Life in the Trenches

Some of his earliest recorded musical endeavors were as a drummer. At high school, he had a penchant for provocative theatrics early on. At one early gig (a high school dance), he pulled down the decorations and everyone cheered. One early gig even started a riot. He wrote two songs with the band Malpractice in 1977 and also played drums on the single ("Galileo"/"Jesus Over New York") for the band Stripsearch in 1981.

His first years as a frontman were with the Jabbers (1977 – April of 1984). The Jabbers recorded a number of tracks for which Allin played drums and performed vocals. Out of these years came Allin's debut release, Always Was, Is, And Always Shall Be. At the time, Allin was a standard punk rock frontman in the vein of Iggy Pop and Stiv Bators. He was even managed at one point by industry veteran (and Dead Boys producer) Genya Ravan. Tensions within The Jabbers began to mount as Allin became increasingly uncontrollable, vicious, and uncompromising. The Jabbers discontinued, and the members parted ways. Allin's drug use started during this period.

Between the early to the late 1980s, Allin fronted many acts. These included early albums varying from The Cedar Street Sluts to The Scumfucs in 1982, and The Texas Nazis in 1985. However, Allin remained in the underground punk scene and was not yet a viable punk icon of the east coast punk scene. On March 13, 1986, a daughter was born to Allin and Tracy Deneault. Little is known about the child, Nicoann Deneault. It has been speculated that the small picture in GG's left hand at his funeral may be of Nicoann, though it most likely a picture of a very young GG Allin [5] [6]. Tracey Deneault and GG never married. Tracey was a teenage girl Allin took up with when his wife, Sandra Farrow - his childhood sweetheart and a model, divorced him. Allin retreated to a cabin in New Hampshire where he wrote what he considered to be his first "masterpiece", Eat My Fuc.

Though still a marginal figure, Allin first came to wider attention with the release by Reachout International Records (ROIR) of Hated In The Nation (1987), a cassette-only release at the time, which contained several tracks from Allin's then-out-of-print back catalogue with The Jabbers, The Scumfucs and Cedar Street Sluts. The tape also featured several new recordings, both in-studio and in-concert, with an all-star band assembled by producer, Maximum RocknRoll columnist, and early Allin patron Mykel Board. This band featured J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. on lead guitar, and Bongwater producer/musician Mark Kramer on bass.