DVD Review: G.G Allin And The Murder Junkies - Terror In America
Published March 19, 2006
"You're damn right" they'll say. "Sure as fuck that bare-arse bastard'll set the whole shebang aflame."
G.G plays with fire plenty throughout the set.
Standing there with another flag covering his parts, with the white coat from earlier hung o'er his back, G.G looks like the kinda fella's been itching to set light to something for a time.
Thank god there's a candle lying behind a speaker, a candle which can be lit, can produce flame, and can be used to ignite the streams of lighter-fluid he sprays over the sundry cables littering the stage.
The cables don't seem too keen on burning, lit for hardly a second before the flame disappears, and matters aren't helped by some fella at the front trying to punch our man throughout the procedure.
G.G swings at him, misses, and so sprays the interfering welp with the lighter-fluid.
Through it all, as ever, the band play on. All the hits wheeled out; "Cunt Sucking Cannibal," "Expose Yourself To Kids," "Gypsy Motherfucker," "I Wanna Rape You". Never a beat missed, never a bass-line fluffed.
Even when G.G's vocals are lost to the roar of the crowd on account of a microphone malfunction (G.G swung it at someone's head, an action which proved fatal to the equipment, if not the victim, who just bounds off again whilst folks round about shout either "You fuckin' suck" or "You're fuckin God" depending on the tune being played at the time), even then they carry-on as if weren't a damn thing out of the ordinary going on.
And of course, there's not.
In-between throwing chunks of the stage at folks and losing the microphone for a couple minutes, G.G sets fire to the flag, then his own head. Someone punches him during the latter, extinguishing the flames, G.G reacting by diving off-stage and smacking the fella in the jaw a time or two.
If a man can't set his own head on fire 'thout some motherfucker interrupting, what the hell can he do?
Throw some cymbals at folks, that's what.
The crowd here seem much more hostile to G.G than in the other two shows. For sure, there's always punching and kicking, but this seems different, like they genuinely dislike him. You'd be a damn fool to assume they won't race towards the stage as one, shouting about "You fucking pussy!," then, hilariously, fall over themselves to get away when G.G returns from off-stage with an armful of drum-kit to throw at them.
The crew-members run around picking up stray hi-hats, the band leave the stage, the camera fades to black.
The Bonus Shit
Music Video Distributors have already released what may be the definitive G.G Allin And The Murder Junkies Live DVD Collection Type Thing. Raw, Brutal, Rough And Bloody - Live 1991, is a blow-your-brains-asunder masterwork. Wall-to-wall shitting, punching, biting and flailing, and also, the live set back then still had "Hanging Out With Jim." Terror In America doesn't scale those depraved heights, although it's still fairly fucking depraved. What it does have, though, is some "Extra Bullshit You'll Enjoy" flung alongside the main events.
- DVD Review: G.G Allin And The Murder Junkies - Terror In America
- Published: March 19, 2006
- Type: Review
- Section: Music
- Filed Under: Music: Punk Rock, Music: Video, Video: Music
- Writer: Duke De Mondo
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Comments
Stewart, chances are quite a lot of folks do. Or at least they miss the thought that going to see a gig could be a chance for something more unexpected or extravagant than "oh, they played a b-side, i was SHOCKED". GG was most likely a deplorable, wretched, misogynist, nihilistic mutt, but nonetheless, at least it wasn't an act. At least the folks who saw GG Allin of an evening KNEW they had experienced something, foul or life-affirming or whatever. When was the last time you felt like a gig changed your life? I'd say for a good portion of the audience at these shows, in some meanginful way their lives were changed.
maybe not changed in a way you or I would wanna be changed, but still. it was raw and real and dangerous, and who DOESN'T want that of an occasion?
thanks for the comment, also!
I'd not know of the GG if it weren't for something called Mondo Radio! Great stuff as always, Duke.
Glad you liked it, Sir Berlin! And gladder still that I in some way helped open your guts to the GG.
Yeah Aaron I'm sure the Jews who died in Nazi concentration camps " KNEW they had experienced somthing," too. Would you like to start waxing poetic about the unseen benefits of the Holocaust and Hitler?
Anyone who had thier lives changed in a meaningful way by G.G. Allin are either completely useless as he was or had thier lives changed for the worse.
There's nothing wrong with being unique but everything I have learned about G.G. has led me to believe that he had nothing at all to offer humanty but contempt and violence.
Good riddance! The world is a better place now that he is no longer in it.
If the DVD's as entertaining as that screed then it must be a corker (I believe that's what they say in..I dunno, Cork or somewhere).
I bet it would be a hell of a contrast to the G3 DVD I just viewed, if only Steve Vai took a shit on stage in between giving mad faces and playing with his whammy bar...
Sir Fleming, thank you! You know Vai's got SOMETHIN goin on with all that face-pullin...
Stewart, i dunno if that's altogether fair, the holocaust comparison. Folks who went to see G.G Allin & The Murder Junkies went so out of choice, for one thing. they enjoyed it, hard as that may be for us folks to fathom. I don't wanna be shit on anymore than you do, but for some folks, that kinda visceral mania was just what they needed.
And anyroad, isn't rock n roll SUPPOSED to be dangerous?? aren't the critical types supposed to scratch their heads and say "what's that all about, anyroad??" till at least three decades after the fact? still, i've said before, in this time and place when folks like eminem are being marketed as dangerous and uncompromising, it does a man good to see something truly dangerous and uncompromising going on in the name of rock n roll. diabolically awful rock n roll, perhaps, but rock n roll nonetheless.
as a person, G.G Allin appears to have been a wreckless demented hateful bastard, but my good lord was he ever fascinating. For all the flaws in his character, of which there are numerous examples, there was still some sense of integrity, of attempting to wrestle the ghost of rock n roll from out the hands of the patronising major labels. For that, if for nothing else, he has at least some wee corner of my respect.
also, there's the fact that here is true spectacle, with a budget size of a cigarette-end and production values you'd find in the corner of a vagrant's teeth. and yet what a show!
In all the words above, I didn't see much of an indication that G. G. Allin's music was worth listening to 13 years removed from his being alive.
This DVD sounds like the Rock and Roll equivalent of "Faces Of Death". Musically, what's the point? Allin was nothing more than an in-your-face performance artist.
Sure, rock and roll is supposed to be dangerous and anti-social. I agree that Eminem yelling "Fuck" in a crowded theatre hardly makes the grade by this measurement. And yet, rock and roll is also supposed to be listenable, isn't it? Rock and roll became much more dangerous when the music and message began to get mass acceptance and led to changing the way we as a society see the world.
G. G. Allin was a sideshow. You pay to see the bearded lady or the armless-legless man once, and you're done. Allin simply didn't have it musically, so he made up for it by eating his own feces. Nice footnote, but his records aren't flying off the shelf since he OD'd.
Duke, well done review here. I had not been real familiar with GG Allin. I don't know what the fuck to make of him. I do know I probably don't have the stomach to watch the DVDs.
DJ, thank you sir. to be sure, t'is an acquired taste, the old GG frolics. If'n you ever muster the stomach for it, though, i'd heartily reccomend HATED - GG Allin And The Murder Junkies, one of the finest rockumentaries you'll ever encounter. Directed by Todd Phillips, who went on to make, um, Starsky And Hutch, Old School and Road Trip. Who'd a thunk it?
J.P, you make a staggeringly good point there. "G. G. Allin was a sideshow. You pay to see the bearded lady or the armless-legless man once, and you're done. Allin simply didn't have it musically, so he made up for it by eating his own feces."
The music these folks produced is, for the most part, horrendous. Derivative, repetitive simplistic toss for the most part, with a few exceptions (quite a lot of You Give Love A Bad Name is gleefully catchy, as is Hanging Out With Jim, for example). Certainly i don't have a terrible lot of interest in listening to his records. But releases like this, well, as i said over and over, i'm fascinated. Probably there IS something goin on along the lines of "FACES OF DEATH of rock n' roll". It's spectacle, horrible spectacle. probably that IS the point, and to experience these things properly you need sight AND sound.
(not the popular British film journal, although probably they could wax for hours about GG punching a surfer)
Stewart I have to comment on the fact that you're knocking something you haven't yet tried. Which makes your opinion on the subject completely useless. And comparing him to the holocaust can only be described as silly and desperate...


The Duke (Aaron McMullan to his parents and the clergy) is a Northern Irish writer, performer and insomniac currently residing in London. He is the creator of 







Does anyone actually miss this loser?