Audience members laughed while trying to get out of the way of feces tossed by Kevin (G.G.) Allin at the Odd Rock Café, a man who videotaped the performance testified Tuesday.
People knew what expect, Shane Lassen, of Kenosha, said in Circuit Court. "If you didn't know anything about the show, chances are you wouldn't go."
Lassen told Asst. Dist. Atty. Michael Steinhafel he had seen a similar concert in Chicago and decided to tape the Milwaukee show "for my own video collection." Police later confiscated the video.
Allin, 34, is on trial on a disorderly conduct charge.
For more than an hour, jurors watched a tape showing him and his band, the Toilet Rockers, in a Feb. 28, 1989, performance at the defunct nightclub at 2010 S. Kinickinnic Ave.
The tape showed Allin defecating on stage and throwing feces at the audience, among other things.
His attorney, Asst. Public Defender Peter Goldberg, is trying to persuade the jury that Allin's performance was art and was protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech.
However, before the jury was sworn in, Circuit Judge John J. DiMotto told Goldberg: "He's not on trial for his beliefs. He's on trial for conduct."
David Luhrssen, a free-lance music critic who writes for such publications as the Milwaukee Journal and the Shepherd Express, testified that Allin fell under the genre of trash rock, which Luhrssen said was characterized as a "lack of musicianship (with) emphasis on raw, crude performance."
Luhrssen described Allin's work as "very boring" and said if he had attended the 1989 show, he would have given it a bad review.
Luhrssen said anyone going to the Allin concert would have known what to expect.
People went to the Odd Rock for specific bands, not because they wanted to be at that bar.
Eldon Knoche
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