The Foul Reason GG Allin Was Arrested In Austin
GG Allin was the type of punk rocker who could easily make the likes of Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious look like Wayne Newton. Born Jesus Christ Allin (no kidding) in Lancaster, New Hampshire, on August 29, 1956, the would-be punk provocateur had a troubled upbringing with a mentally unstable father, who was the one who insisted on naming him after the Messiah. Even as his mother changed his legal name to the far more normal-sounding Kevin Michael Allin, he faced bullying from his peers, and he and his older brother, Merle Jr., acted out by cross-dressing in school and committing petty crimes. Allin turned to music in high school, but it was through that music that audiences eventually found out how willing he was to push the boundaries.
Up until his death on June 28, 1993, at the age of 36, Allin went all-out onstage, antagonizing the audiences, getting into fistfights with crowd members, engaging in self-harm, and performing in a state of nudity or near-nudity. And while he was supposedly a nice guy offstage (via Vice), he was all about being as antisocial and misanthropic as possible as part of his stage persona. As such, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Allin got into some trouble with the law during his short and turbulent lifetime. And while it wasn't the only time it happened, here's the highly unusual — and gross — reason why he was arrested during a show.
Allin's on-stage pooping caught the attention of Austin police
Now there's nothing unusual about taking a shower after a long, sweaty night at a punk rock show. But if you were at a GG Allin show, you would have likely wanted to take multiple long baths because of his penchant for relieving himself on his audiences — not unlike that Brass Against incident from late 2021, but definitely not a one-off in Allin's case. He'd also take a dump onstage and throw his poop at concertgoers, and that was the exact reason why the law got involved following a chaotic show at the Cavity Club in Austin, Texas, on February 18, 1992.
According to the official arrest report, Allin's arresting officer initially responded to reports that a fight was taking place at the Cavity Club and that "a white male was on stage nude and was defecating" — no prizes if you correctly guess who that white male was. The officer immediately noticed that Allin was naked and bleeding from the forehead, and while being questioned, the controversial musician clarified that the on-stage pooping was part of his act, and so was his self-inflicted forehead wound.
Apparently, Allin wasn't the only source of chaos on that night, according to fellow musician Cris Burns. "This one punk rock guy was running up to all the cop cars, and he was peeing on the handles!" he told The Austin Chronicle. "An ambulance rolls up the street, and the show is over by this point. The EMTs and the cops take GG out and put him into the ambulance, like it was his private limo or something. And he rolls off."
An unexpected twist
Shortly after EMTs were dispatched to take GG Allin to the hospital, the arresting officer was informed that a young concertgoer wanted to press charges against Allin. The fan, a 20-year-old man named James Michael Harper, told police that Allin "threw feces at him, striking him [in] the head," as quoted on the arrest report. Apparently, that was enough for Austin's finest to head to the hospital where Allin was being treated. But as it turned out, he already had an outstanding arrest warrant in Michigan for parole violation and assault with a weapon. That's what ultimately got him booked, though the cops did make sure to warn Allin that "possible disorderly conduct charges could be filed on him in the future."
"We were expecting him to be released but found out Michigan had declared him in violation of his probation. It was probably the publicity from his arrest in Orlando that got him in trouble," Allin's friend Len Colby told The Austin Chronicle, referring to a very similar incident from November 1991 in which the singer also did a No. 2 onstage and threw his excrement at fans.
Allin and his backing band, the Murder Junkies, would return to Austin more than a year later, on May 18, 1993, but that time, the frontman knew what to do to avoid the long arm of the law — play some songs, disgust the audience, and get the heck out of Dodge after playing the last note.