[Books]
GG ALLIN My Prison Walls
208 pages, hardcover, limited edition, 2500 numbered copies, cover is wrapped in black saifu cloth and decorated / titled in red foil blood stamping, $49.95, compiled with the collaboration of Merle Allin, from Aggronautix.
reviewed by Reviewer Rob
If you want full disclosure I never saw a GG Allin show.
I may have been in the same room with him once, but didn’t know who he was. It was in San Diego in the early-to-mid 90’s when I was at the old Brick By Brick nightclub to photograph a female punkrock bank called Duchess DeSade, and actually The Brick might have still been called The Spirit Club at the time. I did eventually read about the show and how GG got into a fight with the girls in Duchess DeSade over the use of their amps in the book I WAS A MURDER JUNKIE, by Evan Cohen. I shot photos of the lead singer in Duchess DeSade standing in the glare of the stage spotlight and then after that I left. She was cute, skinny and had small tits with black electrical tape covering her nipples.
Anyways, I was there to shoot Duchess DeSade and I think she was playing on the same bill as GG’s band The Murder Junkies that night. Somewhere I still have pics of it, the photos of Duchess, not GG, which as I said I didn’t shoot. Again, because I didn’t know of him. I wasn’t into utter gutter punk crap rock at the time. Admittedly I would’ve and still do find it interesting, from a safe sociological standpoint. From what I was told by a person in attendance that night, several years later the shit-stain GG left on the floor of The Brick, from his climax defecation that he did in most every performance, could still be seen.
Lot’s of people find this gory self-mutulatory destructiveness interesting from a distance. Ironically the people most attracted to the grimy shit-smeared fringe that GG represented are often those least equipped to lead the lifestyle themselves. Several years ago in early 2008 I videotaped interviews with a porn star who went by the name of Nico Elise and who liked call herself, to be known as, “The female GG Allin”. Actually she could hardly be considered that. She was much too fragile. GG, on the other hand, was the opposite of fragile.
Whatever happened to him to turn him into aa professional scumfuc I don’t know. But if you’re interested in the whys and hows this book will help get you way into his cobwebbed, cracked mind. Quick eval: MY PRISON WALLS is a must if you’re a big GG fan, interesting if you’re a punk rock aficionado, and pretty engrossing for someone who maybe finds sadomasochistic anarcho-criminal narcissist performers or prison life (i.e. anyone who watches cable T.V.) fascinating.
The 20th anniversary of GG Allin’s overdose death was 2013, and that is when this limited edition was published which has GG’s prison memoirs all in one place. This 208-page hardcover is a numbered, limited edition “collector’s artbook” (there waa 2500 numbered copies printed) has letters, drawings, prose, and personal accounts of his time spent in the klink.
The book begins with 50 pages of scans of Allin’s handwritten “30 Days In The Hole” journal, and describes his first days in lock up. There’s also 40 pieces of art and prose, and correspondence with family members, convicted serial killer John Wayne Gacy, Jeff Clayton of ANTiSEEN, and others.
According to the publisher’s website after these 2500 copies have been sold the book will not be re-printed.
It’ll be gone like GG and his stain on the floor at The Brick.