I don't know if I will ever be avant garde enough to enjoy this psycho's work. Base expression El Senor Duke, does not an artist make. I suppose Jim Morrison (and Sid Vicious) opened the door to this type of rage, and perhaps GG Allin fucking kicked it down.

Me olde days in thy pit included the likes of The Circle Jerks, The Misfits, The Butthole Surfers, The Dicks, The Big Boys, Youth Brigade, Minor Threat and even one memorable night when Black Flagg's Henry Rollins jumped into the audience and preceded to kick the ass of a man wearing a KKK t-shirt. A semi-riot began, lights came on, stage power turned off, and Rollins walked around with crazed eyes not really sure what to do next. We went home, laughed at Ol'Henry, went to bed, and made it to class the next morn a bit worse for wear. Henry channeled his rage, and these days actually keeps up the good fight with poetry, music, charity work and protests.

To say GG Allin took things a squat further would be an understatement. But I am not sure memorializing this sad fuck is in the best interest of anyone. A depressing example of a jaded world - perhaps. A depressing example of drug addiction most definitely.

I have used the "car wreck" analogy before, and will use it again here. Rather than slow down, I would say drive on and get to where you wish to go.....you will find no truths here......

Zounds, the greatness of this review gives Allin infinitely more artistic weight by reverse osmosis than he deserves, as Chris well indicates. But it's still a blindingly spectacular review.

From an artistic standpoint, interest in Allin stems from the destruction of the distinction between stage and audience, performance and reality, and his reveling in taboo violation. The other interest is that he did have actual fans - if no one would have attended his shows, the act would have been rather besides the point.

Now that he is safely gone, perhaps interest in him will ultimately be sociological.

Eric, gosh! Thank you for the kind words and considered comments!

Chris, wow! That's a hell of a list right there. That Rollins story is fantastic!

I tried to point out how much this individual disturbs me as a human being, but as a performing rock-star, he is utterly fascinating. For all the reasons Eric mentioned above, and others, possibly others what have to do with even more turds etc.

He was far from a "musician", but i guess if you're going to experience GG then this right here is the way to go. The music seems a distant second to the dung-flinging antics and so-on. There's a level of intensity here that is simply unique, and although he may have spawned something of a group of heirs in The Dwarves, even they pale in comparison.

As i said in the review, his brand of punk has no concerns whatsoever with social or ethical issues, and he seems intent purely on upsetting as many people as is humanly possible. It's sad that he was basically goaded to his death, but that doesn't make these recordings any less stunningly viceral documents.

As to the question of his fans, it's possible to find, via those satantic p2p networks, the GG Allin edition of Jerry Springer, where a young teenage girl sat alongside her hero, explaining in a highly eloquent fashion why she loved the man, and more so, his live shows.

Jerry was highly annoyed when GG refered to a woman in the audience as a "cunt".
Although it was bleeped, the fact that Jerry chastised GG for "calling my guest a cunt" makes for smewhat unique television.

Again, guys, thanks a hell of a lot.

I have to say that was the finest blog piece I have ever read on this site. Duke, you are a genius. The way you punctuated each horrible and disgusting event with a challenge to today's pop stars was just brilliant. As Bono would say "absolutely fucking brilliant"

Lono, i have thought for at least three hours about how to reply to your comment, and the best i can come up with is; thank you so much. That was uncalled for, that level of compliment. Thank you. :)

Whenever we discuss El Senor Duke's feverish work, using the word "fucking" is highly inappropriate. I would say "motherfucking" would be more in order......And when discussing what crazy man known as GG Allin, the more profanity the better.......;)

Another note on Allin which I have contemplated over the last day. I look at the anger, rage and musical style of punk rock - and it is so varied now, I mean, what is punk rock today? - with great admiration. The bands I mentioned in Comment #1 were the bands of my youth, my generation. They were American punk bands, and a few of them Texas punk bands. We also referred to this music as hardcore and thrash. I consider Allin an embarassament to punk rock. I don't see how anyone who performed and listened to punk could be a fan of this performer. And yet punk did indeed spawn this festering sore of a man.

It should always be the music. Allin was anything but music, his artistic canvas his own mutilated body. I don't consider Allin an artist. He is a poser, masquerading as an artist. A man whose only true skill was self-hatred. If anything, he set artistic/musical expression back thousands of years. Anyone can do what Allin did. But not everyone can do what The Clash, The Misfits or Youth Brigade (and others) achieved....

Chris, I agree entirely with your aesthetic assessment of Allin, but I wouldn't call him a "poser" - I think Duke's main point is that he was very very real inhis assault upon himself, his "audience," taste, traditional values. His level of commitment to his insanity is what draws the Duke in.

Eric,

My reason for calling Allin a "poser" is because if punk rock did not exist, Allin still would have self destructed, mutilated himself and crapped on stage no matter the musical form. This guy was going to assault himself whether it be to funk, rap, disco or classical. Allin covered himself in the mask of punk rock, but the reality of Allin is he was a drugged out trash bin without an ounce of talent in anything except repulsive self promotion. As an artist and as a musician, he was a poser.

As for El Senor Duke being drawn to insanity, who's to know that but The Duke? I for one do not understand any thought process that claims Cannibal Holocaust to be a masterpiece......lol.......

I do not think Duke's main point was "that he was very very real inhis assault upon himself, his "audience," taste, traditional values." Is that even a point?

Duke's main point was his utter shock and repulsion at this man's stage performances. He reveals Allin's shenanigans in intimate detail, and then closes the blog with, essentially, "Oh, by the way, I hate Allin!" He's having his blood-soaked cake and eating it too......We enjoy his writing, but what shocks and repulses The Duke, shocks and repulses his readers. That is ze point - for that it's worth.....

Last but not least, Comment #6 was not intended as any kind of opinion on Duke's blog, more as a discussion/thought on Allin himself.....

re: the question of Allin being a poser. Actually not. The dude was for real! As an artist that would make him somewhat legit. The non-artist finding his artistic outlet for expression or something. Well, he did whatever he did and it was captured and documented. That counts for something, don't it?

This might be a good thing for psych students at the local university to see and write a paper on.

Q: What is art?

A: What isn't?

-Pablo Picasso

peaceloveguidance,

If Pablo Picasso had seen GG Allin's act, he would have gladly changed that rather perfunctory statement. He would have walked out of the seedy NY club, mouth agape in soiled Bermuda shorts and said something about like:

Q: What is art?

A: Sure as hell ain't Allin!

The only reality in Allin's life was a lack of talent and lack of self worth. If Charles Manson is the dark side of the Flower Generation, then Allin is the dark, demented side of Punk Rock - a label and comparison undoubtedly he would have loved.....considering his friendship with John Wayne Gacy.....

This was a sick, addicted man masquerading as a singer and musician in the punk rock venue of seediest NY. His music is absolutely terrible, and is secondary to his horrible stage antics. Punk Rock is rebellious MUSIC, not self-destructive lifestyle. 50 years ago, this man would be living in a trailer, beating his wife and kids, a repulsive alcoholic attending KKK meetings with trembling hands....

Today? Well hell, Allin becomes a punk rocker. Yeah, punk rock man. The perfect POSE for Allin's complete lack of talent.

Hmmm.
I'm stumped as to what to add to this here debate. Maybe i should sit back and let y'all fight it out amongst yourselves. some great thoughts and comments are being thrown around here. I don't even want to say who i agree with.
I do like Lono's comments tho. She's right, man, that The Duke is one hell of a cultural commentator. Good work The Duke.

god, i just unconciously deemed Lono a "she". What the hell do i know? I haven't a clue as to the gender of this individual.
Whatever gender they belong to, though, their opinions are well worth considering, is what i would suggest.

Duke,

We got a good fight going on here and you're ducking out on us. That's not very punk rock!

Chris, yeah, true, I'm sure Pablo had his exceptions to the rule. Brings up the sick question, was Gacy (or Bundy or Ridgeway, etc.) an artist in his craft of killing?

Oh man. Sorry to even bring up that concept.

Anyway...

*rolls eyes*

Why is it that whenever I am discussing the definition (or lack there of) of art, someone has to pull Ted Bundy and the art of serial killing out of their ass?! What is it with you freakos?

Artistic expression is an expansive canvas, no doubt. But let's stick to regular, time-honored boundaries, shall we? You wish to travel back to the days of Goth warriors and roam the lands sticking heads on polls, be my guest. How-fucking-ever, we live in civilization today, as much as Allin attempted to prove otherwise.

Artistic expression would include music, writing, painting, sculpting, performing. If one is to break the traditional rules of artistic expression, one must LEARN them first. The only thing Allin learned was how to stick a needle in his arm......

Saying the obsessive murder of innocent people is an artform is akin to saying hunting is an artform - which is complete bullshit. It may be cool to make such a claim - oh so avant garde - but it reveals the very jaded attitude that spawns such illiterates as Allin.

lol...I meant "poles" - but I guess in some odd way it works!

chris, i would point out that it was your good self who first planted the seed in this comment malarky about GG being an artist in the first place, if you were stressing that he wasn't.
hehe ;)

That's a load of crap (pun intended) Duke. I said GG was a poser hiding behind the mask of punk rock music. I suppose we could stretch things and call him a performance artist - as that would be closer to the warped reality of GG.....But I still don't know if I would term his abhorrent behavior as art - perhaps moronic juvenile...

Hey, you wrote the post - expect the shit storm (another pun).....

Chris, OH WOW, did that generate energetic response! I'm with you, in a way. OK, let me put statements in perspective. Well, shit, one definition in the American Heritage Dictionary for "artist" is '2) Any person who performs his work as if it were an art'. Well, they put 'as if' in the phrasing.

And I was just going off the concept of anyone who does what they do well is an artist of their craft. For instance, growing up here in this neck of the woods most all of us kids were 'Boeing brats', everyone's dad worked there. So alot of these engineers who came up with all this amazing designs could be considered mechanical artists. Or the mechanic at the local gas station who fixed your car (hey, my mechanic is the best!) or the person who tailored your suit, etc.

I guess the reference to artistic serial killers was a hardcore punk mentality. Maybe. Naw, I never did the Oi! thing much...

And I guess you saw the regional thing bringing up Bundy and Ridgeway.

GG Allin is one fucking sick performance artist. Or something to that affect.

Barf

Where's the Amazon links, man? Even if there's no G.G. Allin product extruding through their massive system, surely they sell toilet paper or some other relevant product...

argh! all those lovely comments, lost to the wind! Anyway, to the fella who said about the amazon links, i feel i must stand my ground and whatnot and inform you that i had indeed the amazon links what are now back on the article, but the amazon stuff wasn't working for a couple days there on account of the site changing hands, i believe. So apologies for the absense of them for the last day or so, but they were there up until then, and, indeed, have returned!

oh! the comments return. great!

And the Amazon links, too! (I noticed they were missing elsewhere after I posted the above comment.) You get a gold star for watching this stuff and reporting back to civilization. Further comment seems redundant, but that's what Blogcritics is all about, wot?

There is one thing you are missing the point to....

It's his artistry is PUNK!

punk is all about out of tune guitars, the lack of good timing and singers who can't sing.

if you don't like it fair enough, but GG Allin was most definately a punk ARTIST

unless you don't see punk as an artform he would not be an artist

PUNK isn't just rebellious, like fuck the government!

it's a rebellious music genre that goes against what other music genres are based upon.

such as Talent.

Good punk bands depend on originality and making their own melody

m/

G.G. WOULDN'T GIVE TWO FUCKS
WHAT ANYBODY HAD TO SAY ABOUT
HIM. HE DID WHATEVER THE FUCK
HE WANTED NO MATTER WHAT THE
CONSEQUENCES.NOW THAT'S PUNK!

JD and Nasty, thanks for the comments. I agree, GG wouldn't give a flying baboon for what folks think of him, but the fact he's still being so enthusiastically debated would, i imagine, give him cause for a celebratory shit-toss, wherever he may be.

I don't neccesarily agree that he did whatever he wanted regardless of consequences. I think a lot more thought went into some of his more outrageous antics that we might imagine. But certainly he cared little for established values, other than how in the hell he might best blast them to blazes.

Usually by flinging a shit or two.

Wel, I see the assaults getting back and forth in here wether GG was an artist or not..
To me he was an artist.. an real artist..
sure when he started the whole "I am god, stan and jesus all rolled into one" crap I though he wen't a bit over the top..
but the fact is GG also ahs given us so much and created so much in terms of punk rock music.. just listens to always is and always shall be album with thej abbers..
its one of the best punk rock alubms in history..
so many bands today try and sound like that era of GG allin.. but fails alot..

anotehr thing that makes me think this was his life more than just an act is that most bands (like 95% of them) goes down in temp as more famous they get..
he on the other hand wen't the opposite way.. he speeded up and up and up.. got more and more outragous.
his hatred towards society (and himself) just boiled over in the end..
now that to me is not an act.. it was what he belived and stood for..

he was an true artist.. not too many todays bands can say they are that..
singing all this "cool" stuff in their lyrics but yet they can't stand for them in real life..

btw sorry if there is spelling mistakes everywhere.. english isn't my best language... =)

KingX, thanks for the comments. I agree, i don't think GG was putting on an act, and i explained this in my Review Of Hated - GG Allin And The Murder Junkies. I'm still fairly unsure what i think of his music, although i have said before that the track Hanging Out With Jim is unnaturally catchy. I think there was more to the antics he got up to than just "shock", although certainly that played 99% of a part in it. There was a disturbing nihilism and wrecklessness that ran under it all that means that, evn ten years later, his performances are still captivating and compulsive.

y'all are some prissy fucks. you watch mtv, you care what people think about you, you own a cell phone.

how dare anyone here call GG a poseur. he was an artist in every sense of the word.

now go back to your little plastic word and be shocked by marilyn manson, enemaM, and britney spears.

you just don't get it.

go urinate on his grave and then jump off an nearby overpass.

GG loves you.

hey man, thats some righteous anger right there.
A word, though; maybe calling folks prissy fucks and so on is the kind of narrow-minded thinking thayt has folks questioning GG's artistic worth. Maybe those kinds of generalisations aren't any better than the ones you attack?
Who knows?
And i haven't watched MTV since UGLY KID JOE had Everything About You in the charts. At least a moonth ago, that must have been.

also, i don't mean to be pedantic, but the "own a cell phone" line seems a tad redundant considering the nature of this discussion.

I myself have been a big gg fan for years now. GG always embodied everything that i love in punkrock. not so much the politics, even though i am political in my punkness (notice the irony, please, lol). It's the rage that comes from depravation, insecurity projected into mindless violence and most of all having fun combined with shocking the moral majoroty. With gg this goes also for shocking not only the mainstream moral majoroty, but also a lot of the hippies waiwing the punk flag.
About the music, his classic release "Always was, is and shall be" is a classic with good reason. It's fun and in your face punk rock'n'roll, what else would you want from a punk record? Also his great songs like i wanna fuck myself, you hate me and i hate you, or sluts in the city just make it fun being a punk, not really caring about what pretentious crap the crass or the people from profane existence are trying to shove down your throat as proper punk.

I thought it was a fucking great read Duke. It's the best description of G.G Allin i've read on the net all day and i've been through a few, i tell ya. And it's only a review of a DVD! If anyone ever asks me who the psycho was i'd send 'em here mate! Well done matey!

this is an absolutely classic review, one of my favorite of any kind

people keep comparing gg allin to other people, like jim morrison, or sid vicious or other bands. GG allin started in the late 70's, he was around when punk started, he always did that type of shit. also HE ISNT THESE OTHER PEOPLE. those other people are fucking pussies next to him. HE WAS AND IS what punk rock is, total disregard for anything, and doing whatever the fuck you want and not giving a fuck what anyone thinks. and for the dude that wrote the article you say you've been in green day pits, who cares, green day is a bunch of pussies too, their pits are nothing. and most peopel on this dont seem like they know anything about him, they just know what hes done. you should read some interviews people have done with him. youll think hes less crazy.

FUCK YOU PIG SHIT SLUT FUCKS. YOU LIKE MY FUCKING MUSIC YOU FUCKING COWARD PIECE OF SHIT FUCK PIG INARDS.COME RAPE ME YOURSELF YOU FUCKING SLEF MUTILATING PIECE OF SHIT FUCK SLUT CUNT HOE BAGGING SHIT EATING INBREAD MOTHER SLUT WHORE FUCK SUCK COCK HORSE SHIT FUCK TOOL FLAMER SHIT FAGGIT FUCK I FUCKING HATE FAGGITS HOLY FUCKING SHIT THEY FUCKING SUCK OFF OTHER MEN NOT TO SAY I HAVN'T BUT THERE FUCKING FAGGITS JESUS FYUCKING SUCKS ANARCY FUCKING RULES FUCK THE SUPREME POWER FUCKING BITCH SLUT.

I LOVE HITLER YOUR A POSER SUCK MY FUCKING UNDERSIZED NAZI DONG YOU PIECE OF SHIT WHITE TRASH SELF MUTILATING PIECE OF SHIT. TIT SUCKLING COW JUNKING HORSE ASS PLUGGING FINGER PLUNGING FUCK SHIT SLUT COCK CUM GUZLING HORE BITCH SLUT FUCK HOE SLUT COCK LOVING FAGGIT MUNCHING BUTT SUCKLING AND MUNCHING HORSE COCK SUCKING MORONIC SATANISTIC GANGSTA WANA BE BASTERDATED SHIT FACED CUNT SWABED PRICK LOVING ANIMAL RAILING HOMO EROTIC FAGGIT JUICER.

god almighty! that was some demented nihilstic comedy poetry right there. i was hearin bongos in my head. what the hell is "finger plunging"?? whatever it is, i wanna do a course!! i wanna learn! i'll be the best finger plunger ever plunged a finger, fucker!

Duke:

I know it's getting repetitive, but damn I loved your GG 'op-ed'. I'm not a punk rocker, don't know shit about punk, but you nailed it perfectly - I only just recently decided once and for all to see what the all the hype is about and started checking him out on 'youtube.' Well ... my curiosity has turned into an obsession. I can't stop watching the fucker - and damned if some of the songs aren't solid as hell ..... 'Die when you Die' and 'Bite it you Scum' come to mind. He was the walking, talking embodiment of truth being stranger than fiction, he was the real deal in every sense of the word, the personification of the Reagan Revolution's rancid underbelly; the most intense, outrageous perfomer rock and roll has ever seen and I'm so fucking glad I never actually witnessed him in person. I would have had nightmares for weeks.