Did you know that Jesus Christ was a sociopathic American punk rocker? He used to go onstage and attack crowds who paid to see him, mutilating himself with broken glass and beer bottles (or whatever came to hand) before shitting on the stage and flinging it into the crowd (amongst other mad things too numerous to mention), whom he then attacked for having the audacity to come see him and his sicko backup band play. You didn’t know this about Jesus? No? Well, maybe you’re thinking about the other Jesus, the peace advocating crucified Jew who has had more wars started in his name than could be counted. You’re definitely not thinking of Jesus Christ Allin, aka Kevin Michael Allin, aka GG Allin, though you could be forgiven for being mistaken as both men have equally demented followers and stupid beliefs.

“He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy!” – Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’

Jesus Christ Allin was born in New Hampshire in 1959, though probably not in a manger from a virgin birth. His father left the family when he was six and his mother changed his name to Kevin Michael (Jesus being his dad’s idea), probably figuring that naming a child after the supposed savior of humankind would be a wee bit contentious in a godfearing, godbothering conservative country like the USA. But it was too late. He became known as ‘GG’ because of his inability, and that of his brother Merle, to pronounce (or renounce) ‘Jesus,’ so his original name had had its effect early on. And GG would be just as crucified as the original man who shared his name; only he would do most of it to himself, with sneering conspiratorial help from countless demented others.

“Just don’t matter what I say / ain’t gonna change a fuckin’ thing / I don’t like mirrors and I don’t like fools / so y’all get the fuck away from me” – Jesus

Enough of the religious analogy shite. If you haven’t heard of GG Allin, you’re probably not into punk music, and you’re probably better off for not having heard of him. He was a white trash sick scarred scatological self-tattooed super-offensive nutcase who died in 1993 of an unsurprising heroin overdose, though he had vowed at one point to kill himself on stage, taking members of his audience with him as he did so. SELL-OUT! Along the way to his grave (and he probably won’t be resurrected, unlike his namesake)(sorry, another religious reference, I’ll try henceforth not to use any more of them, though they’re tempting and easy in this particular case) he created a lot of sick sonic havoc and garnered a reputation as the world’s most disgusting performer. And it’s a still-standing reputation (would be impossible to get any more deranged, after all) he studiously earned with his stupidity. He would happily submit his unhappy self to any kind of abuse and degradation, preferably sexual, though self-mutilation was also in his top ten riffs, and he was one scary sonofagunofabitch.

“I never needed anyone but me / I never fit in with my family / I’m a fuck-up I guess I’ll always be / just an outcast from society” – Christ

Aided and abetted by his sideburns-sporting brother Merle and an ever-changing brutal backing band (Murder Junkies, Jabbers, Scumfucs) of misfit maniac malcontents, Allin took his traveling atrocity exhibition on the road and caused as much chaos as he could. Fuck knows what was wrong with him; you could theorize from here to eternity, but the end result was that he was one of the angriest men alive and took out his hatred and unhappiness on everyone around him, and more especially on the scumloving people who paid to see his sanguinary vaudeville punk circus of pain and humiliation and shit. He had rabid followers who loved having his shit thrown about them, and you’d have to say that these are NOT the kind of people you’d be comfortable sitting next to on a bus. Especially if they were covered in Allin’s bowel movements.

“I’ll never do in life what you want me to / I’ll never fit in with anything that’s true / everything I touch always turns to rot / everybody hates me says I’m all fucked up” – JC

Which, in a roundabout way, is where the author of this book comes in. Evan Cohen had just dropped out of film school in 1993 when he was offered the once-in-a-lifetime (or deathtime) chance to be a roadie on the GG Allin and the Murder Junkies ‘Terror in America’ tour. Many a person would have turned this down, but Cohen, either bored or insane or just plain sick or stupid, decided it would be fun to do. He traveled with the violent merry pranksters as a merchandising man, and got to see firsthand for several weeks the vile violent vicious vitriol spewed by the band (GG, Merle, Dino Sachs, Bill Weber) in every town and city they (literally and figuratively) came across. He then wrote this pleasant memoir about it for the reading displeasure of the undiscerning booklover. ‘I Was A Murder Junkie’ was recommended to me a few years ago by Jimmy Pop, lead singer of The Bloodhound Gang, which, if you know anything about that band’s stage antics, comes as no real surprise. He said it was “some good shit” and, well, that’s one way of putting it, I suppose.

“Look out world I’m a submachine gun for you / shooting out bullets gonna kill you too / jumping up and down screaming every night / taking orders from The Man’s gonna drive me wild” – Kevin Michael Allin

What we basically have here is a load of tour stories strung together from Allin’s final tour before he died a few weeks later, to the sadness of some and the relief of others. Cohen has no real writing style to speak of, but he does negate any criticism of this by having a T.E. Lawrence quote at the start of the book, which states as much in a pretty pretentious way. But the lack of style here (and don’t get me wrong, Cohen is a competent enough writer – words follow words into sentences into paragraphs into pages into a finished book, and it’s all readable enough) is more than made up for by the content in the pages. Whether or not you want to read about Allin having various punk chicks piss on him, chronic masturbator drummer Dino getting up to all sorts of auto-erotic high jinx and kinks and wanks, men and women alike being brutally attacked, Allin’s self-mutilation and his mutilation of others, canes being inserted into anuses, American flags burned onstage…and on and on and on…well, it’s entirely up to you. I have a strong enough stomach to handle it, and a sense of humor too, although parts of this book did make me cringe. Must admit, though, what I found far more offensive than some of the stories recounted here was the actual author and his personality.

“Just don’t like you anyway / so sick of your golden way” – Kevin Allin

I wondered before reading the book what kind of person would go on tour with Allin and write about it. I now know: a tedious middle class slumming-it nice Jewish boy with a (not very big) chip on his shoulder. Cohen really comes across as being a total asshole from start to finish; bear in mind film student = coming from money, and film students are NOT a group of people noted for their intelligence or common sense or non-pretentious ways. He’s a soft wee boy playing at being hard with a bunch of people who are genuine nutters, and he’s the odd man out from start to finish. He may think that he was an honorary Murder Junkie, and crow about this, but his meek, slightly angry personality was at odds with that of the group right from the start. He’s pathetic.

“When I usually go to shows, I always detest the little fruits that walk around with their smug faces and their proudly displayed laminated crew passes that allow them “all access” to the venue. They walk around the club like they think they own the joint, and look down their noses at the fans. Now I was one of them.”

Cohen writes this on page 19, but really without the depth of irony him writing it deserves. He’s completely out of his depth on the tour, and almost, in some ways, acts as an adult figure for the band, occasionally pulling them up when they get too outrageous. He seemingly didn’t fully realize that he was going to be on the road with a bunch of sociopaths who genuinely didn’t give a fuck about anything or anybody, but is certainly disavowed of this foolish notion by the time the tour ends. In one hilarious incident, the band don’t play a gig in Joplin, Missouri, and beat a hasty retreat from the club chased by several cars full of punters irate they didn’t get to see the band they had paid $10 to see. Guitarist Weber, who is driving, wants to pull the van over to see what the fans will do. Cohen screams and begs and pleads with the guitarist to keep on going, which he does. But this is the kind of crap the writer pulls time after time (one time giving the finger to a restaurant full of people from the safety of the van, then cringing in embarrassment when pulled up about it as the van sits at traffic lights by a middle aged woman annoyed that her mother was flipped off), exhibiting far too soft a personality for life on the road with a bunch of lunatics. They probably just got him on the road with them to either corrupt him or freak him out (or any combination thereof) for a laugh. Made me wish that Allin had managed to shit on his head, which he was going to do when Cohen was sleeping, but the author unfortunately woke up in time. Oh well.

“Bite it you scum” – Kevin

But enough mocking the wimpy slumming-it-with-scum author. There are some genuinely surreal, funny moments in this book. The text is interspersed with photos from the tour, many of which feature full frontal male nudity. This offended me deeply because, although I have a penis of my own, I always bathe with my underwear on to save myself from corruption. But there are two photos in particular which stand out. One is of Allin handing a Murder Junkies tee shirt to Johnny Cash from the audience of a pensioner-filled show of the late legendary C&W singer’s, whom Allin apparently idolized and identified with:

‘When Johnny completed his final song, GG put on his helmet and ran up to the stage. He parted the sea of blue hair, shook Johnny’s hand, and gave him a Murder Junkies T-shirt. It was a historical moment in the world of music as these two legends shook hands in total unity – both men at the top of their form, in a moment of rapture. I don’t know if Johnny Cash saw it in the same way, but GG was in heaven. I’m sure Johnny was wondering why he was shaking hands with a bruised up guy wearing a black Nazi helmet with a winged swastika emblazoned on the front of it.’

That’s laugh-out-loud hilarious, hyperbolic ‘moment of rapture’ crap aside. Also funny is Allin and the boys going into a store that sells used celebrity clothing in Branson, Missouri, owned by Johnny Cash’s daughter (the photo of Allin and his band with her here is the other classic). When the band and their hanger-on merch man walk in Cash’s band are all in there, as well as his daughter and son John Carter Cash. Here the following exchange takes place:

‘GG approached Johnny’s daughter with awe and respect.
“That was a great show last night, actually. I really enjoyed it.”
“Well, I’m glad you did,” she said.
“That was very wonderful. I mean, it was beautiful.”
“Thank you very much.”
GG couldn’t contain himself. “I just love your dad, I’m sorry.”’

“I pull my pud until it bleeds / I masturbate on toilet seats / girls can’t give me the satisfaction / I fuck my fist with a rage of passion” – GG Allin

All in all, ‘I Was A Murder Junkie’ is a (very) fast, entertaining, easy, sleazy, stupid read. It’s a definite must if you’re interested in GG Allin; nobody else will, of course, care, and I won’t sell them on it no matter how hard I try. You might ask what it says about me that I enjoyed, with reservations, this poser-written book. Well, I could tell you, but I’m not going to; sure you could make a few uneducated guesses on that score yourself. Suffice to say that, insanity aside (if you actually can put it aside, because the man was the music was the man), I think that GG Allin made some of the finest rawest angriest dirtiest nastiest sleaziest most amazing punk songs (though, to be perfectly honest, the quality of his songs varies wildly over the years from album to album from great to grating) this side of The Ramones and Sex Pistols and Iggy And The Stooges. Songs like ‘Bored to Death’ (where he does his best to impersonate – wait for it – Mick Jagger(!) singing) or ‘One Man Army’ from the early Allin album ‘Always Was, Is And Always Shall Be’ have some of the best guitar riffs ever committed to record (kudos to Rob Basso for them), whilst other songs like ‘I Wanna Fuck Myself’ or ‘Girls Girls Girls’ or ‘Cock On The Loose’ have some of the funniest, sickest, most ludicrous (and that’s the thing about Allin a lot of the time – he’s trying so hard to be offensive it just ends up being ridiculously over-the-top and you can’t take it seriously) lyrics you could ever read. And ‘Shove That Warrant Up Your Ass’, where Allin lists the American states he is (not) wanted in, is a fine rebellious lawless anthem for anti-social fuck-ups everywhere to snort coke or spike smack or smoke crack or slug shots to.

“I’ve been picked apart by a shrink or two/but nothing you can do can change my point of view” – GG

Make no mistake, GG Allin was a total fucking idiot, a frighteningly violent self-destructive damage case, but there is just something about his madness that I personally find very entertaining and liberating. It’s a vicarious buzz, certainly, and I will cop to that, though I must say I am disappointed I never got to go to a gig of his because I certainly would have gone. Wouldn’t have gotten too near the stage, mind you. And I must say, having worked with old people with dementia and having had to clean up their spilled bodily fluids of all kinds, watching some headcase throw his around wouldn’t bother me too much. Allin never sold out, because he didn’t have anything that more than a few thousand (if that) sick hardcore fans of his would have wanted. After all, it’s impossible to sell self-destruction and extreme existential anger and insanity and shit flinging to the middle class America that buys the horrible sanitized teen-angst-peddling pseudo-punk-pap pop bands that comprise the current (and future) main-piss-stream of the music. And the leftie side of punk music got old and tired and rigid and preachy years ago, which only leaves genuinely mentally unbalanced fuck-ups like Allin and his co-conspirators with their damaged dog-and-pony traveling freakshow, just trying to (not) play a gig and get the fuck out of town before the law or fans got to them. Doing it out of pure madness and hatred, of self and of others and of society, but occasionally creating something beautifully ugly and inspiring amidst all the spilled bodily fluids and tears Allin’s mother probably cried over what her son ultimately pathetically became.

GG Allin, RIP. Your unchained anarchic punk-personified spirit will be missed, but you yourself will not.

Thanks to Todd of Recess Records for the review copy of the book. Visit Allin’s site (see links on left) if you want more information on the punk nutter above. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Graham Rae is a Scottish scribbler from the cheery charming picture-postcard-perfect post-industrial up-and-coming internationally renowned tourist destination of Falkirk, now resident in the US. He has been writing for as long as he can remember (started at any early age, carving graffiti into womb walls) and am halfway through my first novel (well, third, but the other mishmash misfires don’t count),’ Weekend Warriors.’ He has been writing about film for various electronic and print publications for 18 years now, and you can see a sporadically entertaining eclectic selection of his ramble/rantings at www.filmthreat.com

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.