THE DAWN OF THE SMELL; VOMIT WET KISS

(San Francisco)

The sun was setting over the San Francisco skyline, making a Hallmark-perfect postcard, just as my Toyota minivan crossed the Bay Bridge. My girlfriend at the time (long since departed) woke up at this moment, having slept through most of the boring journey up the I-5 from Los Angeles to San Francisco. I usually felt relieved driving across the bridge. It meant the dull drive was over and the fun would soon commence. This particular crossing, though, filled me with a vague dread, the roots of which I could only guess at.

I was playing in a rock ‘n’ roll band, and my van was packed to the gills with rock gear—amps, guitars, cords, pedals, and silly clothes. My girlfriend had come along figuring that since the band was only doing one show, we’d have the following day free to goof off in the city, seeing the sights and shopping. But she, like the couple of other people that tagged along on this particular outing, was also curious to see the underground star we were opening for, the notorious GG Allin.

The band I was in at the time was the Jeff Dahl Group, consisting of Jeff Dahl on guitar and vocals, Amy on lead guitar, and Del on drums, while I played bass and sang vocals. Dahl had been around for some time, singing lead in various popular underground punk rock bands with names like Angry Samoans, Vox Pop, and Powertrip. Now, he was fronting his own marginally successful independent recording group. This particular pilgrimage to the City by the Bay took place in 1987, and by then I’d known Jeff for about four years. We’d met in 1983 when I was the bass player of the campy death rock band 45 Grave, which featured members of Vox Pop, Jeff’s band at the time. He’d abandoned live performance and recording in the mid-eighties, got himself a respectable job in the tape library of Warner Bros. Records, bought a house in Woodland Hills—an upscale suburban area of the suburbs—and settled in with his wife, Sylvia, whom he’d married right out of high school.

By around 1986, Jeff had gotten the rock ‘n’ roll bug again. He started taking guys into the studio to make demos and singles and returned to doing local shows. I was tapped as the bassist, and I played with him for a solid three years. This trip to San Francisco was in the middle of my tenure. Even at that time, I knew the band wouldn’t last forever because Jeff was planning to sell his house and move to Phoenix. He’d begun to really hate L.A.—the crowds, the filth, the general animosity that buzzed through the air like a sixty-cycle electronic hum—and he was thinking about bailing out and moving on. Still, he was enthused about his ongoing recordings and shows at the time, and virtually ecstatic about the opportunity to open a show for one of his heroes, GG Allin.

Allin was lionized by many punk fans and underground music lovers who claimed he was the last true rock ‘n’ roll outlaw. It wasn’t exaggerated—Allin spent a large portion of his adult life behind bars for a variety of charges involving lewd conduct, violence toward fans, and public misconduct of almost every kind—the list goes on. He went to jail shortly after the San Francisco concert on what many said was a trumped-up charge involving sexual misbehavior with a groupie. Allin claimed she was a scorned fan who wanted sexual favors. When she got them, the cry of rape went up. Whatever the case, he spent three years in prison, which promoted him even further to martyrdom. He subsequently vowed to kill himself onstage upon his release. He also swore he’d take several audience members with him. This, coupled with the notoriety that already surrounded his stage show, guaranteed every performance would fill to capacity or more. Allin didn’t make good on his suicide promise. Instead, he ended up going out just like a regular rock chump, overdosing on heroin following a New York performance in 1993.

In 1987, GG really hadn’t yet reached the level of celebrity he would eventually attain prior to his death, when even mainstream publications like Spin and Creem were devoting considerable editorial space to his shenanigans. Still, he was notorious, reviled and revered, and this concert, held in a tiny watering hole called the Covered Wagon, would be filled way beyond a reasonable capacity.

Besides playing in bands and holding down a job in a music business PR firm where I hocked stories of mediocre metal bands to mediocre metal magazines, I also moonlighted as a rock critic, writing for magazines such as Rip, Creem, Metal, Music Connection, Billboard, and anyone else whose check would clear the bank. I received tons of promotional records and tapes for review. One that caught my attention a year or so earlier was Hated in the Nation, a collection of GG’s work. Fast, basic, and vile, Allin got under your skin with blunt songs like “Drink, Fight & Fuck” and “Needle Up My Cock.” His music, rude as it was, was surprisingly listenable, but it was his stage show that garnered him so much attention. Along with the Hated tape, I received a copy of a then recent live review of a GG show at The Cat Club in New York, culled from The Village Voice. The article described Allin stalking the stage, dressed only in a jockstrap and cowboy boots, smashing the microphone into his face until it formed a mask of blood. He would shove the mic up his butt and then into his mouth. He peed and shit all over the stage, throwing feces at hapless crowd members. According to the review, this all took place within his first song. By the end of his second song, he was physically evicted from the club. So it seemed to go at GG Allin shows, and following similar publicity across the country, these grotesque shenanigans were what the fans came to expect—and they shelled out good money to experience first hand.

I met up with the rest of the band at sound check at around 6:30 p.m., where we found that the Covered Wagon was reasonably preparing for GG. They had taken huge, industrial-strength garbage bags, slit them open, and used them to cover every inch of the stage, the wall behind the stage, and the sound booth—any area that could possibly be a target for Allin’s self-generated shrapnel. Dahl was running a well-tuned, professional rock ‘n’ roll machine, too, and we knocked through our sound check without a hitch, stashed our instruments, then hung around to see GG’s. A few minutes later, Allin entered, right off the Greyhound bus that brought him to San Francisco. He’s bearded and disheveled, strongly resembling the infamous 1969 LIFE magazine cover of Charles Manson—the same picture which is, as it turns out, painted on the back of Allin’s leather jacket.

Dahl immediately jumped up from the table where we were sitting to greet him. He’d met Allin years earlier at the notorious L.A. punk club Cathay de Grande, a hole-in-the-wall that had become home to bands too crude, ugly, and non-conformist to play the more upscale venues. Allin seemed cordial enough, shaking Dahl’s hand and smiling.

He and Dahl were working on logistics involving an Allin recording session set to take place in a week or so back in L.A. in which Dahl would co-produce and our band would provide backing tracks. At the time, Allin had no steady band—he toured Chuck Berry-style, by himself. He would send tapes ahead to each city he was booked to play, to local musicians he’d been set up with who would learn his songs, show up at the sound check and gig, and be his backing band for the night.

The local guys filling that position tonight were onstage, plugging things in, doing regular musician stuff, trying to look cool, but ultimately incapable of disguising their nervousness. Allin got onstage, shook hands with his temporary band, and launched into a perfunctory version of “Bite It, You Scum.” It sounded decent enough, and getting worked up, Allin suddenly jumped offstage and lurched through an Iggy Pop/Jim Morrison-style convulsion. (Keep in mind this was only a sound check.) The band, mouths gaping, stopped jamming and just stood there. Allin snapped to attention and begun hollering at them.

“No, no, no! Never, ever stop playing! No matter what I do, whether I’m singing or not, whatever I’m doing, you just keep playing the song. Okay?”

His rock ‘n’ roll spaz attack is merely a test for the band—if they can’t make it through that, they will surely have a heart attack when Allin begins unveiling his typical showstopping antics. They tried it again, and the band gets it right this time. Jeff and GG confabbed a little more, and then we all adjourned for pre-gig rituals. For us, this merely meant pizza. GG, as we would learn when we returned to the club, had a more specialized diet.

We all piled into my van and headed to Divisadero Street, looking aimlessly for a pizza joint that would please everyone. We spot the marquee above a place called Rocco’s, and it proudly proclaims, “Johnny Thunders eats here.” Thunders, late guitarist for the seminal New York Dolls, was a true rocker and a lifelong drug addict. He’s a hero to all concerned. We figured if it was good enough for Thunders, it was good enough for us. We entered Rocco’s, ordered a king size, and made moderate pigs of ourselves. Upon leaving, we walk out the door under the marquee, inadvertently turning the wrong way. When I look back up at the marquee, I notice that on the opposite side it reads, “William Burroughs eats here.”

“That’s just too weird,” I note. Thunders on one side and Burroughs on the other: the greatest junkie guitarist outside of Keith Richards and the greatest junkie author, both scarfing at the same San Francisco pizzeria. “What gives?” I say to myself. I had to find out.

“You’re the reporter,” shrugs Amy. “Get to the bottom of this great mystery.”

Upon re-entering, I approach and query the two gentlemen behind the counter. “What’s up with the sign out front, fellas?”

They begin smiling and laughing, extremely friendly, but they don’t answer me. “Gentlemen,” I try again, “what’s the deal with the marquee…the references to Burroughs and Thunders? Do you put China White in the pizza dough or something?”

Still, they laugh, smile, wave, nod, but no answers. They talk amongst themselves, straight-up Italian, and I realize they’re not comprehending my question. I begin to point. “The sign, guys. The sign. Why does it say what it says?”

“It’s always been, since before, since before we buy here. Since when this was ice cream store. You like, you like the sign?”

“Yes, the sign is good. Do you know what it means?”

Again, the blank, well-meaning smiles. I smile back, wish them well, thank them for the good pizza and inane conversation, and exit once more.

“Well?” Amy asks.

“They don’t know what it says, they think it’s about ice cream. They’re very happy about it, though.”

Upon returning to the Covered Wagon, we go behind the stage to some ramshackle office space that doubles as a microscopic backstage area on show nights. The club staff—which includes a soundman, lighting guy, door person, booking agent, waitress, and bartender—the nine members of the two bands, and ten or so band guests are all vying for standing room in this ten-foot-by-eight-foot office. Allin, in possession of a bizarre star-quality charisma (and well aware of it), is the center of attention. He quietly sits down at the office desk and begins his pre-gig eating regimen. Flanked by two groupies—one a spaced-out looking hippie-junkie and the other a dead-ringer for Marianne Faithfull at her 1965-most-gorgeous—the singer nonchalantly opens the wrappings of two huge, greasy cheeseburgers and begins eating them as if he's a trash compactor. He eats them one following the other, and, upon completion, washes the whole mess down with a full bottle of Crisco oil. His intention is obvious—the fans expect him to shit on stage, and they will get their money’s worth.

The feeling of dread I’d had a few hours earlier was becoming more ominous, but I shrug the whole debacle off as another phase of punk rock anarchy. I’m just a bass player. I needn’t concern myself with all of this too deeply. If some New Hampshire misfit wants to crap onstage while his two-hour old band rams through three-chord ditties and a room full of punters pay fifteen dollars for the privilege of observing this ceremony…hey, that’s cool. This is America, right?

A half hour later, around 9:30, we play a perfunctory thirty-five minute set of Dahl’s fast, hard-assed songs, tempered with the usual Dead Boys and Stooges covers that we all love so much. The crowd is appreciative, but toward the end of our turn, it is obvious they are getting antsy. Like us, they’ve heard the music, they’ve read the write-ups in the fanzines, but they’ve never actually seen a live GG Allin gig before—and they are beginning to get impatient.

Following our set, I move my huge, cumbersome SVT amp out of the way, when Allin, still dressed relatively normal, approaches Dahl and asks if his band can use Jeff’s guitar amps. Jeff agrees, but looks a little wary. He just got an endorsement from Carvin, a feat unheard of for a band even remotely connected to punk music, and this was the first gig he’d brought them to. They were brand new.

The Covered Wagon’s floor plan is a little awkward. There’s a tiny stage in the far corner of the room, which itself probably has only about a 120-person capacity. Directly stage left is a narrow door that leads back to the tiny office/dressing room, and to the left of that is a larger door that leads to the bar and an arcade. After our show, my girlfriend and I go into the bar, where I meet up with Alex, a long-time musician friend I’ve known from bands in my hometown of Riverside, California. Alex moved to San Francisco in the early eighties, and, freed from the neurotic control freak he called Mom, finally seemed happy. He showed up to visit me at the club with his fiancée in tow, and the four of us begin knocking back beer and updating each other on our lives.

During this socializing, Allin and his band hit the stage, blasting “Bite It, You Scum.” We raise the volume level of our conversation to talk over the music, but I begin to lose interest in reminiscing and become anxious to see GG in full flight. I walk over to the door that separates the bar and the concert room, which looks sideways at the stage. I stand on my toes, but can’t see a damn thing. The room is electrified with a sort of paranoid, negative energy, the air hanging like Louisiana humidity—heavy, sweaty, and dank. I know I need to see what’s going on as quickly as possible, as it’s already a good ten minutes into the show, and Allin’s performance probably won’t last much longer than that. I’m unable to press forward, as the whole club now is sardine packed, shoulder-to-shoulder.

“OOOOHH!” The cry goes up from the whole crowd, as the wall of people in front of me slam suddenly into reverse, backing quickly. “He’s throwing shit!!”

Basic confusion and nervousness seem to permeate the air, but my curiosity is still unchecked. A girl right next to me is standing on a chair she pulled from the bar. She yells down to me, “Hey, you want to see?”

I nod and step up onto the chair as she steps down. As my head rises above everyone else’s, I’m stunned by something I did not expect or even think about. Never mind what Allin’s act would look or sound like, I hadn’t taken into account the inevitable smell. It’s not so much an odor as an assault, an almost physical presence that literally knocks me back, causing me to momentarily lose my balance. The air is thick from sweat and heat. The smell of shit, piss, and vomit that hangs in that humidity is worse than any outhouse, barn, or slaughterhouse imaginable. It has other aspects and aromas unknown to me. I’m horrified, yet curiously spellbound at the same time. Even with the height the chair affords me I can’t really see GG, as he seems to be on the ground grappling with someone. Every so often his head appears amidst his band members, who are standing as far to the corners of the stage as possible. I finally catch a glimpse, his jockstrap pulled sideways revealing his mini dick (which many say was the root of his psycho behavior). His body is covered with red and brown smudges.

The audience is heated and angry, riled up by GG’s antics and clearly verging on a riot. The garbage bags, and Dahl’s brand new amplifiers which stood before them, are caked in a messy combination of shit and blood. The heat and the smell are unbearable—I feel myself getting slightly woozy, so I climb off of the chair and return to my friends. The show is over moments later.

Following the triumphant concert—no one is seriously hurt and Allin manages to avoid incarceration (although self-inflicted injuries from the show would require him to check into a hospital a few days later, and, for better or worse, force our planned recording session to be cancelled)—we wander back to the dressing room to see what kind of scene is going down. Allin, clearly exhausted but still up for partying, is reclining in the office chair, his face a myriad of blood, various other bodily fluids, vomit, and crap. The Marianne Faithfull look-alike perches herself on his lap, throws her arms around his neck, and sticks her tongue down his throat, giving him the conquering hero’s triumphant celebration smooch. Dahl and I, both big fans of the vintage Faithfull, stand there silently watching in awe. Dahl later titled our first LP together as a band after the incident: Vomit Wet Kiss.

Meanwhile, Del is packing up equipment in the quickly evacuating club. He’s always eager to get moving. I mostly had my gear stored already, and I was standing in the middle of the venue, surveying the carnage. Del tapped me on the shoulder, and pointed toward the front door where the hippie-junkie chick was skipping schoolgirl-style out of the club, carrying the case containing my Fender bass. We both bolt after her, and I catch up with her easily.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I shout, grabbing it roughly from her. She daintily clasps her hands to her mouth and begins giggling, then continues skipping down the street.

“She’s as high as a Mr. T kite,” laughs Del, shaking his head. I thank him for being observant and saving my axe, and we walk back to the Covered Wagon.

Back at our hotel, we all gather in my room and hang. Conversation naturally revolves around our bizarre evening. Amy and her friend Mary, who’d come along with us, driven by the same curiosity as everyone else, seem to be in a mild state of shock and disbelief. These are hardened punk chicks who’d thought they’d seen it all, but they weren’t quite sure what the hell they’d seen tonight.

“The weirdest thing of all, for me,” I say to no one in particular, “was that smell, that fucking smell. I can’t get it out of my head, I swear I can smell it right now!”

The guys all nod and the girls shriek, “Eeeiiiooow!”

It was like that for days. Every time I stopped to think about GG’s performance, I could smell that smell, that odor from the bowels of hell itself. It haunted me in a way. I know that sounds silly. Everyone’s smelled something unpleasant, I’m sure. Certainly anyone who’s ever changed a diaper, had to crap in the woods, gone to a Porta-John at a rock festival, or gotten hold of some bad guacamole has smelled foul fecal matter. It really isn’t a big deal, just part of the reality of being human. This pungency was different than all of that, though. It carried with it an additional weightiness, only amplified by the crowd-generated humidity. It was, I came to believe, the smell of anguish, self-immolation, hatred, lack of belief in anything, and disrespect for everything. It was the aroma of not just the product of the bowels, but the bowels themselves—the human body turned inside out. It’s what a soul smells like on its way to meet the devil himself. It was the Smell of Death: final, brooding, unforgiving, uncaring.

Not to be melodramatic or anything (not me!), but this smell, this feeling, and the underlying apprehension that accompanies it, is the essence of what is on the heels of every musician traveling on a low-budget van tour. It’s as if the modern independent econo-musician is stalked by specters: unnamable illnesses a step behind, venereal diseases to the right, psychosis, loneliness, and paranoia to the left. Dead ahead: a skanky bar in Any Town with Your Band’s Name on the tiny, battered marquee—misspelled.

Having recognized the admittedly over-analyzed odor as the calling card of the Grim Reaper himself, I acknowledged that fact and stored it away in my mind for future reference. Flash forward five and a half years and this knowledge would become a part of my daily reality for two and a half months—once again as a member of Jeff Dahl’s band—as I took part in a six-man expedition across Europe in a van designed to seat five.