A deceased punk rocker known for obscene lyrics, infamous lifestyle, and subversive live shows.
Kevin Michael "GG" Allin
(August 29, 1956 — June 28, 1993) was born Jesus Christ Allin, so named by his Christian father, who claimed to have had a vision of his son being a powerful man, likened to the Messiah. (The shortening of his name to "GG" was born out of his brother Merle's mispronunciations.) His mother left the marriage, following years of abuse, and took GG and Merle with her. She even went so far as to change his name to Kevin Michael Allin, to keep him from being bullied in school. Unfortunately, her attempt ultimately failed - on top of being a poor student, GG was constantly bullied for not fitting in, so to rebel, GG would start cross-dressing to school.
Inspired by rock & roll at an early age — even his cross-dressing was informed by his love of the New York Dolls — GG began playing drums for local bands, and he and Merle formed a band called Malpractice. It gave GG his start in the music business, which eventually resulted in him fronting The Jabbers starting in 1977. Their first album, Always Was, Is, And Always Shall Be was released in 1980. Taking more of a Pop Punk-ish direction than his later albums, it remains likely his least controversial album.
Allin's increasing mental instability, drug abuse (it's been said that he'd take any drug put in front of him), and antagonistic behavior eventually resulted in him splitting from the Jabbers in 1984, ending the longest tenure he'd ever have with a band. GG went on to front several underground Punk Rock bands, such as the Scumfucs, the AIDS Brigade, and the Cedar Street Sluts, and recorded numerous albums that are now out of print. As the 1980s progressed, his live shows became more extreme in nature thanks to GG's unquenchable desire to shock and provoke. It culminated at a 1985 show in Peoria, Illinois, where after taking laxatives earlier that day, he defecated on-stage, and the disgusted reaction of everyone in attendance convinced the antisocial GG to make it a regular part of his act.
His personal philosophy became extremely individualist and anarchist, once referring to himself as the 'last true rock & roller,' whose purpose on Earth was to make rock & roll music dangerous again. True to his word, his concerts were some of the most infamous that punk rock had to offer, for being confrontational, scatological and incredibly violent. GG would frequently perform naked, self-harm, defecate and perform coprophagia on stage, and either physically or sexually assault audience members, male or female. Even putting aside all this mayhem, there was also the matter of GG's songs. They were simply callous and misogynistic while he was in the Jabbers, but afterward, he embraced shock value as a public statement in and of itself, and began writing loud, fast songs about misogyny, murder, self-harm, drug and alcohol abuse, blasphemy, criminal sexual conduct, and of course, overthrowing American society. GG preferred to express all this debauchery through loud, three-chord punk rock with rock-bottom production values, but he actually showed some ambition later in his career, when he dipped his toe into Country Music and Spoken Word.
Despite being such a mentally unstable and proudly repugnant human being, GG did have a cult following, whether from the outermost fringes of society, or just extremely dark-humored people who loved the ugly spectacle (both camps persist to this day). It should come as no surprise that due to GG's antisocial behavior, on stage and off, he wound up serving a significant amount of jail sentences, the longest of which was for the alleged assault of a female fan. Allegedly, Kurt Cobain and a couple of members of The Flaming Lips once visited GG in jail, just for a laugh, only for GG to get annoyed and curse them out.
One of his most infamous claims was that, on Halloween in 1989, he would commit suicide on stage, in order to make a statement about choosing your own fate and ending when one is at one's peak. He was in prison when the day arrived, and in fact, a similar situation would repeat for a few years afterward. When asked why he didn't follow up on the threat, he responded with a now-famous quote:
In 1993, GG had the chance to clarify his master plan for a national audience on the short-lived talk show The Jane Whitney Show, where in between blasphemous and misogynistic diatribes, threats to the audience, and claims that he sleeps with underage girls and animals, he specified that he planned to blow himself up at one of his shows, and take audience members with him. This appearance wound up being his last interview.
For all his boasting over the years, GG never did wind up making his grand exit. On June 27, 1993, GG Allin and his most recent backing band, the Murder Junkies (featuring his brother Merle on bass), performed in New York City at The Gas Station, promoting their recent album Brutality And Bloodshed For All. After spending hours doing cocaine, GG took the stage, and put on such a chaotic show (typical for GG), that the venue cut his power (also typical for GG) after only two songs. A naked GG trashed the venue, and escaped through the crowd, narrowly avoiding police. Seeking refuge at a friend's apartment, he and friends would stay up partying and ingesting drugs until all hours of the night. The next morning, GG was found unresponsive, and pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics, from a heroin overdose. He was 36.
GG Allin, alongside the Murder Junkies, were the subject of the documentary Hated. note A second documentary, GG Allin: All In The Family, was released in 2017, and centered around Merle Allin as well as his and GG's mother, and how they deal with being part of GG's rather colorful legacy decades later. Merle still plays with the Murder Junkies, and sells GG merchandise on Facebook.
Check out a transcript of The GG Allin Manifesto here, to get GG's own take on his music and outlook.
Partial Discography note
- Always Was, Is, And Always Shall Be (1980)
- E.M.F. (1983)
- You Give Love A Bad Name (1987)
- Hated In The Nation (a partial live album) (1987)
- Dirty Love Songs (compilation) (1987)
- Expose Yourself To Kids (EP) (1988)
- Freaks, Faggots, Drunks & Junkies (1988)
- Suicide Sessions (1989)
- Banned In Boston (compilation of early tracks) (1989)
- Doctrine Of Mayhem (compilation) (1991)
- Murder Junkies (spoken word) (1991)
- Anti-Social Personality Disorder (live) (1993)
- Brutality And Bloodshed For All (1993) (last studio album of GG's lifetime)
- Hated (compilation of songs used in the GG documentary of the same name) (1993)
- Carnival Of Excess (country album) (1996)
- The Troubled Troubadour (country album) (1996)
- Res-Erected (compilation) (1999)
- Expose Yourself: The Singles Collection 1977-1991 (compilation) (2004)
GG Allin provided examples of:
- The Alcoholic: And how.
- "Hanging Out With Jim." This refers to Jim Beam whiskey, of course.
- In the song "When I Die," he asked to be buried with a bottle of Jim Beam beside him, as "it was my only friend". Sure enough, according to reports of his funeral, that was exactly what happened... and since it basically turned into a party, people stole the Jim Beam, drank from it, and when he was buried, there was just a tiny bit of the liquor left in the bottle.
- All Drummers Are Animals: Guess what his first instrument was.
- Anti-Love Song: "I love nothing, nobody, nowhere."
- Ass Shove:
- During a performance at New York University, he shoved a banana up his own ass and threw it at the audience. He was kicked off campus and told to never come back.
- There is concert footage of GG attempting to jam the microphone into his ass. Which would be awfully counterproductive to a concert.
- Attempted Rape:
- GG would sexually harass women and men during his sets. According to him, he had forced penetration a few times. There is no evidence of this besides his boasting, of raping people.
- There is the occasional forceful grab of a woman in the occasional concert video, but he's usually distracted by several other fans beating the hell out of him immediately afterwards.
- Ax-Crazy: The main draw of his concerts, for people that were either brave enough or crazy enough to go see him perform.
- The Band Minus the Face:
- The Murder Junkies have toured and recorded without GG since his death. This has had a rather varied reception from fans.
- GG's first backing band, The Jabbers, reunited long after GG's death with Queers members Wimpy Rutherford and Harlan Miller replacing GG and former Jabbers guitarist Rob Basso, respectively.
- Beneath the Mask: For all his anti-social behavior onstage and in public, a series of phone calls between GG and his manager (taped without GG's knowledge) reveals him to have been quite an intelligent guy with an agenda. Among other things, he revealed a love of classic country music (some fans have speculated he was toying with going in this direction) and went into great detail about setting up tours and tracking record sales. He even revealed that while in prison, he would act a different way every single day to keep the other inmates from messing with him. You can hear some of these conversations as bonus tracks on The Troubled Troubadour.
- Berserk Button: It didn't take much to set him off, for example, in the documentary Hated, GG complained about how a Boston newspaper claimed that his promised on-stage suicide was just him crying wolf. After he burned the newspaper and threw it at the audience, a female fan asked him why he wouldn't kill himself sooner. He asked her to come on stage and began punching her in the face and dragging her across the stage by her hair until a couple of fans came to her rescue.
- Black Comedy: During the 1980s, there was a period of time where parents would actually sue Heavy Metal musicians, such as Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest, claiming their music made their children kill themselves with subliminal messaging. GG was never one to pass up an opportunity at shock value, so Freaks, Faggots, Drunks & Junkies has the song "Commit Suicide." It's Exactly What It Says on the Tin, with nothing remotely subliminal about it.
- Blasphemous Boast: GG would proclaim to be Jesus, God, and Satan rolled into one. His father even named him as such.
- Brain Bleach: His song titles alone often fit the bill. His live shows always invoked this trope. The unlucky members of his audience who got sprayed with GG's fecal matter during concerts probably needed literal bleach to clean themselves.
- Brother–Sister Incest: One of his various boasts in "Bad Habits."
- Card-Carrying Villain: He was quite aware that he was a degenerate, frequently calling himself a "scumfuck", and his lyrics absolutely reveled in depravity."I am the snakeman. I am the open wound feeding from your blood."
- Censored Title: To get Hated in the Nation into retail stores, some copies listed some songs with different titles. Most of the censored titles simply dropped the offending word or phrase, but "Ass Fuckin' Butt Suckin' Cunt Lickin' Masturbation" was amusingly renamed to "Multiple Forms of Self-Satisfaction."
- Cloudcuckoolander: GG's rock & roll ideals and lifestyle were so extremist and idiosyncratic that he wound up being on the more turbulent end of this trope.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Coming from a guy who was literally crazy, this isn't much of a surprise. Heck, it's a good bet that he may be the most foul-mouthed rock vocalist that ever lived.
- Country Matters: Pretty liberal with this.
- Country Music: GG was a huge fan, and even recorded a full length country album. It was pretty good, although the lyrics are still a tad odd.
- Cover Version:
- GG did a lot of semi covers/parodies/rip offs of other songs. He admitted this in interviews, but always took writing credit in his albums.
- On You Give Love A Bad Name, he covers "Beer Picnic" by obscure NYC group The Bad Tuna Experience. More infamously, he covers "Garbage Dump" by serial killer Charles Manson (from his only album, Lie).
- People who've have covered his songs include Faith No More, CKY, the 69 Eyes, Maryslim, Beck, Bus Station Loonies, The Lemonheads, No Age, The Spits, and Dum Dum Girls. Emily Pukis and the Vagrants began as a solid GG Allin cover band.
- Dark and Troubled Past: His birth father was nuts; even aside from his aforementioned religious delusions, he'd threaten to bury his entire family in a grave he dug. GG himself did poorly at school and was constantly bullied for not fitting in, to the point that he'd start rebelling by showing up to school in drag. It's probably no surprise therefore that he grew up to be such an unstable and antisocial individual. GG's take on his and Merle's youth:"Very chaotic. Full of chances and dangers. We sold drugs, stole, broke into houses, cars. Did whatever we wanted to for the most part - including all the bands we played in. People even hated us back then."
- Darker and Edgier: Always Was, Is And Always Shall Be is pretty vulgar. His subsequent works would get even more extreme both sonically and lyrically.
- Death Seeker: A recurring theme in his work, such as "Abuse Me (I Wanna Die)" and "Commit Suicide." It carried over into his public persona with his aforementioned promise of an on-stage suicide, preferably on Halloween (and more preferably, taking audience members with him). The liner notes of Suicide Sessions contain this passage:I believe in testing all limits of life & laws. I welcome tragedy and a violent death as a climactic end to a dangerous existence. It is only when you seriously seek death that you accelerate life.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- The one single by Malpractice, the band GG (drums) and Merle (bass) were in during 1977. Love Tunnel, the A-side is standard 70s hard rock, while the B-side, Devil's Triangle, sounds like an attempt at yacht rock with a guitar drenched in flanger/chorus.
- Always Was, Is And Always Shall Be is not only less harsh in terms of music and lyrics than his more notorious output, but it's interesting to just look at the clean-shaven GG with no visible tattoos on the cover in contrast to how he looked during the more (in)famous part of his career.
- It's also worth noting that his earlier music tends to do better with critics than the rest of his discography.
- The '80s: The psychotic, grotesque underbelly of 1980s Hardcore Punk.
- Embarrassing Damp Sheets: The self-explanatory "Sleeping In My Piss." This comes with the territory when you're The Alcoholic, especially to GG's extent.
- Excrement Statement: One of the more infamous aspects of his live shows was that, as mentioned above, he loved taking a dump mid-set, and then either smearing himself with it, throwing it at audience members, or both! When questioned by Geraldo Rivera about why he relieved himself so often during concerts, GG justified it as only GG would:GG Allin: My body is the rock and roll temple, and my flesh, blood and body fluids are a communion to the people, whether they like it or not.
- Full-Frontal Assault: He got naked or mostly naked at every show and would often try to fight audience members while in this state.
- The "Fun" in "Funeral": His funeral became a wild party with his friends posing with his corpse, placing drugs and whiskey into his mouth, as tracks from Brutality And Bloodshed For All blasted in the background. He was buried with a bottle of Jim Beam in his hand. And said bottle was drained dry by his friends by the time they lowered him into the grave.
- A God Am I: GG wasn't shy at all about his god complex, which was reflected both in his music ("Highest Power," "Blood For You") and some of his more infamous public statements.
- Harsh Vocals: While his singing voice was mostly normal at the start of his career, it got harsher as time went on thanks to his lifestyle, with a noticeable change by 1987's You Give Love A Bad Name. By the end of his life, he sounded like the Cookie Monster playing punk.
- Hollywood New England: Was born in Lancaster, New Hampshire and later moved to St. Johnsbury, Vermont after his mother divorced his father. He was also based out of somewhere near Manchester, New Hampshire for a period of time, where his performances with the Cedar Street Sluts and the Scumfucs attracted a great deal of notoriety (and infamy).
- Hot-Blooded: GG had a very short fuse.
- "I Am Great!" Song: Plays this trope disarmingly straight with songs like "Blood For You" and "Highest Power."
- I Am the Band: It didn't matter if he was playing which of his many bands was backing him, people came to see GG.
- "I FUCK The Dead...": His song "Fuck The Dead" is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. It sounds like GG heard "I Love The Dead" by Alice Cooper and decided it wasn't even remotely graphic enough.
- "I Want" Song: "I Wanna Fuck Your Brains Out," "I Wanna Rape You," and "Eat You Out."
- Indecipherable Lyrics: Most of his vocals during concerts were this due to GG's usual on-stage debauchery.
- Intentionally Awkward Title:
- GG Allin was backed by The Murder Junkies, The Scumfucs, The Jabbers, The Holymen, AIDS Brigade, The Disappointments, and more.
- Some of his more charming album titles are Eat My Fuc and Freaks, Faggots, Drunks & Junkies. And let's not even get into the song titles themselves.
- Intercourse with You: Unfortunately, the songs under "I Want" Song are what passes for this trope in GG's mind.
- Ironic Name: Born Jesus Christ Allin, he certainly didn't seem to have much in common with his namesake.
- Kavorka Man: Believe it or not, he was actually married from 1980 to 1986 (it's perhaps worth noting that 1986 is also the first year in which he started defecating onstage). And even after that, he found himself in long-term relationships up until his death, despite his misogynistic lyrics, violent behavior, scatological stage acts, and deplorable personal hygiene.
- Jerkass: And proud of it. Though when he was imprisoned for assault in Michigan, a psychological evaluation described him as "courteous, cooperative and candid".
- Lead Drummer: Always Was, Is and Always Shall Be had him playing the drums.
- Lighter and Softer: Even though he still puts on the tough guy, individualist persona in the lyrics, it's hard to see his country music as anything but this.
- Listing Cities: "Shove That Warrant Up Your Ass."
- Looped Lyrics: "SUCK MY ASS IT SMELLLLLLLLLLS....."
- Lyrical Cold Open: "Sluts in the City."
- Made of Iron: Practically every concert post-1985 involved him getting naked and rolling around on broken glass before picking a fight with his entire audience. Sometimes it also involved him cutting himself with knives, setting himself on fire, and other stunts. In fact, many videos feature him performing for a few minutes until all hell breaks loose for the rest of the set.
- Madness Mantra:
- "SUCK MY ASS IT SMELLLLLLLLLLS....."
- "I hate you motherfuckers, I hate you motherfuckers, I hate you motherfuckers....."
- Male Frontal Nudity: Something that GG liked to inflict upon his audiences. Watch nearly any concert video (if you have a strong stomach).
- Metal Scream: Mainly in his later material. He was able to carry a tune during his time with the Jabbers, but by the late 1980's, alcohol and drug abuse had taken their toll on his throat. Not that this bothered GG, who by then had taken to growling and screaming his lungs out on virtually every song. One critic has commented that his vocal style sounds like vomiting.
- Mind Screw: He put out an album called War In My Head — I'm Your Enemy, which is more an avant-garde sound collage than anything. It's a single track, beginning with a sample of GG yelling "FUCK YOU!" at the end of "You Hate Me & I Hate You," which then goes into an incomprehensible mess of distortion and feedback until, four minutes in, loops of GG monologuing his personal philosophies start playing over muddy sludge-metal music. It's simultaneously off-brand and very on-brand for GG's discography.
- Miniscule Rocking: "SUCK MY ASS IT SMELLLLLLLLLLS....."
- Misanthrope Supreme: As much as you can be in musical form. GG makes no bones about the fact that he hates everyone, and isn't above singling out certain people, like women or police, in his lyrics.
- Misogyny Song: Too many to list.
- "Automatic" is an infamous example, featuring the lyric "Don't go playin' with me emotionally, or I will make you bleed internally."
- Most, if not all, of Always Was, Is, And Always Shall Be is devoted to his degrading views of women.
- N-Word Privileges: Averted in true GG fashion.
- Nightmare Fetishist: If "Ass Fuckin' Butt Suckin' Cunt Lickin' Masturbation" and "Fuck The Dead" are anything to go by. GG loved writing sex songs as nasty and perverted as possible, as he was a Nightmare Fetishist in his personal life - once, on his birthday, some of his friends hired a woman to urinate in his mouth.
- Outsider Music: In a sense he is. His music is so inaccessible that people rather came to watch his shows for all the audacious stuff that was going on than for the performance, which even Allin himself acknowledged was garbage.
- Parental Incest: "Kill Thy Father, Rape Thy Mother."
- Pædo Hunt: "LET'S FUCK SOME KIDS/THEY CAN'T SAY NO"
- The Pig-Pen: By all accounts, GG smelled really bad.
- The Quincy Punk: Fed into popular stereotypes of punk rock being all about vandalism, brawling, and sexual assault. A number of punk rockers and hardcore fans wished he would Stop Being Stereotypical.
- Refuge in Audacity: His songs discussed pedophilia, racism, and rape in a positive light.
- Rock Star Song: "1980s Rock & Roll."
- Sanity Slippage: Most of his discography. Come on, it's GG Allin we're talking about!
- Self-Harm: A subject of some songs such as "Abuse Myself, I Wanna Die" as well as a staple of live performances.
- Serial Killer:
- There's a variant with "I Kill Everything I Fuck," which is about having AIDS, and quite intentionally using it to take out as many people as possible.
- "Legalize Murder" and "My Sadistic Killing Spree" certainly live up to their titles.
- Serious Business: Rock & roll is this trope to GG (as well as some of his most diehard fans).
- Shock Rock: GG might be the shock rocker by which all others are judged; no other artist under this trope has gone so far out of his way to shock and provoke at every turn. Even putting aside his insane live performances, his lyrics are like a checklist of taboo, controversial topics — misogyny, rape, murder, necrophilia, pedophilia, suicide, blasphemy, racism — that he's clearly playing up as hard as possible.
- Slashed Throat: "I'll Slice Yer Fuckin' Throat" from Brutality And Bloodshed For All.
- Sludge Metal: As his work became increasingly raw and violent, he delved into this genre sometimes, notably on Murder Junkies with ANTiSEEN.
- Studio Chatter: Pops up here and there mostly thanks to the obviously quick 'n dirty recording process. One example is "Abuse Myself, I Wanna Die," featuring a false start and the band quickly starting over.
- Stylistic Suck: Good God.
- His entire mission in life was basically to be the most violent, unpleasant, and disgusting musician who ever lived, and by all accounts, he may well have succeeded.
- Starting with E.M.F. in 1984, GG settled into recording his albums with rock-bottom production values.
- Teeny Weenie: He had one, and he wasn't afraid to show it off.
- Three Chords and the Truth: Played straight with his punk songs. They sound very dirty and distorted, as if they were recorded on a crappy tape deck at a rest stop bathroom.
- Title-Only Chorus: "I'll Slice Yer Fuckin' Throat," "Drink Fight & Fuck," "I Wanna Fuck Myself."
- Three-Way Sex: "Caroline And Sue" is about this, but there's a twist when one of the girls is transgender.
- Villainous Friendship: GG admired outcasts, since he considered himself one, and even made friends with John Wayne Gacy — yes, the pedophile clown — who eventually painted the cover art for the soundtrack to Hated. Gacy also provided the quote in the opening credits."GG Allin is an entertainer with a message to a sick society. He makes us look at it for what we really are. The human is just another animal who is able to speak out freely, to express himself clearly. Make no mistake, behind what he does is a brain."
- Vocal Evolution: Starting with You Give Love a Bad Name, his voice became much raspier.
- Would Hit a Girl: Anyone in his audience was fair game to punch. One of the most notable examples is during a spoken word performance in Boston, where he promised to kill himself on Halloween 1989, and a female heckler thought it would be wise to ask him why couldn't he kill himself sooner. He orders her to come up to him and then slams her head into the wall, though a couple of audience members quickly rescue her and beat his ass right there on stage. This can be seen in Hated.
