At least a couple of times a year, I hear from hard-core youths who want me to write about the rock curiosity known as GG Allin.
For those of you who have somehow missed this blazing comet of a genius, allow me to introduce you to his oeuvre. Allin hit the underground scene in the late 1970s and over the years recorded more than 20 tone-deaf albums, including "Hated in the Nation," "Eat My ----," "The Bloodshed and the Brutality of It All" and that old family favorite, "Freaks, Faggots, Drunks & Junkies."
They may have been the worst rock albums of all time.
Displaying not even the faintest whiff of talent, the drug-crazed Allin was more of a sick performance artist than a rock singer. He often appeared nude onstage and engaged in bloody brawls with his demented fans, and was known to roll around in broken glass onstage. Who can forget his infamous appearance a few years ago at the now-closed Exit, when he sent fans flying onto Wells Street after he started hurling his own excrement at them?
In the late 1980s, Allin often threatened (promised?) to kill himself onstage but never delivered. His cult status grew with appearances on Jonathon Brandmeier's program and guest shots on "Geraldo" and "Morton Downey Jr."
Allin was arrested more than 50 times and imprisoned 10 times for various offenses. He called his band the Murder Junkies, and his motto was, "My mind is a machine gun, my body is the bullets and the audience is the target."
He was revolting and charismatic, and he had an almost Manson-like hold on his most devout followers. Consider this excerpt from "The Jane Whitney Show" (her highest-rated program ever), in which Allin was joined by two teenage girls who had abandoned their lives to become his "love slaves."
Liz: GG is - is, he's a great teacher. He's taught me a lot of things. He's taught me to stand up for myself and he's given me a lot of positive energy, and he's, he's got a lot of power with me.
Wendy: I feel that very soon there will be another holocaust and it will be led by GG and - and we're going to destroy the world and we're going to create violence. And all of your children are going to turn against you and they're going to follow GG and they're going to follow us, and we're just going to lead everyone straight to hell and we're just going to be the leaders of the universe. And anyone who doesn't follow us is going to die.
Whitney: Then I guess you're not going to the senior prom?
The GG Allin groupies who bugged me were only slightly less frightening. One guy left a message on my phone mail: "Why are you writing about [stuff] like Pearl Jam and rave parties but ignoring the great GG Allin? You can't continue to ignore him!"
Not long ago I heard from a 17-year-old girl who mentioned in her letter that she had painted her entire bedroom black.
"GG rules!" she wrote. "Why don't you write about GG?"
OK, I will. He's dead.
I first heard the news a couple weeks ago from a biker guy who was soaking his sorrows in vodka at three in the morning in the Lizard Lounge.
"GG Allin kicked," he said. "He was beaten to death onstage."
Soon I was hearing variations on the GG-is-dead story. One fan told me Allin had finally gone through with his suicide threat; another claimed Allin had been murdered. A sign in a joint in Wicker Park that used to proclaim "GG Allin is God" had been altered; the word "God" was replaced by "DEAD."
I began to wonder if it was a hoax. There is an underground rock precedent; earlier this year, another gonzo idiot rocker, Dwarves guitarist Hewhocannotbenamed, was reportedly killed in a bar fight in Philadelphia. His record company even sent out a press release confirming the death - but the whole thing turned out to be a media prank.
Well, it turns out GG Allin really is dead, but he didn't go out in a blaze of performance art madness. He went out in a pathetic heap, the victim of an accidental heroin overdose. New York police confirm that Allin was found dead in an East Village apartment some three weeks ago. The night before, he had played the Gas Station and had left the stage in the middle of "Look Into My Eyes And Hate Me." He was buried July 3 in his hometown of Littletown, N.H.
Wendy and Liz could not be reached for comment.
Richard Roper
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