Friday, June 29, 2012

Yep, another GG Allin post....



Well, thanks to fellow GG fan of mine (and believe me, they're few and far between), I was lucky enough to get hooked up with a great CD of interviews, radio clips, and spoken word poetry (?) from the ol' scumfuc. Starting off the journey is a postmortem interview with Merle (maybe around '95?) talking about the then-current state of the Murder Junkies as well as some timeworn reminiscing about playing music with his brother. Merle is a surprisingly nice, chatty, no-nonsense guy who tells it like it is and his candid commentary about GG is really something to hear. Following that we have a radio interview with the Geeg on the day before his infamous spoken word performance at the Primal Plunge in Boston in May '89. As opposed to the angry, rambling, self-destructive drunk he is later in the night, GG comes across pretty coherently - even intelligently. Next is some random poetry, nothing most fans haven't heard before (maybe from the Occult Records 10" release in the mid 90's?) tailed by an interview with BBQ Joe Young from ANTiSEEN talking about GGs experience with the Morton Downey Jr. Show (as well as the show which would evetually become the Carolina In My Ass record). A radio show from Chicago detailing the Odd Rock Cafe clusterfuck is next. At times it becomes annoying simply because you're just listening to generic morning show guys banter (and when GG actually calls in he can't stop swearing so they cut him off the air) but it's interesting as a piece of nostalgia. They actually get GG in the studio later but once again the guy can't keep from dropping f-bombs so he's kept behind the window and interviewed remotely. Wrapping up the CD is a great phone conversation with (and taped by) Merle while GG sits in a hospital after getting blood poisoning from the Live And Pissed San Francisco gig. Really cool stuff to hear, all his posturing and public image goes out the window - it's just two brothers shooting the shit. Easily the highlight. Wrapping it all up is another radio interview, this time with a Staten Island station. Most of the conversation focuses on GG's contract with Homestead Records (it seems to have been recorded right around when Freaks, Faggots, Drunks & Junkies came out) and it rambles a bit but is still very listenable. All in all, a great snapshot into the life of the struggling scumfuc during the late 80's. Thanks LJ. Enjoy.

12/24/14 update: My fileserver has lowered its maximum file size so I had to split the original .zip into two archives.

Part I                                                               Part II


Currently watching: The Grey
Currently listening to: Supuration The Creeping Unknown

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Kielbasa



Caught the "D" at the Fillmore in Charlotte, NC last night and they fucking killed. Played a bunch of new tunes from their current Rize Of The Fenix album (but no "39".... why?!?!) and a nice sampling of the old shit to keep the old schoolers happy. Jack Black is one crazy fuck; watching that guy's shirt just get wetter and wetter with sweat over the hours was hilarious. Your indie cred is back my man, thanks for a great fucking night.


Currently watching: The House On Haunted Hill
Currently listening to: Birth Of Depravity The Coming Of The Ineffable

Monday, June 25, 2012

Fucking best job I ever had...



Quick story about me... most of my highschool years weren't spent getting drunk at house parties or in my parent's basement - they were spent getting drunk at an old school strip mall New Jersey pizza shop that was kind enough to hire my scrawny 14-year old ass as a part-time errand boy. Although the place violated nearly every foodservice standard out there, it consistently churned out some amazing chow and to this day I still use their recipes when I try to cook Italian for the family. And while my years of tenure there included dealing with hordes of drunks (including my bosses at times), fights, cops, mafiosos, junkies, and a couple shell-shocked 'Nam vets to spice up the mix it also totally created the functionally drunk workaholic I am today. Sadly the shop closed down in the mid-90's. In hindsight it was probably a good thing - the close forced me out of my employment safe zone (i.e. rut) and sent me somewhat towards my current career path as well as life in general. But long story short, easily my best memories I have of the place are the guys who I worked with, all just trying to keep the place afloat day after day with absolutely no guidance whatsoever. One of those guys, "TH" was a crazy fucker who absolutely loved comic thrashers Scatterbrain, especially the "Mr. Johnson And The Juice Crew" tune. Man, the hours his cassette chewed up on that shitty kitchen stereo. The song popped on my iPod shuffle the other day and I was instantly transported back 20 years ago to days being coated in a yellowish paste of flour and oil, drunk and watching porn while chopping up a 100 lb. ball of pizza dough; all by 10:00 am on a Tuesday. Good times.


 
Currently watching: Divine Trash
Currently listening to: GG Allin You Give Love A Bad Name

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Put Your Boobs On...



These days on the ol' internet it's rare to have an actual "rarity." Most of the time it's just leeching off one blog after another vainly trying to showcase something a little different then the rest. With that being said I present Ween's 2000 demo Long Beach Island. Evidently recorded to cassette then promptly stolen from Deaner's car, the abducted tape contained a few embryonic tunes which would eventually make their way onto White Pepper as well as a some other tracks destined to wallow in the unreleased limbo that Ween fans obsess over. "Back To Basom," "The Grobe," "Bananas And Blow" and "Baroque Jam 3" (otherwise known as "Ice Castles") made the Elektra cut. As for the other obscure-ish flotsam? Here they are in no particular order or bitrate, these are mp3s as good as I could scrounge from the online wastelands. Enjoy, my boognish brethren.

 
Currently watching: Mulholland Dr.
Currently listening to: Black Flag Family Man

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Allin Anecdotes



The one or two people who read this blog may remember my mention of legendary Connecticut record label TPOS and their affable owner Malcolm Tent. One of the few underground punk New Englandahs back in the 80's that willingly distributed GG Allin's über-rare shit, Malcolm got together with Swedish Scum Records in 2000 to document his dealings with GG and fellow punk poet Brian Douglas Clemons. For those who don't know, Malcolm was the gutsy soul who filmed the infamous 20$ Poem video featuring a young GG beating the shit out of Brian in the freezing upstate snow while the young scribe recites his strangely beatnik nihilism. The blood, urine and spit flow freely yet the drunken arm-in-arm hanging-out afterward session is the real hoot. Malcolm humorously reminisces about filming the whole thing from a safe distance and letting the "artists" drive the boat. He also shares some commentary on GG's stomp up to TPOS's hometown of Danbury, CT a year later as well as his take on Allin's cancelled 1991 NYU spoken word gig. Finally, there's a couple bootlegged (?) bonus tunes: "Dead Flowers" from the live Inside Outside 7" and "Layin' Up With Linda" from the TPOS 7" of the same name. For what it's worth there's a (defunct?) webpage from the Swedish Scum record label which has a few extra interviews and some links to similar material - enjoy the search...

 
Currently watching: Sharktopus
Currently listening to: Jedi Mind Tricks Violent By Design

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Keepin' it on the sludge tip...



Still shell-shocked in the post-Ween era I've found it somewhat soothing to listen to miserable shit that makes my pussy whining sound like it's coming from a fucking three year old. Enter Mistress, a sludgy 5-piece formed by members Anaal Nathrakh playing some dirty downtuned shit in the vein of Eyehategod and Iron Monkey. I've actually had a bunch of their stuff for a while but it took me a long time to look them up on the ol' iPod simply because of the connection to the aforementioned Anaal Nathrakh - a band that I just simply do not like. Not only were they the most overrated group of the mid-2000's, upon reading that they were "the soundtrack to a new apocalypse" I excitedly grabbed The Codex Necro and was instantly stunned by an incredibly tiring blastbeat quasi-industrial screamfest which got very dull very fast. But enough about them, Mistress set the record straight. 2003's Mistress II: The Chronovisor is easily the band's most solid work, sick sludge teetering on the cusp of grindcore. Way too much feedback, gain, and tape hiss, the album fucking kills - the 12-minute "38" is the ideal tune to hole up and drink yourself to an early death with. Sadly, Mistress called it quits in 2008 (to allow for more Nathrakh time... ugh!), I strongly advise you to track down their other albums - awesome shit!



Currently watching: Scalps 
Currently listening to: Faith No More We Care A Lot

Boognish, we hardly knew ye...



It's been a few days since Aaron Freeman announced he is "retiring" Gene Ween, and the news still hasn't sunk in. Ween was probably the most influentially important band in my life (especially throughout my drug-addled 20's) and to acknowledge their end is really like the passing of a friend. Of course the internet pundits are already speculating on reunion gigs and to be honest, the band hadn't recorded a whole lot since Quebec that I thought was up to earlier standards but it was still Ween mang and it was still better than most of the other stuff in any other genre coming out at the time. Ween played a soundtrack to my life for so many days, weeks and months...whether sitting up throughout the nights, coked off my ass, playing guitar to the entire God Ween Satan album for hours, driving to Florida (14 hours) to my grandad's funeral with only 12 Golden Country Greats in my CD player or taking my new girlfriend (and current wife) to see them on tour for the first time and watching her face turn from "what the fuck are these guys doing?" to "holy fuck! what are these guys doing!" There will never be another band like them. Seems fitting that some archived material from bassist Dave Drewitz's old side band Instant Death was upped on Ween's forum yesterday, seven tracks from an unreleased 2004 EP called Egyptian Mystery School. In honor of Scott Byrne's posthumous 51st birthday. Enjoy dudemangs.


Currently watching: Sanctum
Currently listening to: Gnod Three Sticks A Penny