This release, or rather the ROIR cassette version, was my introduction to this shit-stained luminary that should require no introduction. I remember listening to this tape and feeling as if I was really doing something wrong (later Bathory would take that role). I understand that G.G. is a most polarizing entity and I've spent many a drunken night trying to articulate why he was an important figure in rock 'n roll history and why he should be remembered as such. First and foremost, G.G. brought real danger and unpredictability back to rock, he was more manimal than Darby, more venomous than the Pistols, and far more dangerous than N.W.A. He was the closest thing to a De Sade-style libertine the twentieth century would ever see. He was 120 days of Sodom and punk rock. He was outlaw like David Allan Coe, and he was far more frightening to your button-down suburban mom than a whole Senate hearing full of Dee Sniders and Blackie Lawlesses. Of course there were the rape allegations, and his detractors will decry his treatment of women, G.G.'s hatred and rage knew no gender. He turned his every fiber into a weapon, his body, his art, his everything. G.G. vowed to kill himself on stage in 1989, he also promised to take some of the audience with him. Unfortunately, G.G. died less ceremoniously of a heroin overdose in 1993 in a dingy New York City apartment. He was alone. When I heard of his death I was not only saddened, but disappointed that his dream of committing the ultimate transgression, and dying in an orgy of violence (see the end of Passolini's Salo) went unfulfilled, but then I recalled a lyric from his acoustic ballad "When I Die": "When I die you don't have to feel no feelings inside." It's as if in some post-mortem moment of bronevolence (I made that word up) he relieves us of our hackneyed emotions. G.G. is telling us to move on and not worry about him. Of course it is this more sensitive G.G. that appears on his very personal acoustic recordings that most interest me, but Hated In The Nation, as I stated before, was my indoctrination into the cult of G.G. Allin, so it remains another personal favorite, rife with nostalgia and wonder. If you are one of those squeamish candy-assed sugar beets that hated him before, this will do little to change your mind. However, if you are completely unfamiliar with his recorded output, Hated In The Nation is an excellent jumping off point.
