I never went to see GG Allin. My friend Rob B. and I came dangerously close to going when he played the Space at Chase on Third Avenue, but demurred at the last minute. Had we actually gone, we stood the chance of being preserved for posterity on celluloid, as said performance was famously captured in Todd Philips’ documentary, “Hated.” Also, had we gone, we stood the chance of being physically assaulted by the star attraction and/or pelted with fistfuls of GG’s own freshly produced excrement, so you can possibly see why we didn’t go.
I don’t know if he went to the Space at Chase show, but my friend Aaron did go see GG (….and the Murder Junkies …mustn’t forget them) when they played what would be GG’s final-ever show at the fabled Gas Station on Avenue B. I’ve invoked that show several times here before (most recently here, I suppose). Video of the event appears on YouTube with regularity, only to be shortly pulled down for any number of reasons, usually involving nudity, violence and overall depravity.
As recently as this past November, however, someone re-uploaded the footage, and it’s probably the cleanest and sharpest version of proceedings I’ve seen, … not that anyone really needs to see GG Allin in high-definition, mind you.
Once again, the live experience fleetingly provided by GG Allin & The Murder Junkies is assuredly not for everyone, but this footage remains time-capsule-worthy as a telling glimpse of the East Village circa 1993, when the order of the day was significantly less genteel and brunch-centric than it is today.
Today, of course, the Gas Station is long, long gone, its footprint now occupied by an antiseptic Duane Reade. Later on in the day captured here on video, GG Allin would die rather unceremoniously of a heroin overdose.
ADDENDUM: A testament to the clarity of this particular iteration of the video, I'm only now noticing that one of the sycophants hanging around GG in the wake of the abortive performance is none other than the mysterious Squid, who I recently discussed here.
This all happened 28 years ago today.
You’ve been warned. Enjoy.
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