single as well as the videos "Outskirts of Life" & "Bleeding, stinking & drinking" among others.
It's pretty much in it's entireness, except for 100's of "cool", "yeah" & "you know" that we used.
To get everything as correct as possible, I used a taperecorder for the subject.
All photos by Mark Robinson.
MR: Hey man, how's it going?
SS: Great man.
MR: Good it's probably a little late over there, right?
SS: It's one o'clock in the night here, but I'm a night animal and I took a cup of coffee so it goes.
Are you in the mood for answering some questions?
MR: Sure, yeah.
SS: As the Carnival of Excess album is out of print, is there any repress planed?
MR: Yeah, actually I'll work on it tonight, it will be re-released as a enhanced cd, and it's gonna
have three or four little you know, quick time songs you can view with your computer as well
as play on your stereo.
SS: What's on the videos?
MR: It will have that video for Outskirts of Life, an acoustic track and an interview compilation.
That's some interview footage that I did with GG that no one else have seen, except me.
It was done when we shot the cover photos for the Antiseen album, in North Carolina with those guys.
SS: That must have been in March/April 1991!
MR: Yeah, maybe it was. I can't remember, but it was right after he came out of jail. That was
the first time I meet GG in person. I've been in touch with him for quite a while. I had seen
a show with him actually. It was a long time ago. It was when he played with Disappointments.
SS: Was that in Columbus 1989?
MR: Actually it was the next day. I was living in Florida then.
SS: Oh yeah, it's gotta be Tampa. I have that show on video.
MR: (Excited) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the one.
SS: He is doing some sort of interview after the show.
MR: Right! He is sitting there. I hadn't even heard of GG Allin back then that much. I had read
an interview in Maximum R'n'R. And I was just thinking, what's this fuckin' thing.
I thought I've seen all great punk stuff, and then after I've read that interview,
I'd went to that show. Man, I was blown away. I couldn't believe how intense that man was.
And then when he was doing that interview, I was right in the front row.
I couldn't believe this guy, he was ripped up and in shredded, his teeth's was all fucking knocked out.
He was dripping blood, ripping his hair out of his head and biting chunks of flesh out of himself.
All that stuff. Man I couldn't believe it. But it was funny. My friend, he's the guy who put out
that 7" that goes backwards. The one we were talking about, with the live Columbus show.
He's a buddy of mine. GG played here in Columbus and they drove all the way the next night
to get to Tampa Florida where I was living in. It was pretty fun.
SS: That's funny, 'cause the last thing you hear on the EP is "We gotta go to Florida". (Laugh)
"Cause Mark is waiting for us".
MR: (Laugh) Yeah. And then... I don't know if you remember when he was in jail, when he was
having a hunger strike going?
SS: Really? I have missed that part.
MR: He had a little hunger strike; I think it lasted like 7 or 8 days. And I can't really remember
what it was for. But anyway, they published his jail address, so I wrote him a letter, and he
wrote me back. You know, we kinda corresponded. We were working on a book together
actually - The Ann Arbour Incident.
SS: Was that book about the incident only, or was it things around it too?
MR: Yeah, it was like a bunch of all the stuff that led up to it. Basically it was about that
Disappointments tour and around that time.
SS: Yeah. Let's go back to the Carnival of Excess album. Will there be another cover design
on the re-release?
MR: I really like that front cover photo. A buddy of mine took that when GG was staying at my
house. I don't know how much that is gonna change. Maybe something, you know, a coloured
version of that. Not full colour. Like some sort of red or something. It will probably be there
in somewhere. It will be different but you will recognize it. There will probably be something on
there too, that let people know that it is an enhanced cd and not the regular audio cd.
MR: Yeah. It was pretty funny. Jeff Clayton and those guys. Jeff is a really nice guy.
SS: I agree. I have been in contact with Jeff and I also got his permission to use the...you know
that drawing he did in 1987. The one, which features GG with a microphone up his ass.
MR: Yeah...it's classic. How did that happen?
SS: Actually I didn't realize that Jeff had drawn that, until I scanned it from the Dirty Love Songs LP.
Then I mailed him and asked if I could use it on my page.
MR: Good. I bet he likes you did that. How did you first start listening to GG Allin?
SS: It was a friend of mine who's into lots of punk music. I was visiting him and checked out his 5000 items
record collection. We recorded a tape with various punkbands and GG was represented with two songs.
The next day I returned to him. This time with a new tape aimed for GG only. Then I was stuck.
The first record I bought was the double LP "Dirty Love Songs" back in '88.
MR: Oh wow. You have been listening to GG for a while, even longer than me!
SS: Yeah, another cool thing is that in my little shitty town, which got a population of 50.000 people,
three of 'em received personal letters from GG. He was really friendly to his "fans".
At least those who were into his thing for real.
MR: GG you know, he was a pretty cool guy. I always had nothing but good fun, sometimes a little crazy.
We got fucked up and drunk a lot, and all that. But he never like...you know, punched my girlfriend or
trashed my house or anything like that. He just went off spontaneously. And that's one thing that's great
about him, cause you never knew when. There was a couple of times when we were working together
that I thought it was gonna go the other way. But we never did, I was really bummed out when he died.
True pro in the studio, you know. Yeah he was.
SS: You didn't happen to witness GG behind the drumkit?
MR: GG was a really good drummer. Not too many people know that. We had a drumkit set up
where I lived, when he came to Tampa. You know he fucking sat hours playing the drums, and I was
like shiiit. I didn't know he could do that. He mentioned he used to play the drums in his first band
Malpractice and also with the Jabbers. It was funny, I remember one time we were sitting around
drinking beer one night. You know we kinda didn't had anything planed. Just hanging out bullshitting.
GG grabbed the acoustic guitar and started doing like all the Jabbers songs. NYC tonite and all those.
It was funny. GG was a funny guy. I should never wanna be in his way when he was pissed.
SS: Did you witness any drastic action moments together with him?
MR: After that Orlando (1991) show, Club Spacefish. It was me and GG in the back, getting battled down
by the cops. I remember following GG, when he ran back all covered with blood. I was like trying to get an
interview with him and he was like "THE COPS ARE COMING". Then I turned around and they shouted
"Up against the wall !". They took my tape recorder, which included my videorecording of the show.
SS: Did the pigs steal the tape from you, or did you get it back?
MR: No, someone called them after he died and asked for it. They just laughed…and said something like
"You'll never going to see that tape".
SS: When was the next time you meet GG?
MR: Well, after that Orlando show then they took him back to jail, eventually. I was visiting him in prison,
doing the rest of his time. It was kinda funny, I hung out with him for about 6-7 hours. It was pretty cool
hanging out bullshitting in there. That was the last time we kinda got to talk in a different level, other than at
a show. Then I got to the Youngstown show at Penguin Club in 1993. That was the last time I saw him.
passport in 1993.
MR: It's too bad GG never got to Europe. But I have always said that if GG had got to Europe,
he would have died. I'm pretty much sure that he would have gone all out.
(a few silent seconds appeared here, actually for the first time in the interview)
MR: You know what really bums me out? It's that I never was able to view GG at the moment when
"Carnival of excess" came out properly, cause he fuckin' loved it, man. It was so different from anything
he had done before. Me and my girlfriend sometimes talked on a higher level that wasn't about drugs,
you know, we were all from college even if we to were younger than GG. So we had a respect for GG's
intelligence. We were talking about this album and he was very aware of that it should come out the right way.
He was worried of that I should do something stupid of this project because he liked it so much.
SS: The outskirts of life video is very cool. It's also very clean from the filth that normally surrounds
the GG videos, Was that aimed for lots of airplay?
MR: I tried to keep it clean from the abusive pissing and shitting stuff and also there are no swear
words in that song. GG took the swearwords out from it in the studio because he did want this stuff
to be played on college radio and so on.
SS: I like those scenes with GG sitting on a bike with some chick.
MR: Yeah, That's right after he got the rat tattoo. I did video that whole tattoo session. The guy that
gave him the rat tattoo, Chris, it was his bike. Then this chick, Dirty Dale passed by, and joined in.
It has always amazed me that even how fucked up, ugly, nasty, shitty and everything that GG was,
still he got lots a good-looking chicks. The fucker had no teeth, scars from head to toe and he hadn't
had a bath since his fuckin' parole. That thing really amazes me.
SS: About GG on the telephone, I've heard lots of recorded conversations. What hits me is
how nice and cooperative he used to be to people on the phone.
But still with his unpredictable side back in here.
MR: I have a really great thing recorded. When I had shot the picture for the Antiseen cover, I did send
that to GG with priority overnight mail. The mail got fucked up and my overnight package didn't reach him
until two days later. GG was freaking out. He didn't believe I was fucking with him and was saying things
like "Don't fuck with me". I told him that I had sent it. Then the last day I got a great really mean message
he had left me on the answering machine. I have plans of putting this at the end of the cd.
He says things like "You got one foot out the door pal" It's a pretty cool thing.
SS: You got to put that on the re-release!
MR: Yeah probably I will.
SS: Can you tell me a little about the "Carnival of Excess" recording session?
MR: I was driving the car to the studio. In there were also GG and a girl. GG was like putting out her boobs
and put 'em out through the window and we meet cop cars and stuff. Then at the studio the girl got real
drunk and thought she should be like Yoko Ono and sing. It ended with GG recording all the songs
with her lying passed out on the floor in the studio.
SS: What other GG videos have you made?
MR: Bleeding, stinking and drinking, portrait of the enemy, the acoustic toilet recordings, the Antiseen
collage thing, well that's about it. I still have some unreleased footage that the world has yet to see.
The bleeding, stinking and drinking video will soon be re-released. I'm getting ready to do one for
"Guns, bitches, brawls and bottles" as well.
SS: That collage video with the Antiseen tracks you did. Was that your collection or someone else's?
I have watched that one lots a times it's cool.
MR: That was all of my stuff. Basically I set a camera on a tripod and shot all of the magazine
articles etc. Then threw the sound on top of it.
SS: Can you please tell me what different editions and colours the "Son of evil" 7" was pressed on?
I guess it was released shortly after GG's death, right?
MR: There were 2 official pressings. The first was 900 black and 100 clear. The second pressing was
900 black 100 red (although they mixed the black and red together on about 25 or so to make a REAL
dark red). Then the plant screwed me, so there were 50 that were swirl of black and clear that they gave
pressings on clear vinyl as well. That is the complete 7" history and it did come out right after GG died.
SS: Have you seen much GG stuff on the net?
MR: No, I think your site is awesome and what your doing is incredible too, cause not many
people have taken time to really get it out the way it should be. I think it's great that you do that.
I would be glad to help you out on your site in any way I can. Also we're going to update our site.
SS: Sounds great, thanks for beeing so cooperative. Anything else you wan't to add in this interview?
MR: Sorry I talked your ear of. Feel free to call me anytime.
SS: Ok thank you, have a good time.
MR: You too, thanks a lot. Bye.
To sum up this, I think Mark was a great guy. A perfect interview target too, as it wasn't hard to get him talking.
I called back some weeks later, after sending him a copy of this interview for corrections and updates. He told
me then that the re-release should include a new and better mixed version of "Snakeman's dance" and that he
will do a video for a band called "The X-impossibles" and later a new GG video. We're looking forward to that.
Thanks Mark.
Swedish Scum*
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GO BACK TO SWEDISH SCUM's GG ALLIN NATION
Read about the Carnival of excess CD re-release.
ROCKSIDES HOMEPAGE with even more info on the COE re-release.