Not sure if this is GQ,
But how did GG Allen find places to perform?
The dude was insane, vulgar, and did many dangerous and illegal things while on stage.
Do venues just not look up the acts they book? (Back then you couldn’t exactly Google him, but must have been some way of finding out what you are in for)
He played at places representing the bottom of the pecking order of venue prestige. He was guaranteed to draw a crowd, and even if there was a real risk of damage to the venue (and audience, and employees), that was enough for quite a few places for quite a few years. Also, his name was spelled “Allin.”
Back in those days, a lot of punk acts carefully cultivated images of themselves as depraved junkie burnouts while in reality being only marginally rowdier-than-usual perfectly business-minded rock acts. It would have been difficult for a punk club owner to distinguish between them and someone like GG who was the genuine article, depravity-wise.
In the summer of 1993, some co-workers and I were all talking about concerts we had attended, and one young man, who had lived briefly in Austin, Texas, sheepishly said, “I saw GG Allin.”
I replied, “Before you say anything more, all I know about GG Allin is that every time he performs, he always ends up getting arrested. What does he do onstage, or do I want to know?”
"Oh, he shits onstage - "
Other co-workers: “You are lying!”
" - he sticks his microphone up his butt - "
“YOU ARE MAKING THIS UP!”
I wasn’t surprised that he would have attended something like that, because he was a bit off-kilter, and when someone else asked him why he went to a show like that, he replied, “I just wanted to find out if the guy was for real.”
Example: This was during the “Shit Happens” era and the place where we worked had no dress code to speak of beyond “shirts and shoes”, and one evening, he showed up for work wearing a t-shirt with the F word on it in foot-high letters. :smack: He was told not to wear it again, and the dress code was amended to say “no clothing with profanity on it.”
He got another job, and the day after he quit, I read in Rolling Stone that Allin was dead. 
I would have loved to have been the one to tell him about it.
I guess I led a sheltered life but until I read this thread I had never heard of him. I was born a few years before him so from the same generation. And I admit I was never into punk or the like.
His given name was Jesus Christ Allin. His father said he had a vision that Jesus himself said his son would be a great man like Christ. Indeed.
Here’s the review that the local alt mag published for a GG Allin show.
It’s already been said, but GG Allin played dives. A little blood, sweat or …whatever just mixed in with any beer spilled on the floor and was mopped off after closing time.
Let’s move this to Cafe Society.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
As bad as most punk clubs were, I could only imagine how bad it would have been to be a singer in a band playing the club on the night *after *G.G. Allin.
and the only people who cared about the shit he put out were “alternative” teenagers who wanted to piss off their parents. yes, I knew more than one person when I was in high school who could tell you all about the nasty shit GG Allin did, but not much about his music.
I own some of his music, mostly on cassette. I have VCR tapes and DVDs of his performances, including Hated. I have archival interviews on both formats as well. I think I still have copies of Maximum RocknRoll with letters/essays he wrote (Flipside too, if I remember correctly).
I never did get to see him live. (I have seen The Meatmen and Mentors (before El Duce died) tho, so I got that goin’ for me!)
“The Night G.G. Allin Came To Town” by Drive-By Truckers
As a hijack, do you believe El Duce’s claim that Courtney Love wanted him to kill Kurt Cobain? I’ve only seen clips on YouTube of Hoke, so I have no idea if there’s a larger group than the “conspiracy theorist” type that would find him credible.
In Hated, the G.G. Allin documentary (incidentally made by the same fellow who later went on to make the Hangover trilogy - sic transit gloria mundi, eh?), he plays at what IIRC was a New York university venue of some kind (Columbia?). Within the first ten seconds of the show, Allin does… Bad things… With a banana on stage, people start leaving, the venue pulls the plug, and a letter is shown effectively disinviting him from that venue for as long as he lives.
I like his country album, recorded in prison. I find his punk stuff sorta lame, got nothin’ on the true kings of the genre. 
Nah, no truth to that at all IMO. El Duce was a tireless and shameless self-promoter. He was so far over-the-top that he stood at the bottom looking down at everyone else, ya know what I’m sayin’?
D-beat for the win!