This is the most important record you'll ever own. Even if it didn't have GG's best new songs (it does), even if this weren't his best band (it is), it's still the most important record you'll ever own.
Let's go back a bit. About ten years ago, I made a compilation of the most hated bands in America. To be called The 'You'll Hate This Record' Record, I looked for band who were intentionally annoying or aggressive. GG Allin wrote to me. He enclosed his first album, Is Was And Always Shall Be.
'Mykel,' he wrote, 'you gotta put us on this record. We live to be hated. There's nothing we do that's not to be hated. You have to use something.'
I listened to the album. It was mostly pop-punk music, but there was an aggressive side. I wanted to use one clever song, called 'Assface.' I later found out that GG had not written it. I couldn't use it. GG was heartbroken, but not defeated.
'Mykel,' he wrote again, 'if you can't use any of that stuff, try this.' He sent me a cassette of some songs he'd written and recorded with members of the MC5. The songs kept coming. Eventually, I picked two for the album, sent him a contract and began our relationship.
Word of his manically violent, yet funny and inspiring, performances spread quickly. GG kept releasing records - each time with a new label and a new band. No one could keep up with him. They called him inhuman. They were right.
In 1985, Holy War and Starving Missile, two German labels, released an LP with GG on one side and my band, Artless, on the other. Boy was I embarrassed. My side was funny, somewhat nasty, off-key and clever. GG's was genius. Influenced by Hank Williams, GG gave the Germans his best songs, and his best music up till then.
In with that record was a bonus single with GG's theme song, Drink Fight & Fuck. It was the true extension of Sex Drugs & Rock'n'Roll. A logical next step while Nancy Reagan told people Just Say No. GG never said no.
About this time, Neil Cooper, president of ROIR cassettes, asked me about GG.
'Have you ever heard of this guy?' he asked. 'I've been thinking about putting out something by him, but I need a flak catcher.'
'Sure,' I said, 'I'll do it. I worked with GG before. So what do you want?'
Neil told me he wanted a 'best of' tape, with some new stuff - and some live material; music that no one else had. I told him I could do it. He wrote me a check for $2,000.
'I trust you to make it good.' He said. 'The only provision is that I never see the guy. I don't want to meet him I don't want him in the office. I don't want to shake hands with him. Get it? That's the deal. If he shows up here, I get my money back!'
'Agreed.' I said.
The next task was getting GG's stuff together in one place - and getting him in the studio to record more. The studio was easy. Kramer, who's a sucker for a thousand dollars, set everything up at Noise New York. Steve Blush, who booked the Cat Club at the time, agreed to put on a show there. Next, I had to get a band.
Fellow GG fan, Gerard Cosloy, was first to jump on the suicide wagon. He brought along Dinosaur Jr. guitarist J Mascis. On drums was the then Artless drummer, Stephen Dansiger. Cosloy played second guitar. Kramer played bass.
When GG burst into the studio, Kramer wondered twice wether it was worth the thousand. The singer hadn't washed his long hair in a year. He ware a skull and crossbones bandanna and carried a 2/3 empty bottle of Jack Daniels. During the recording/rehearsal GG broke a microphone by slamming it with his head. He also almost broke the floor slamming IT with his head.
The session lasted three hours. We got about three minutes of useable music, but we were ready for the big show.
'It's gonna be a good show tonight,' GG told me before he went on. 'I ate a whole box of X-Lax.'
And the shit flew! GG sprayed on the floor and then flung it into the audience. Was there a song? Who knows? GG was in the crowd, grabbing people, punching some, throwing others to the ground. Eventually the bouncers stepped in, throwing GG, naked except for a jock strap, covered with shit, out onto the street.
A Village Voice reporter said, 'This wasn't music, it was obscenity.'
This is almost word-for-word what the press said about Elvis Presley in 1956. GG Allin had created Rock'n'Roll. No longer the sanitized MTV 'nice people's' music, GG Allin made it obscene.
For five or so years after the Cat Club show, GG would be in and out of hospitals and jails. He would proudly send me new clippings about his latest escapades.
In 1988, he wrote to Maximum Rock'n'Roll announcing that, on Halloween in 1989, he would kill himself on stage. His next jail term spanned that Halloween, so he didn't. Each of the next three years he made the announcement. Each year he ended up in jail. Some folks were skeptical.
'I'm gonna do it,' he insisted.
During those years, especially after his last jail stay, GG became even more intense. His idea of life had changed from the just-piss-everybody-off-and-get-them-to-hate-me philosophy. Jail gave him a taste of confinement. He decided that he would fight that confinement - any confinement. GG decided to be free.
He decided that he would live his life - and perform on stage - without bounds. No rules. No law would stop him. He would conquer his fear of pain and death. He would free himself of all bonds; from public courtesy to the urge for self preservation. To do it, he had to push himself in all directions. To burst through the boundaries, he first had to reach them. He was bent on exploring the extremes.
GG took drugs, drank, and threw garbage cans through random car windows. He became completely id. He was upredictable, friendly as a lamb one minute, murderously angry the next. His looks changed too. He shaved his head and all his body hair leaving only a small goatee. GG knocked his teeth out during dozens of performances. He decided not to get them replaced. Drink took its toll on his voice, but it was GG's mind, his goal, that kept him going.
As his fame increased, he was invited, and occasionally appeared, on national TV talk shows. The host would gasp at GG's stories of rape and mayhem. His small section of fans cheered him on. The TV public swallowed half truths and lies like Liberace swallowed semen.
GG once told TV host Jerry Springer, 'I've had sex on stage with men, women and animals...if I rape you at my show, you're probably better off for it.' The Public Animal knew how to make his image bigger than he was.
During his last tour, GG put together his best band. With his brother Merle on bass, they were able to form a true band, rather than some show folks with instruments. That's the band that recorded this record - his last and best. It's filled with rage: from the personal ('I'll Slice Yer Fucking Throat') to the social ('Shove That Warrant Up Yer Ass'), to the societal ('Brutality And Bloodshed For All'). By the time he recorded it, he had reached the peak. Absolute freedom. No holds barred. He was The Highest Power.
I went to GG's final show in an abandoned gas station in New York. It was packed with GG's followers. GG pushed his was into the performance space. He wore only a jockstrap, and boots. Soon, he ditched the jockstrap. Singing 'I Am The Highest Power', he stopped to complain about the microphone.
'You're just a pussy!' shouted a young man, with scraggly blond hair.
GG turned 'I'm a pussy?' he shouted.
He took the microphone and slammed it into the side of the young man's head. Bang! The blond crumpled. A trickle of blood dripped steadily from his forehead. Someone grabbed the body by the legs and pulled it out, dumping it on the gravel outside.
'I'm a pussy! I'm a pussy!' shouted GG, banging his head into the metal doors that had once opened into the garage. GG's bloodflow was heavier than blond boy's. It spiderwebbed over his vace coming together in a red smear on his chest.
A bearded young man ran through the side door, his hand up to his left eye. Blood oozed between his fingers. More banging. People exploded out of the building, running backwards, away from the naked GG.
One, two, three, four. The wounded staggered out, pushed in a bloody path by the force of the crowd.
Outside, the guitarist from the opening band hurled a bottle at a passing car. A kid ran up to a passing bus. Climbing on the front bumper, he smashed his fist against the windshield. The terrified driver plowed ahead, throwing him to the side.
Bottles flew overhead. GG was out on the street, still naked. He hugged a lamppost, smashing his head into it. Then he walked toward his fans. They scattered, tripping over each other in the scramble to get out of the way.
The blood, now in torrents, poured down GG's body. Sirens rand in the background. GG crossed the street, walking quickly. A dozen police cars pulled up from all sides. Cops got out, only a few in helmets.
'Put the bottles down.' came the voice from the loudspeaker. A few half-hearted bottles landed near the cops. Then it was over. The punks and the kids walked away. Quietly. An injured girl, sat on the sidewalk. Blood dribbled into a rag pressed against her shaven head.
The blond first casualty woke up. 'Wow! What a show!' he said.
GG got away. Naked, covered in blood. He got away. This was Sunday.
Monday afternoon, the phone rang. It was Merle, GG's brother.
'GG passed away this morning,' he said. 'He died in his sleep from a heroin overdose.'
His fans said he was God, they were close.
You read the reports that called him sick, a sad comment on society, maybe even pathetic. He was not. Though he lived for less than 40 years, he lived without duty, without planning for the future, worrying about bills, without acting politely for the neighbors.
He lived doing what he wanted, when he wanted. How many others have lived so fearlessly? You have in your hand the last document of that rage - and that fearlessness. That's why it's so important.
It is a record of the man who brought rock'n'roll to the extremes it was made for. The man who made it unsafe, angry, rebellious and free.
No, we didn't get the final fireworks we expected. GG died privately, curled up on a friend's floor. The crowd of GG idolizers hoped they'd be there when GG did it. They weren't.
A videotape of GG in San Francisco shows an interview. He's asked why he didn't shit on stage, as was his custom.
'The crowd expects it,' said the interviewer.
'With GG Allin you don't get what you expect' He replied.
'You get what you deserve.'
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