Twisted Tales: GG Allin Lived Filthy, Died Youngish, Left a Bloated Corpse

Posted on Mar 14th 2008 5:00PM by James Sullivan
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He was christened Jesus Christ Allin. Things were bound to go downhill from there.

No other legend of rock 'n' roll excess can hold a candle to GG Allin, though he wouldn't have flinched if you did. Self-mutilation, onstage sex acts, excessive drunkenness and coprophagia – to the uninitiated, that's eating poop – were just a few of the extramusical showstoppers of this hardcore wild man, for whom original titles such as 'Bite It You Scum' and 'Expose Yourself to Kids' were a little on the tame side.

This top-shelf transgressor served time for rape and torture, was a pen pal to serial killer John Wayne Gacy and made an ideal guest for shock TV hosts Jerry Springer and Geraldo Rivera. During the last years of his life, he routinely threatened to kill himself onstage on Halloween. When he died in 1993 – heroin overdose, naturally – fans who had witnessed his last performance hours before reportedly posed for pictures with his body, not knowing he was dead. Allin's brother Merle instructed the mortician to lay the body in its casket as it was: bloated, unwashed and covered in bodily fluids.

Allin was born in 1956 to a father who apparently had a few issues of his own. The baby's older brother couldn't say "Jesus"; it came out "Gee-Gee," and the nickname stuck. Their dad, Merle Sr., reportedly refused to allow any speaking after dark in the New Hampshire log cabin the Allins called home, and he dug graves for his family in the basement. Clearly, a white-picket-fence kind of existence wasn't in the cards for GG.

After the breakup of his band the Jabbers, Allin found a slice of underground infamy with the ROIR label's release of 'Hated in the Nation,' a cassette-only compilation featuring several tracks with a band that included J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. Allin's life story and unique performance style were featured in the documentary 'Hated,' by NYU film student Todd Phillips, who would go on to mainstream filmmaking ('Road Trip,' 'Old School'). This ultimate hellion's acoustic side, if it's possible to believe he had one, was documented on recordings that paid tribute to his hero, Hank Williams Sr. (Surviving members of Allin's last band, the Murder Junkies, including Merle Allin, have toured with Hank Williams III.) 'Die When You Die,' as Allin once ranted. That he actually lived to the ripe old age of 36 just might make him the eighth wonder of the natural world.