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| American Infidel |
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Joined: Sun Sep 15, 2002 4:34 am
Posts: 11101
Location: North Myrtle beach SC
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sociopathic punk rock legend GG Allin. GG was known for his crude songs and disgusting onstage antics, such as taking a shit onstage, having girls piss in his mouth, getting his cock sucked, cutting himself, and with his last band, the Murder Junkies, he even sucked his brother Merle's cock onstage. GG claimed to be God, Jesus, and Satan all in one and called himself "The Highest Power," hence the title of this fanlisting.
GG died in 1993 of a heroin overdose.
RIP
1956-1993
by Mykel Board.........Bob Conrad predicted I\'d write about GG. He was right. GG died last week. His last show-- at the gas station-- was the most violent I'd ever seen. I wrote about it for The New York Press. Here's what I wrote:
GG followers pack the abandoned service station. Bobby Ebbs shows off his back to a reporter. It\'s tattooed with the poster from A Clockwork Orange. A big kid, built like a football player, swigs from a Colt 45 forty-ouncer. Another kid, not older than 14, plays with his just-died green hair. Donny The Punk shows up in his sailor suit, sporting a fresh herpes sore on his upper lip. A curious college boy sits by himself among the metal art. He's playing silent brooding intellectual. It's a freak show: Scummy and proud.
"Will this be the show where he kills himself?" asks the 14 year old.
Todd Phillips, GG's film biographer answers, "I hope not. When he goes, he's gonna take an AK-47 and bring the audience with him."
GG pushes into the performance space. He wears only a jockstrap, and boots. Soon, he ditches the jockstrap. Starting with a new song called \"I Am The Highest Power," he complains about the microphone.
"You're just a pussy!" shouts a young man, with scraggly blond hair.
GG turns "I'm a pussy?" he shouts.
He takes the microphone and slams it into the side of the young man\'s head. Bang! The blond crumples. A trickle of blood drips from his forehead. Someone grabs the body by the legs and pulls it off the performance floor, dumping it on the gravel outside.
"I\'m a pussy! I'm a pussy!" shouts GG, banging his head into the metal doors that had once opened into the garage. GG's bloodflow is heavier than that of the blonde boy. It spiderwebs over his face, coming together in a red smear over his chest.
Then something else happens. The crowd bunches in one corner. A loud smacking comes from the middle.
"Alright, show's over." yells an authoritative voice.
A bearded young man runs through the side door. His hand presing his left eye. Blood oozes between the fingers. More banging. People explode out of the building, running backwards, away from the naked GG.
One, two, three, four. The wounded stagger out, pushed in a bloody path by the force of the crowd.
Outside, the adrenalin still pumps. The guitarist from an opening band hurls a bottle at a passing car. The football-player sized kid runs up to a passing bus. He climbs on the front bumper. Then he smashes his fists against the windshield. The terrified driver plows ahead, throwing him to the side.
Bottles fly overhead. GG is out on the street, still naked. He hugs a lamppost, smashing his head into it. Then he walks toward his fans. They scatter, tripping over each other in the scramble to get out of the way.
The blood, now in torrents, pours down GG's body. Sirens ring in the background. GG crosses the street, walking quickly. A dozen police cars pull up from all sides. Cops get out, only a few in helmets.
"Put the bottles down." comes the voice from the loudspeaker. A few half-hearted bottles land near the copcars. Then it\'s over. The punks and the kids walk away. Quietly. An injured girl, sits on the sidewalk. Blood dribbles into a rag pressed against her shaven head.
The first casualty is awake now. "Wow! What a show!" he says.
GG gets away. Naked, covered in blood. He gets away. This is Sunday.
Monday afternoon, my phone rings. It\'s GG's brother, Merle.
"GG passed away this morning," he says. Such a coy euphemism about a man who detested euphemisms.
It's over. After Geraldo, a year and a half in jail, his picture in the mainstream press, and a national tour, GG died in his sleep from a heroin overdose.
His fans said he was God. They were close. Pure id, GG refused to bend to any rules. He lived through pain, coma, hospital and jail. He was afraid of none of them. Free of fear, he was absolutely free to do what he wanted. What he wanted to do, was destroy.
You\'ll read obituaries calling 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 thought to the future, worrying about bills, acting politely for the neighbors. He did what he wanted, when he wanted. How many others have lived so fearlessly for so long?
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. Someone asks him didn't shit on stage, as is his custom.
"The crowd expects it," said the interviewer.
"With GG Allin you don't get what you expect" GG replies. "You get what you deserve."
When I started setting up ARTLESS's Southern/Western tour I asked for help over the electronic punk network. I explained that our needs were modest, a $200 guarantee, some food, a place to stay. Boy did I get answers:
"You're ripping of the scene."
"You're trying to make money off of punk, that isn't what it's about."
"People shouldn't get rich from punk rock. It goes against the DIY spirit."
Yeah, I know they're stupid. But some stupidity is so wide spread it deserves an answer. Especially since answering it sheds light on larger issues.
First, lets face it. Punk rock is NOT a revolution. If THEY felt threatened, THEY'd snuff it in a second.
Second, there are very few people who would call themselves punks. All who do are out of place and time. They're anachronisms. People with mohawks and green hair in 1990 aren't very different from people with Elvis sideburns and pompadours or granny glasses. The fashion died years ago. That\'s what it was-- a fashion. The late comers who are picking it up now are as relevant as BEATLES fans. (I hear that some geeks are even spitting at performers. In 1993???? Sad, huh?) As for the music, I like a lot of it, but it's just music.
Someone on the e-list mentioned the "Do-It-Yourself" ethic. He asked if only punks had it. Of course not.
The best example of DIY is Fugazi/ They've have been true to their ideals, and their independence. They left punk rock about the time the original punks put on ties or began dying from drug overdoses.
FUGAZI knew what they needed to do to conduct their lives the way they wanted. Ian and Jeff continued with Discord, their record label business. They developed contracts, performance standards and door prices. They made a successful business. It operates morally and makes enough money to live on.
On the other hand, you've got kids who organize shows in their spare time. They live off Dad's allowance or a job. Joe works at Tower Records for $5.50 an hour and has a band on the side. He'll play anywhere and doesn't care if it gets paid. His music is a hobby. He\'s satisfied with spending a portion of his life doing what he doesn't like to do. He does this so he can afford other things.
Hobby or business. That's what music can be. That\'s what punk can be. There are no alternatives. Hobby or business, neither is better than the other, though they reflect different values. Volunteers at shows, record stores and zines all have punk as a hobby. They are willing to compromise their personal lives for their hobby. Those who see it as a business, are unwilling to make this compromise.
On an independent level, punk is usually not a very lucrative business. If you\'re a lousy businessmyn (as I tend to be) it might even be an unintentional hobby.
Keeping this in mind, lets look at my $200 guarantee. Touring for two weeks and playing 10 nights (normal, considering 12 nights booked, and at least 2 cancelling) the four person band takes in $2000. Gas and upkeep on the van takes at least $30 a day ($420). Touring and driving long distances means taking the shortest routes and not getting off. That means eating at those horrible highway places 2 or 3 times a day. That\'s expensive-- at least $15 a person a day or a total of $840. That leaves us $740 for the whole band. Even if we ignore our previous debts (around $2500), we make a total profit of $185 each or $13.21 a day. For that, we're accused of "trying to get rich."
(I wrote about this to the e-list. One answer was that we should "dumpster dive" for all our food. Sure, that's real healthy, and perfect for travelling, even if it were possible. Eating shit might be a hobby for some, but it isn't a business.)
The businessmen and the hobbyists are often at odds. Each accuses the other of being "untrue to the spirit of punk." The fighting doesn't surprise me. Whenever there's a tiny cult without a strong leader, you get lots of in-fighting and factions. Punk rock is no different from Communism. Both are ideas whose time has come and past. Both have adherents blindly clingging to them. Both have meaningless ideological disputes and violent disagreements. In both cases, nobody but the tiny self-centered group themselves cares.
Punks are like teddy boys or old hippies with bell bottoms and granny glasses. Maximum Rock'n'Roll is a Jurassic Park. We're the dinosaurs. There's not going to be a punk revolution, any more than there's going to be a communist revolution. All we have is the music. We're fans, but that\'s it.
GG died trying to make his business a lifestyle. A few stragglers and imitators in other bands will do the same. The rest of us better realize where we stand before our assholes start hurting and the chafe gets so bad we can't walk
The strange end of a strange musician...
~ GG ALLIN'S FUNERAL ~
Hey, have you heard of GG Allin? He died a couple years ago of a heroin overdose. For about 15 years he was the most aggressive, extreme, hated punk rocker on the planet - and the reputation was well deserved. The music he put out was not exactly well produced, but it's power was immense. The best cd to get is "Dirty Love Songs", which is a collection from many of his bands. The following is the tale of his funeral...
GG Allin's funeral - I was there less than two months after meeting the guy. Now, we all knew he wasn't going to die of old age and we all knew it wouldn't be an ordinary service, but I wasn't quite prepared for that I saw. The band's drummer was drawing on GG's leg with a magic marker. The body was dressed in his leather jacket and a jockstrap that said "Eat Me". He held a microphone in one hand and a jug of Jim Beam in the other. Everyone was hammered. When the beer ran out, people wrenched the jug from his arms to swig from it. GG looked like hell.
There were gouges and scars everywhere and he was discolored, and frankly, starting to go bad after five days. He was leaking embalming fluid noticeable. One girl put her underwear on his face. Other people were putting stickers on the casket, pushing pills and liquor into GG's mouth, having their smiling pictures taken up by his face, taking his dick out and playing with it.. the works. It was as though everyone ELSE was finally having THEIR way with HIM. The parlor director thought it was a scream. Most common phrase of the night had to be, "He woulda" wanted it this way."
At a convenience store afterwards, a clerk overheard us talking about what we'd seen and asked "where the hell WHERE you?" We told her a wake, "WHOSE wake?" We told her, but GG didnt ring a bell.. "You know, Kevin?"" "Oh, Kevin! OK, that makes sense. Say.. was Al Chappel there?" We told her he was. "He hung my cat, you know." We said, "What, back in the Jabbers days.. '79-ish?" "No, just last week!" This guy must be almost 40 now and still hangs cats.
At graveside the next day, the drummer stepped up to the ditch and told those in attendance, "The Lunachicks are number one. They were my husband, and he (GG Allin) was my wife. Thank you." He then went into a sort of interpretive art-dance in his gray hot pants and t-shirt. We noticed him looking solemn at the end, and asked if he was OK, "I shoulda' mentioned that Caprice parked on the hill up there, because Chevys number one, too. I used to have a van."
If you are not familiar with the legend of GG Allin, it may be tempting to dismiss this story as totally fabricated bullshit similar to the Jim Morrison article in this section, but the joke's on you - this story is true.
_________________
The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”Albert Camus
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