Music has it's extremes. One the one hand it has Taylor Swift constructed niceness and pastel colours and then there's the dark underbelly of pain. Sometimes that's populated by truly gifted musicians, the David Bowies, Kurt Cobains and Jim Morrisons of the world.
And then there's GG Allin.
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It's been almost twenty-five years since he died, but he is still one of the most hated and villified "punk stars" of all time, he makes Marilyn Manson and Ozzie Osborne look like choir boys. Sid Vicious is a sweetheart compared to this man.
His performances usually involved guzzling laxatives, stripping naked,excreting on stage, throwing his poo at audience members and then beating them up. It's a kind of performance art I suppose.
Noteworthy in that he went one further than his idols, like Iggy Pop, rather than actually being musical, he's gone down in history as a crazy act.
Grim Childhood
Credit: http://www.ggallin.com
Jesus Christ Allin, as he was born in '56, had a very troubled upbringing. His dad thought that he would be the second Messiah, so insisted he was named after him. His older brother couldn't say Jesus though, and called him GG - and it stuck.
Growing up the family had no running water or electricity, but his reclusive and overly religious father did have graves dug for them in the cellar. Reassuring!
But GG said his upbringing gave him a "warrior soul". His mother ran away with her two sons, and tried to raise them as normal as possible, but at this point a lot of damage had been done.
At school he was bullied, was diagnosed with low intelligence and began crossdressing.
Take A Walk On The Wild Side
Credit: http://www.ggallin.com
He started playing in bands in the '80s, first as a drummer and then as a front man - during this period he also developed a heroin addiction.
The first time he crapped onstage was kind of an accident, explained a fellow performer: "I was with him when he bought the Ex-Lax. Unfortunately, he ate it hours before the show, so he constantly had to hold it in or he would've shit before he got onstage... After he shit onstage, complete chaos broke out in the hall... All of the old men in charge of the hall went fucking NUTS!.. Hundreds of confused punk kids were flipping out, running out the door, because the smell was INCREDIBLE."
GG thought it was great and started doing it on purpose. He thought he was a true rock 'n' roller - anti-authoritarian, a true punk. And in that sense, perhaps he truly was.
He started doing spoken-word pieces and became obsessed with serial killers. He also started getting done for assault.
The Hallowe'en Suicide Promise
Credit: http://www.ggallin.com
One of the reasons that GG Allin attracted such a cult following was that he promised to kill himself onstage. People were morbidly fascinated by GG - he had no boundaries. And it seemed like he would do it.
He said he would kill himself onstage in '89 - but the only thing that got in the way was that he ended up in jail. So he wrote into a music magazine saying he would do it the next Hallowe'en. Only to get locked up again.
Every year he promised that he would commit suicide but he always ended up in prison.
Hated - a Documentary
Credit: http://www.ggallin.com
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There's even a documentary about GG Allin - called Hated. It follows the controversial punk artist who toured with his band the Murder Junkies for fourteen years between prison sentences.
It's never about the music, which is exactly as good as the average person covered in his own shit beating people up could produce. A person called Bat Puller: "My interest in Allin is akin to the kind of interest one would have in reading true crime novels about serial killers."
Mr James Daniel wrote: That said, if you like the thought of a tuneless fat no-mark having a dump on stage & smearing himself in it & attacking women (with furniture!) YOU WILL LOVE THIS."
Heroin Overdose
Credit: http://www.ggallin.com
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At GG's last ever show in '93, the power was cut after his second song. So he trashed the place, then covered in blood and faeces, went to his friend Johnny Puke's flat and accidentally overdosed on heroin. At 36 years old - he was dead. But it didn't even stop there - his funeral was a weird party too. He had instructions not to wash his body clean of faeces, for his favourite leather jacket and jockstrap to be worn and for him to be buried with a bottle of Jim Beam.
People took photos with the corpse, had a party and his brother even put headphones on him.
Words Laura Hamilton
Featured Image Credit: ggallin.comTopics: Weird