GG Allin
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GG Allin (29 August 1956 – 28 June 1993) was a punk rock singer and bandleader.
One critic described his legacy as the work of a "relentlessly obnoxious, coarse and lewd extremist who could send even the most generous-minded liberal over the edge. His catalogue is a juggernaut of puerile mania, demented concupiscence and Hustler- level humor."[1] While Allin had limited success, he became notorious for his violent, confrontational performances, and his uncompromizing personality.
He was born Jesus Christ Allin after his father was purportedly visited by an angel that told him to name his unborn son duly that. He was forever known as GG after his older brother, Merle, could not pronounce his name as a child. Interestingly, with a first-born given a standard name, and a mother who was well-grounded, the Allin parents followed through with naming their youngest Jesus Christ. His mother only renamed him Kevin Michael Allin shortly before he began school. He was raised in a log cabin without heat, electricity, or running water in Lancaster, New Hampshire. Over the years, his father gradually became distant and odd, sometimes doing things like lighting the cabin on fire or digging burial plots in the cabin's dirt floor.
Allin fronted a huge array of bands throughout his career; including The Jabbers, The Scumfucs, Bulge, The Texas Nazis, The Cedar Street Sluts, The Carolina Shitkickers, Antiseen, and The Murder Junkies. His earliest recordings date from 1980. Allin has a large discography, which is largely out of print and sometimes commands high prices from collectors.
Allin's recordings and performances were sloppy and amateurishly recorded (even by punk rock standards, which sometimes saw these traits as virtues). In the true D.I.Y. sense, Allin shunned conformity and the corporate sell-out. He travelled non-stop around the United States in Greyhound buses, often with nothing more than the clothes on his back, living day-to-day. GG Allin often spoke of his anger at the decay and corporate sell-out of Rock 'n' Roll; he loathed the pretentious, the fake, and the increasing lack of sincerity in Rock 'n' Roll as a genre meant to challenge and endanger. He especially attacked the underground scene, and throughout his career was often considered as "the" underground itself, or "the only true King of Rock 'n' Roll."
The most genuine audiences often attended Allin's performances less for the music than to witness his regular stage antics, including Allin's performing nude, attacking the audience and his own band members, defecating, urinating, throwing feces at the crowd, and self mutilation. Some have falsely regarded these acts as mere performance art. However, Allin is seen as the most genuine shock rocker ever, someone who lived the life he sung.
It has been well attested that Allin possessed super-human essence considering the amount of times he had been shot, stabbed, poisoned, and self-mutilated, not to mention the consuming of large amounts of hard drugs. For instance, there were many times when his face and body were cut wide open, yet his skin healed free of scarring. To this end, GG Allin often exacted an obscene amount of punishment towards himself as a deliberate intent to toughen oneself - pain and danger a welcomed force as much as pleasure. Onstage, he once clenched his teeth and slammed the microphone repeatedly until his front teeth were knocked out. In a psychological examination during an infamous trial of a supposed rape and torture of a woman in Ann Arbor, during which he reportedly cut numerous gashes into her breasts (which he stated was a request), Allin was seen to be largely intelligent and mentally stable, confessing even that a lot of the self-mutilation was due to his compassion with the amount of suffering in the world.
Unsurprisingly, given his proclivities, Allin was arrested and jailed many times throughout his 15 year career for his wild stage antics. His performances were regularly stopped by police after only a few songs. He often promised suicide on stage but was quickly incarcerated and held beyond the due of charges in order to thwart him. Thus, GG Allin shows were organized spontaneously and relied heavily on word-of-mouth.
Allin's notoriety led to appearances on episodes of Geraldo, The Jerry Springer Show, and a memorable episode of the Jane Whitney Show.
It is rumoured that he once raped a female audience member, that he took a woman hostage with a knife onstage, that he fellated his brother onstage, and an assortment of extreme acts that still appall to this day. Many of Allin's stage shows have been captured by his brother Merle and are available for sale on DVD. Stories of GG, his shows and onstage antics are legend in the underground music scene; some have perhaps even become urban legend.
Despite his repeated threats (or promises) of an onstage death, Allin died of a heroin overdose on 28 June 1993, in a friend's New York City apartment after escaping, totally nude, from a nearby show that had been raided by the police.
GG Allin is buried in the Saint Rose Cemetery in Littleton, NH. [2]
Allin was the subject of Hated, a 1994 documentary by Todd Philips.
