Friday, October 7, 2011

Live Fast Die Fast



As if followers to this blog couldn't tell, I was a pretty big fan of ol' GG Allin back in the day. I don't know what it was like for the rest of his limited audience in the mid-80's; but for me, being a GG fan was a really personal, introverted thing. I didn't know anyone (even remotely) who'd heard of the guy and the few friends whom I interested with his profanity-laden lyrics steered clear when they actually heard the music. I got all the weird looks and heard all the comments raging from "dude, this isn't even music" (this coming from a guy who thought the musical world peaked with Boston in 1976) to "how do you get off listening to this awful rape rock?" (thanks mom). Taking the NJ Transit into the city to catch his occasional show was a fucking lonely rite of passage, it's not like you're gonna make any new pals sitting around in a dark club at one AM waiting for a guy to smear shit on himself. As the 80's ended it was painfully irritating as the 2 Live Crew controversy raged via evening news as if those Miami boys had really broken some boundaries... I would stare at the endless MTV coverage and be like "so???" Wow, putting porno to music - who gives a shit. I gotta give Luke Skyywalker credit though - at some point in his Banned In The USA videotape (kudos to my bro for stealing that shit from Sam Goody) he actually comments how preposterous the furor over his music is when you got some bands singing about "sticking crosses in nuns private parts and shit" - an obvious nod to GG's "Stick A Cross Up A Nun's Cunt" from his watershed Suicide Sessions. Look at the big brain on Luke! Regardless, I amassed a pretty sweet collection of GG stuff back then (long since sold to buy beer) so I started compiling a fanzine in the style of Bloody F. Mess's inspirational Hated In The Nation zines. It was slow going trying to piece everything together, after quite a bit of work I had something like six pages. And then GG got arrested, and arrested again, and Hated came out, and then he died. Within a short 3 years GG became as mainstream as the Dead Kennedys, opening up a waterfall of media coverage (imagine what his trial would have been like today with 24-hour news channels - sheesh) and great fodder for a zine. All of a sudden I had a 36-page volume called Live Fast Die Fast which was thankfully picked up by GG's pal Skeeter for distribution. I recently found the master templates (including 2 pages which have never been seen before) so I decided to scan them in for posterity's sake and make a PDF. Some pages came out great while others reek of my frantic obsession with filling up space - regardless of chronology. And my little blurbs are kinda retarded but basically hold the whole thing together (interesting to note how through some of the mag GG wasn't dead yet so I use the present tense - weird) so I'm not that embarassed to offer it up to all you sick fuckers. Enjoy.
 
Currently watching: Frenzy
Currently listening to: Shit Happiness Chords

10 comments:

Czar Nicholas said...

GG invokes some harsh reactions in people; personally, I take that as a sign you're doing something right. I remember being shit-hammered one night, struggling to explain to my mom (who was also drunk) about the merits of GG. I'm pretty sure she thinks I am a total retard for having any sort of admiration for someone who rolled around in shit and broken glass. Parents just don't understand, I guess.

winston95 said...

Amen to that - and I think GG could have only really existed during the little window he had in music history. It would be interesting to see what the world would think of GG these days with all the media/social network overexposure. Would his antics just be lost in the haze of Jackass clones on YouTube? How shocking would his music have been against the hundreds of tardcore/porngrind bands already on a hundred blogs on the web? Being a true DIY was so much more laborious back then, the fact that he consistently recorded and sold records for 15 years says something about the guy. I'm glad I was a part of it.

ace said...

this file is no longer available to download. would you please be willing to re-upload it? this just became my new favorite blog.

winston95 said...

Re-uploaded the zine - enjoy while you can!!!

Anonymous said...

another re-up?

winston95 said...

Re-upped! Enjoy the sleaze...

Anonymous said...

Any chance of another re-up?

winston95 said...

Third re-up is a charm. Enjoy.

Johnny Lee Ray said...

Please, re-upload!

winston95 said...

Here ya go Johnny. I still have a few legit copies boxed away if you ever feel like owning a real ish but for now enjoy the PDF.