The Warning – A Virgin in the Midst of Whores

The Warning
A Virgin in the Midst of Whores
1988 (no label)
Victorville, California, USA

Burrito – Vocals
Tracy G – All music and production

1. Burn in Hell
2. Simple Simon
3. Instrumental
4. Let’s Go to Church
5. Instrumental
6. A Virgin in the Midst of Whores
7. What Will You Do
8. Whatever Happened to Love
9. Solid Rock
10. The Rapture

For those not familiar with The Warning, they were a controversial metal band led by Burrito, and featuring Tracey G (Dio, etc) on guitars. The music on this follow-up demo to Repent or Die! is still chaotic, heavy, and random. It was kind of the pre-cursor for 8-Ball Cholos, but more thrash and metal oriented. They were kind of the main band for the Radicals for Christ group, which Burrito also led. The main controversy came from their lyrics and cover art (see above – Pride is Jerry Falwell, Ego is Jimmy Swaggart, Phony is Tammy Faye Bakker, 666 is Pope John Paul II, Lust$ is Jim Bakker, Virgin is Jesus Christ). They basically like to tell people all they are doing wrong and how evil they are for not living up to the band’s religious standards. Lots of finger pointing and then telling others they are wrong for being… well… finger pointers. The music is pretty cool, and the lyrics are tolerable if you take it as a warning of the dangers of fundamentalist evangelicalism (a group that generally rejects this kind of music as “Satanic,” ironically). So, the original cover was controversial (even though I think it is awesome), so they also released a censored version of the cover below. The weird thing is that the sonics are a bit cleaner on the censored cover version (even though still muffled). This demo was followed by Cut the Crap/Garbage! in 1989/1990.