaukee bands Lawson was the glue that effectively made a group more than the sum of its parts.
A decades-long career as a fixture on music club stages and behind the scenes often found Fly with his gold Fender Anniversary Stratocaster guitar and unique Hawaiian print vintage Fender Super Reverb—according to legend he purchased the amplifier brand new.
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In bands Dummy Club, Immortal Plants, Dr. Chow’s Love Medicine, The Alewives, Fly and the Swatters and more, Fly’s style was as important as his fondness for dry, pun-filled humor.
Recalled as a friend and bandmate
Three of Fly’s longtime collaborators recall experiences in music and beyond.
Diana Stonie Rivera-Caldwell played with Fly in The Dummy Club, the psychobilly band that signed to a German label and played shows in Europe.
Rivera-Caldwell: I want to talk about Fly as my friend, outside of the musical context. He was a dear friend, roommate, confidant. We would go out for beer to talk, laugh and bond. We grieved together, struggled through some dark waters together and his “Dad Jokes” even back then were epic!
My mom adored him, she called him “Paulie” and he would play a song she liked for her, it was the rent for our practice space.
Many don't know Fly was an excellent cook, his chocolate chip cookies were out of this world ... that perfect balance of crispy and chewy.
Fly was both quiet and loud, stoic, open ... quite often a contradiction, which made him interesting. There's always a big life beyond the stage, I was honored to call him friend, brother, bandmate. He always called me “Birdie.” I will always miss hearing that, I'll miss his laugh and his eyeroll.
It's always the smallest things remembered that seem to hurt the most. Fly and his Hawaiian print amp...iconic and so fitting. Truly the end of an era.
Frank Chandek, vocalist for Dr. Chow’s Love Medicine also collaborated with Fly for annual Zappafest performances.
Chandek: Fly walked into Linneman’s and saw an early version of Dr Chow. He said to himself, “I could play in this band.”
He immediately changed the sound of the band from a jammy, blues-oriented original experiment to a more late-60s Nuggets influenced pseudo-psychedelic direction.
In the process we began to incorporate his originals from other bands with mine, all with his signature clean Fender scream. But that was just the beginning of his influence on the band and on me in particular.
Fly opened my mind to additional ways of thinking about music. He was a founding member of the first Zappafest, now going on 26 years. We played various local festivals including Locust and Center St. And of course, there was Trashfest which I personally consider a performer’s nirvana.
He activated a sense of no holds barred expression that I am ever grateful for; he pushed me to announce the Push Cart Race on Center Street Daze. These activities were not great, or offered any amount of cash reward, but they made us “famous in a four-block area” of Riverwest and filled our parties with gorgeously painted stories.
He was literally family, friend, and gave me permission to be my most creative self. I thank him for it all.
Andy Pagel crossed paths with Fly as a teenager; today he drums with the mighty Best Westerns.
Pagel: I don’t know how I found myself, at 17, in Stonie’s basement playing drums in a new band. But there I was, a fresh faced, middle-class drummer boy from ‘Stallis.
It was a trip meeting and starting a band with Stonie and Fly. Fly reminded me of a young Pete Townsend. So fucking cool. I really admired and loved Paul. He’s been a close friend ever since then. Yet looking from afar, he was quietly the coolest cat in Milwaukee. I love him and I’ll miss him.
