Published: March 1982
Cheltenham, UK
GG Allin is the Madman Of Manchester (Manchester, NH, USA, that is...), is Public Animal Number One, he makes music not for your pleasure but for your discomfort.
GG and his band, The Jabbers, create controversey wherever they play with their wild, energetic, raunchy, killer punk rock. GG is powerful, and his unpredictability and outrageousness on stage can lead to almost anything: crawling on floors, swinging from pipes, diving into crowds, taking a beer bath or just about anything out of the ordinary. He is also known to be quite outspoken in his beliefs, which often makes him an enemy in some people's eyes...
He has been playing the New England club scene (at least the clubs that will let him in...) for the last few years with much impact. Although not one of the nicest bands you'll ever see, when you do see them you know you'll have to react one way or another. GG would have it no other way.
GG met up with a guy called David Peel (an ex-Plastic Ono Band member who has recorded for Elektra and Apple). He believed in what the band were doing, and signed them to his Orange Records label, resulting in an LP and a single. I've heard both of these records, and very good are they too (I don't think "good" is the right word really, but... what I mean is — "good" is such an insipid word, and GG Allin is anything but.
One thing I gotta say about this kind of music, and that is that it's very definitely American, you never (well, hardly ever) find a British group playing it ... it's not punk in the Exploited/Discharge/Crass sense, but if you ever liked Iggy Pop or the Dictators or even the Sex Pistols, then you'll probably like this ... the LP contains tracks recorded between 1977 and 1980. 11 tracks, 10 songs and a 30-second segment called "Pussy Summit Meeting" which is destined to offend good moral folk everywhere. All the songs are kept short (longest is 2 minutes 45) so none of them get boring. The music is a sort of fast punk/HM crossover, I find it possible to play the whole album thru without skipping any tracks - quite an achievement so far as I'm concerned ... One of the tracks, "Automatic," contains one of the best lines I've ever heard in a song: "Don't you play with me emotionally / or I will make you bleed internally."
The single is more of the same, maybe a little heavier ... this could be because it features ex-MC5's Wayne Kramer and Dennis Thompson on guitar and drums respectively (don't stand there with those blank looks on your faces, you'll blow your credibility - I suggest you go and look up who wrote "Looking At You" on the Damned's 3rd album...) Suffice to say, those guys ain't going to get involved with any no-hopers, are they?
Music you parents wouldn't want you to listen to ... can't say fairer than that.
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