Swedish Scum brings you the long awaited...

interview with Peter Yarmouth (Black'N'Blue Records) 2004

This interview was first conducted via emails and completed with a four hour phone call. Peter was there with GG from the early Jabbers days and 'til the end. Needless to say, he had a lot of interesting memories to share. So here it is, all the stuff you always wanted to know. Among the subjects you get the details on the so called "Goon squad" and the shocking truth about Dick Urine and the "swedish scam". Enjoy...

 

First off, it would be nice to get a little profile, Who are you?

 

I'm 47 years young or old. I have been in sales jobs most of my adult life which has financed Black & Blue over the years.
I have played and sung in many bands ect but enough about me.

 

How & when did you get in contact with GG Allin?
Tell us how your friendship / business developed through the years.

 

I met him at the original Living Room back in the early 80's after seeing him a month earlier at same club in Providence RI. At that first show, he told me he had an AD for his album in the new issue of Trouser Press. I bought the issue and mailed away for the album and GG mailed it with a note telling me to meet him at next show. At the first show GG and The Jabbers opened for Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys, I got to club with Prince Paully who at the time I worked together with selling shoes and saw GG finish up his set and kind of liked it. Cheetah's band came out minus the drummer and Cheetah asked the audience if anyone could play drums. GG filled in and they did I think two or three songs, one I remember was "FEDERAL CASE" which was awful as they were so wasted. After that Cheetah asked GG and the Jabbers back out and Me and my friends (at the show) loved the songs especially "You hate me & I hate you" and "Gimme Some head". What was also a big factor was everyone was throwing drinks at GG & band, and GG taunted crowd to throw more so everyone talked about that as real punk fun. 

So the nite I met GG , the second gig (same small club, less than 200 people) was great and very fast as everyone was throwing stuff or spitting at all the bands. The first band out The Mighty Ions, ran off the stage as they were pelted mercilessly by the audience, everyone wanted GG and The Jabbers (also so they could pelt them). GG told me it was one of the best performances ever as he got hit by an egg on the head and it dripped over his face as the band began playing. Hollywood could not recreate it any more perfect than it really happened, it was picturesque. The yolk did not break and glided across his face when the shell cracked off the top of his head. We threw eggs, beer, maple syrup mixed with milk, eggs hollowed out and filled with India Ink, Rolls of pennies (coins) broken off in pieces (partial rolls) and the set lasted less than 15 minutes. We were on the balcony (small 2nd floor of club) and threw everything including the trash barrel contents down on the crowd and band. All the Jabbers remember that show and Al Chapple told me his amps never lost the egg stains. The audience down on the floor was a parade going to bar to get more beer to throw at GG who was hanging off the metal bars across the stage that I guess used to hold say a curtain if they did any theatre. A awesome experience. 

A few weeks later Me and Prince Paully visited GG and his wife Sandy at his apartment at 542 Beech Street in Manchester NH. We shot photos that day or the next time we visited. Sandy was GG's high school sweetheart who he married and soon after me and the goon squad started to follow the band She divorced him. GG and I were friends till the end. Our friendship bloomed at a battle of the bands show for a Boston Radio Station. GG hopped on my shoulders and I threw him on the table of where the DJ Judges sat and he proceeded to pour a glass of beer over one of the ladies at the table. I ended up singing a duet with GG on "I wanna be your dog" that nite. We left there and went to Newport RI to catch either Johnny Thunders or The Dead Boys Reunion show, I can’t remember which, but the bouncers at The Paradise were happy to hear we were leaving. After that I was at virtually every show for quite some time.


Tell us the Dick Urine story, about the album and the... huum...(cough) death in Umea, Sweden.

When I first starting hanging around with GG was about the time either Joe Buck or GG came up with the name of Dick Urine. It was fun especially signing breasts with a sharpie Dick Urine was Here backstage at one of the shows. Anyway, all of a sudden GG took something I wrote about him and put it on a few cassettes with a photocopied cassette card. He wrote produced by Dick Urine. From there the name stuck along with Ricky Piss on occasion. It was very punk rock I guess. The main reason why we did that album... I was happening to hang out with a buddy of mine and we started to joke around with some songs. I said let's put an album out. I never really liked that nickname GG gave me, so i thought, let Dick Urine die and see what happens. Nothing sells like dead rockstars, so I'll be a dead rockstar and we'll see if that works. So we let Dick die on a motorcycle crash in fuckin' Sweden. We thought, who the hell are gonna go check? None ever did so it worked. Then GG wrote the liner notes on the album. GG is listed for playing drums but he never was within hundred miles from the studio. It's obviously a drum machine, so when people pushed me, I said GG played the drum machine which he didn't. He wanted to be listed as that, and if he was alive today he'd tell you. The record received a couple of reviews. I love that one saying "Don't buy this, it sucks..."
The album was a way to change my name so the Dick Urine album was presented as a post mortem release by a guy killed in a motorcycle accident in Sweden. I know I have denied this for years, being Dick Urine, but it was so long ago anyone who cares really knows anyway.

What people were in the "Goon Squad", where are they now and 
are they still into punk rock?

As we used to tell club security "we are on the guest list". It varied with its members, but I guess core members were....

Prince Paully He was this little fearless guy who knew he had all the big people behind him. We used to throw him if we ran out of things to throw. He is now an electrician (like Al Chapple) still into punk rock music. Paully can be seen wearing his nuclear radiation suit on several GG record sleeves.

Don Schlock He was a former cop. BIG mean man. My favorite quote from Donny was at the first show he attended as my bodyguard
"This is great, I've only been here 5 minutes and I've punched 10 people in the face". On "Insult & injury vol.3" you hear GG ask Donny to join him on a "two on two" fight. 

Algae Afterbirth ended up forming his own band(s)

Geezer (Bruce?) He had a van, was 100% straight, no booze or anything ever. He drank these weird health drinks out of a thermos.
Geezer was there to hurt people and GG in particular. I remember the show (at Jumbos in Sommerville, I think) where kids lined up in que like an amusement park ride to jump on GG. It was a brutal night.

 

Joe "Codori" Buck (RIP - drug overdose) Joe was the ultimate goon and great friend of GG. At the Living Room show, he brought Maple syrup to mix with Milk as it was sticky and smelly under the stage lights. At the infamous Mavericks show in Boston, Joe uprooted the Palm trees near each side of the stage and beat GG with them, I watched those trees break off in pieces hitting GG’s back. Joe was brutal but he loved GG, if that makes sense. GG told me many times how he could not move for a day or so.
Joe also, is on the '89 video from Populous Pudding, Willimantic CT. Joe beat the shit out of the kid who claimed to have killed the cat (He told Joe that he kept the cat in a refrigerator for a few days) as he loved animals more than people. At one of the last shows at the Living Room, Joe knocked out a bunch of fans who took issue with his buddy Schwan who sucker punched a harmless guy with his girlfriend. That guy got his pals to get Schwan who hid behind Joe. It was a real unique scene that night as one by one the guys would confront Joe and get beat up. The last guy was huge, about 6 foot 2, he held his front tooth out and put in back in his mouth to kind of intimidate Joe. Then Joe punched him like 3 times and he crumbled like a animated cartoon against the wall of the club. The owner Randy came up to me and Donny and said "Get him out of here or I'll call the cops and shut the show down". Donny grabbed Joe and escorted him out the door. Joe also is the voice on the answering machine on "Looking For Larry" (on the "Music To Make Your Ears Hurt" comp.)

Mik "Hoag" Horgun was one who was at most GG shows. The most notable was at The Channel in Boston where he pulled GG off the stage (which was about 5-6 feet above the crowd floor) banging him to the floor and then kicking GG in the head until the bouncers pulled him off. The set was less than 3 songs. GG was out of it. I had to plead with the bouncers not to have Mik arrested that night.
Once GG was able to be coherent they let Mik go, we told them it was part of the act (as always).

I would also take a small exception to the "Goon Squad" as a name of the group. I once refereed to them in an interview as me bringing a goon squad and i guess it has evolved to that. We were not a gang. We never called ourselves anything except our own names. Legends grow out of truth and embellishments, i guess. I wonder which one in the cartoon is supposed to be me. Anyway, if I really was to name us it would be simple like "Assholes" which we were. GG refereed to me as his manager and producer. As Dick Urine I was producing his releases even before Black & Blue was a label.


In 1984 Black and Blue was presented as a new label from "Sweeden", What's the story for this?

 It was My idea when forming the label, as who would care about a label from Rhode Island or New Hampshire was my thinking.
Why do they sell Rhode Island sauce in Sweden and not in Rhode Island?

Good point, Also, we got "Boston cucumber" (Fine chopped gherkin) and "Philadelphia cheese" (Don't even think about it).


Were you in contact with Wolfgang of Blitz Records in Stockholm?

 

Oh yes Wolfie was very good to me and GG. He pressed the Swedish version of the "Always was, is..." album.

 

Have you ever been to Sweden?

 

No, but my wife is from there so I guess I'll be there sometime in the near future to visit the in-laws.

 

You attended a lot of the classic GG shows, Like the Cat Club show. Please tell us all about that event!

 

The night at cat club show? the infamous cat club show! GG ended up in the Village Voice. I really think that was the biggest night, and that turned the corner for the whole GG thing. We basically met GG in the city, me and Donny and we went over to Peel's apartment and Peel was there and he was amazing. He must've done way too many drugs, his brain is like totally scattered, we’ve been talking about 6 different topics at once, I had no idea what he was talking about 90% of the times. All of a sudden he just got really mean when he turned to GG and said ''How much money are you paying me tonight?'',GG said "What are you talking about?" then Peel ''You making it big now, y-yyou got ROIR that'll be recording here tonight, you're gonna make a lot of money yy-you know, I made you, y-you'd be nothing without me'', and GG got really pissed and we walked out of the apartment and slammed the door. Then Donny said "Let’s piss on him!" so they both wipped it out and they both pissed all over his door and everything else. Then we went to the club, and on the way to the club, you know, I remember the funniest thing.

GG had a unique New Hampshire accent, it’s kind of Boston but not and he’d always say "fouckin’ Douunni" and "Dounni Schlouckin". he’d talked like that. I remember we were walking down the streets in New York City pre-Guiliani and Donny is bragging about how he was in Times Square and he told us this bullshit story about how he was able to get free blowjobs from one of the hookers, and also he got it without wearing a rubber. Donny sez "I was just about to blow my load and this lady comes in and say, Consuela you know you are not supposed to be doing that, give him his money back, and she did." GG responded like "no foucking way Douunni, you know these girls wouldn't even touch you without a rubber" so GG didn't believe any of that, of course he didn't, and Donny had a lot less money after that so I didn't believe him either. He was walking down the streets counting money, 20$ bills one after another. We said "Donny, you’re in New York, you can get shot for five bucks", and he's like "I was in fuckin' ‘Nam, man" which i also don't think is true, but he said "No one is gonna fuck with me", and i'm like "Donny, a bullet in your head is the same as a bullet in mine pal. Put the cash down or I'm gonna walk on the other side of the road. I’m not gonna be seen with a lot of cash out in public in New York, especially on the Lower east side. It ain't Wall street".

Me, Donny and GG is backstage and over in the next room is a band from Boston called New Man who just got signed to Epic records. Donny had brought some firecrackers, so GG "Oooh, let’s...", and there’s no roof on the dressing room, so literally, we’re like in partitions and the next band over, we could actually throw stuff over, so we lit a bunch of firecrackers and threw them over to blow up in their dressing room and we yelled stuff like "New women", "You guys suck", you know, all this shit all night. They got really pissed at us.

That picture that you see all the time, the one that was on the death news from some New York paper, it was a photo for ROIR. That was taken that night in the dressing room. I remember the guy came in he had so many lights, it was so bright in there and GG just posed and he snapped that infamous picture for the cover of the "Hated in the nation", so that picture was taken that night. And so Donny is backstage and he’s saying to GG "i’ll give you 20 bucks man if you shit on stage", and of course GG, you know, he didn’t need a lot of encouragement anyway and so he had some ex lax and he was dropping it down backstage, me and Donny walked out to the front knowing the show was to start in about 10 minutes. We sit down on this table on the side of the stage and this couple comes in and sits down besides us “You don't mind if we’re sit here?” then she says "We wish go to more to the center” i said "I'm gonna do you favor right now, this is -
Don't go anywhere near there!" and they said "Why?", i said "Do as you want, just trust me, you'll be glad you sat here."

...and he came out on stage, just like they said in that article in Village Voice, he comes out with cowboy boots and a jockstrap that's what he had on, and he was like almost running in place cause he had to go. And so, the first song didn’t even start, when he came out, the band was still pluggin’ in and he took a dump right in the middle of the stage and then, umm, it’s amazing 'cause there was so many people there that night because New Man was getting signed to Epic and there was all these people in suits and everything. I remember this guy in a beautiful white suit and he’s so stupid he’s like "i wonder if it's real" so he has to come closer to the stage to see if it's real. It stunk like shit, it was shit and, it didn't take anybody with any brains to realize it was real, but this guy goes right up to the front of the stage and that’s all GG needed to see, was a guy in a fuckin’ white suit, and you know, WHAP! WHAP! WHAP! The shit was flying, he picked it up and just started nailing people and then, that’s when the riot started, people are scrambling in shit, you know, then the bouncers...
I mean, Me and Donny we’re laughing our balls off because the owner was trying to get the bouncers to get GG ,and the guys went "fuck you man, fire me, i ain’t touching him", cause GG started wiping the shit on himself cause he knew... and he already dived off the stage on the broken glass cause this club... Over the course of the night, people we’re putting their bottles in glasses on the front of the stage, so all GG did when he came out after he shit, he picked all the glasses to start throwing on the dance floor, SMASH! SMASH! SMASH! SMASH! and he dived into it like he was diving in a swimming pool and so he is rolling around in that, and then of course once he’s doing that, you know, and the shits is everywhere and he’s covered in shit rolling around, blood and shit, and he’s trying to rape this girl in the corner, pants down on the dance floor and the fuckin’ bouncers finally, one of the bouncers, I guess he really needed the job or whatever, goes up and grabs GG and push him out on the side door. At that point the set was no longer than three songs, maybe it was more, but i still think it was three songs, "Blood For You” was the first song which you can hear on "Hated In The Nation", that’s actually from that show, and then... I believe he did two other songs and that was it, and then, GG goes out the side, "Donny, the cops will be here any minute, let’s get the fuck out of here, move out the front door”. Before we get out, i run backstage and grab all the GG stuff and i run out the front to see GG, “Here’s your stuff man" and he freaks "What am i gonna do?", I said "I don’t know, I have a funny feeling the cops are gonna be here in a while, i ain’t fuckin’ gonna be here". I flagged a cab and me and Donny took off. GG told me he ended up at Port Authority bus station, he took a bus, nobody sat within four rows, he drove from New York City in that bus all the way to Manchester, New Hampshire and nobody came within four rows, because of the smell.

A great night, i mean, next thing you know, there were letters and everything inside Flipside Magazine, when they ruled Punk press. Although it really started in the Village Voice with a lot of letters, GG wrote back and forth, and the next thing Flipside picked it up,and then i started getting calls from different distributors who never, never contacted me before. So it went from just being Dutch East who ended up being Homestead and grabbing GG, and also Gerarld Cosloy, he set up to do ROIR as well, you know, pretty much, that deal happened right around there, that’s when we decided, we had all those older releases and GG kept saying "Sure, let’s put 'em out", so we kept putting out more stuff and you know, it had its nitch, i mean, i can’t tell you none of the albums will ever be a gold album ,but in terms of the real world, how many albums do you see on Billboard top 40 that didn’t even sell a thousand copies? I think it can and does happen.

 

Was there any special circumstances around the picture of the "Public animal #1" 7 inch cover?

 

It is a staged photo we did with 2 security guards at a mall in Manchester NH, note that Prince Paully is in the picture too. GG hated that photo for the fake cops (being actual mall security) Also he didn't like Paully being on that and other sleeves, He wrote me a letter once, in big letters "Change the fucking cover and get that fucking asshole off my album". GG did his own sleeve and renamed it "Biggest Tits" on copies I gave him, and it's a rare version of this record if you have one.

How many copies has been printed of the GG Allin vinyl /cd titles? What are the best sellers?

I never counted, but thousands. Most of them were re-pressed after selling out. Not the "Live Fast Die Fast" EP. Only 1 000 copies was made on vinyl (Get the remixed CD version). "Public Animal #1", "Banned In Boston Part 1", and "E.M.F." are the best sellers. 

Controversial as always, GG often called "Boozing & Pranks" a bootleg release. Also he said he never got any royalties from Black'N'Blue. He later admitted to have been given loads of free records as payment.

Yeah, I got a little upset one time and said "GG, why are you always trashing me?" he said "I'm not trashing you, it's my image. What do you care?" I said "These fans of yours, think I was fucking you over for years, but the truth is, if anyone fucked you over, it was a lot of the other people you've worked with". People who wanna criticize me don't know the truth. Besides providing idiots on the guest list I also financed all Black & Blue releases and the national/international promotion. Black & Blue advertised GG and his music in many fanzines from Flipside to Factsheet Five and Maximum Rock N Roll and mainstream mags like RIP, OPTION, Alternative Press to name a few. This cost many thousands of dollars and no other label or promoter ever spent more than a fraction of what Black and Blue has and continues to spend keeping it alive !!!
About "Boozing and Pranks", some years ago, after the last pressing, the master was destroyed by the record plant, due to the blue swastica on the B-side label. So you have to buy the CD, no more vinyl.

Larry Evilelf gave the impression of being the left hand of Black & Blue.
He produced many of the records too. is he still in the staff?

 

Unfortunately No, Larry died. He was very special to me and the label. I miss Larry more than any of my friends who are no longer living.
I knew Larry since I was 16 flipping hamburgers with him at BURGER CHEF.

 

Bloody Mess have been on the label for 15 years. Have you got any memories to share?

 

Bloody is a friend as well as artist on the label. My notes on the tribute CD sum it up well. A funny story ....
While on tour in New York City with The SKABS I took the band to dinner in a nice Italian place in NY's Little Italy and introduced the boys to Calamari (squid). Since then Bloody and I call each other Squidly, Calamari Kid, Kid Calamari, etc.
I also remember our first meeting in NYC, Bloody was doing the Donahue show and both of us sat in Chris Farley's (the late comedian on Saturday Night Live) dressing room, and Bloody (NOT ME as he tells it) broke into his locked cabinet and were dissapointed all that was there was a six pack of Arizona Iced Tea. Bloody took some of the S.N.L. scripts piled in the corner and still has them I think.
I got to meet Phil Donahue and shake his hand and I haven’t washed it since.

 

What releases can we expect from Black'N'Blue in the future?

 

Besides the Bloody Mess tribute we just released. New CD's are coming from ALGAE AFTERBIRTH, BLUE NOUVEAUX, BLOODY & THE TRANSFUSIONS and a new label sampler / compilation "Music To Make Your Ears Hurt Trey".

 

Is there any plans on releasing more GG Allin cd's like a 'insult & injury volume 5'?

 

If anything Vol. 5 would be it and the final installment of answering machine messages and other stupidity not fit for releasing. Do fans really want this? I don’t think so.We recently re-released his albums in a 3LP set of GG's "EMF", "Always was..." and "Doctrine Of Mayhem".

What bands are on the label today?

The label was close to shut down in 2000. I thought I was done and just sell what was left over and quit. Things changed in my business life and now set for full comeback in 2004/2005 with new website www.blackandbluerecords.com
and "who knows?" is my answer on which bands will be new to the label.

 

Tell us a little about other bands who recorded for Black & Blue (Algae Afterbirth, Beautiful Bert, Cedar St. Sluts etc.)

 

Bert was only on a compilation CD and I have met him at the release party for Bloody Tribute CD. Nice guy, very true punk rocker.
The others I could talk hours about...

 

and so he did ... 

Now check out the Black & Blue Records webpage!

http://www.blackandbluerecords.com/
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