The man I interviewed was Kevin Michael Allin (as his mother renamed him). I interviewed him for Flipside fanzine in 1987, a piece that triggered a years-long letters column debate. "Anybody who played with him knew how talented he was," says Basso, who first became aware of then-drummer GG and his bassist brother Merle Allin via their mid-Seventies rock band, Malpractice.Īllin was also possibly an undiagnosed schizophrenic. Jesus Christ Superfly leader Rick Carney, who volunteered to stabilize the club's booking, believes the Cavity was the opening shot in Red River becoming Austin's punk/alternative epicenter through the decade and into the 21st century.
Punk wars gg allin tv#
Wagner roped in former Ritz soundman Dave Herman and Squat Thrust's Jimmy Bradshaw in 1991 to transform weirdo cult-cum-commune-cum-public access TV show Zendik Farms' old location into a punk club.
"To this day, I still sing some of those songs to myself," says Cavity Club co-founder Staryn Wagner of the 1988 cassette-only Allin retrospective Hated in the Nation. "I got hooked on those early singles, because they're very pop-punk, experimental. But a typical sing-along chorus might be, " Needle up my cock/ And I can't get fucked no more."īrandon Burke, who attended Allin's Cavity gig with his IV Violent People/Gomez bandmates Ryan McDaniel and Chepo Pena, became a fan after picking up several early 45s at Waterloo Records. Allin's tight, melodic verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus-end tunes were played in a raw, Detroit 1969 protopunk style that got looser and grimier over time. Rob Basso, guitarist with GG's first band of note, the Jabbers, says the bands that bonded them – other than the standard late-Seventies punk litany (Sex Pistols, Ramones, etc.) – included the Monkees, Paul Revere & the Raiders, the Seeds, and Flamin' Groovies. He loved pop music – the garage-ier, the better. "That's what I wanna know."Īllin actually wrote very good songs. "But at the end of the day, where's the songs, man?" he grinned. This guy pooped on the stage, that guy peed on the audience, on and on. "First it was GG, then it was Jimmy Gestapo, then it was some other guy, then another. "Every now and again, I'd hear about these guys who wanted to out-Iggy Iggy," he continued. "Y'know, I heard about GG over the years," Iggy Pop – who knew a thing or two about transgressive showmanship – drawled with a smirk 10 years later, in a conference room at Virgin Records' New York offices. And unlike the Drive-By Truckers' country weeper account of Allin's 1991 Memphis gig, he didn't escape before APD officers shut it down. He and his band the Murder Junkies managed a nearly 25-minute performance. I noted a white male on the band stand was nude and staggering around the stage bleeding from the forehead."Ī typical night for the shock-rocker born Jesus Christ Allin on August 29, 1956, in Lancaster, N.H. I advised dispatch via radio tht I needed additional units to dispurse the crowd. "I saw a arm holding a spray canister above the crowd's head and it appeared that a member of the crowd was spraying the Mace. "he crowd was running away from the stage gasping and covering their faces," the Austin Police Department report continued, ungrammatically. “he crowd was running away from the stage gasping and covering their faces.” – Austin Police Department’s Official Arrest Report
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