"Hey Mykel," says the voice on my answering machine, "Could you come over to the office for a minute? I've got this dead horse lying here. I need you to beat it."
I'm on the computer, playing with my...er...new graphics program. I stop when I recognize the voice of Neil Cooper, ROIR's CEO. I've known Neil for a long time. The Cooper family helped me start my business. Without the royalties on my other projects, I would have one less swimming pool and one size smaller Mercedes but Neil's a hard man to work for. He demands the impossible and demands it yesterday. When Neil calls, you come - if you value the integrity of your skeletal structure. I click the close-tab on nicehorse.jpg, zip my file and make my way over to ROIR headquarters. After putting my attache case through the X-Ray machine, I pass through the metal detector, hang my hat on the moosehead and enter Neil's office.
"Hello Mykel, nice to see you," he says as your dentist might. "I've got another idea for a project."
"Don't tell me," I answer. "You want to do another one of those CD release parties. I still ache form the last one. I don't think I can get another mule."
"No," he says, "Nothing like that. I want to do another GG Allin CD. I want new stuff - that nobody's heard."
"But GG's dead," I say. "Everyone knows GG's dead. How're you gonna get new stuff from a dead guy?"
"I know it's a challenge," he says, "But I have faith in you. Besides, I know where your parents live." He smiles.
"OK Neil," I say, "I'll get you a CD."
"I knew you would, Mykel." He answers with a wink and a nod.
When I return to my apartment, I call my parents in the old-age home.
"Yes, Mykel,"says mom, "Everything is fine. We met that nice young man with the black shirt and white tie. He told me what good friends you two are and how nobody was going to get hurt. I like that...when nobody gets hurt."
"Sure Ma," I say. "Nobody's going to get hurt."
I'm on the phone. "Look Merle," I tell him. "You being GG's brother and keeper of the records and all that, I gotta come up with new material."
"Why don't you do a live CD?" He asks.
"GG is dead!" I shout at him. "Dead, get it. D-E-A-D. Dead!"
"Mykel, Mykel, Mykel," says Merle, "Calm down. This is the twenty-first century. It is the age of video, DVDs, and Jam Cams, you know. Nobody is dead in the twenty-first century."
"Yes!" I say, catching his drift, snapping my metaphorical fingers. "Of course, we'll do a CD from GG shows. But isn't everything done?"
"No Mykel," says Merle. "All that Murder Junkies stuff has been done to death but there's a big gap in the late 80's. Nobody has those shows. I've got 'em on video. People write to me all the time to ask for CD's. There aren't any. Sure, there's a couple studio CD's, but nothing live."
"I want it!" I tell him. "I want it."
"Well the sound quality isn't so hot..." he starts.
"Quality shmality!" I say, "This is GG! We can clean the sound up a bit in the studio, but we don't need clean. People who want clean listen to Oasis."
"OK Mykel," He says. "Come on over and we'll see what we can dig up."
So Merle and I go over the tapes. There's not too much. GG rarely got very far before the cops showed up - or at least the club pulled the plug. The only show close to complete is one with the Holymen at the Lismar Lounge in 1987. The show was right after the famous debacle at the Cat Club. There, GG was thrown off stage, onto the street, clothed only in a jockstrap and his own shit. Somehow he managed to get a cab. R.J. Smith, in a scathing review in the Village Voice, compared the show to watching someone get hit by a car. In tribute to that show, GG starts his Lismar performance with the words, "Welcome to the Cat Club."
There are also a few pieces from other shows. Merle had a tape of a fun show in Minneapolis with the Fuckin' Shit Biscuits. He also had a copy of a cable TV show George Tabb did featuring GG. I used both.
"Here's something," says Merle, picking up a video box and blowing the dust into my face.
I look at the box, The Dee Dee Sessions. Merle sticks the cassette into the player. Yes! There's GG Allin playing with the Murder Junkies, but the bass player is Dee Dee Ramone! Holymen shit!
"Has this stuff ever been out?" I asked.
"Just on video," says Merle. "But the vocals are crappy. Unintelligible."
"Merle! This is GG Allin!" I'm shouting at him again. "People don't want to understand the words. They want to hear the inside of GG's colon as the microphone finds its way up and twists around."
"Whatever you say, Mykel," says Merle, handing me the box. "You might want to mention that Dee Dee was wearing a dress during this whole thing."
I don't think it's a dress. It looked more like a kilt to me. But to please Merle, I'm mentioning it.
So off I go to check out the tapes, timing, listening. Into the studio to see what we can fix. Bringing GG back from the grave. When I get it all on DAT, I bring it to the ROIR offices.
Neil sits there, weighing the packages, examining them, holding them in his hands like they were my balls. Merle's there too. He's a full partner now, though I'm sure Neil does not want to deal with his family.
"What are we gonna call this Mykel?" he asks.
"How about Back From The Grave?" I suggest.
"Naw," says Merle, "That's what the guy who doesall the sixties re-releases calls his stuff."
"How about Resurrected?" I suggest. "That way we can keep the same theme."
"How about Res-Erected?" says Neil. "Then we could have a little GG inside with a pop-up penis."
"That'd be a pretty small project," says Merle.
"How 'bout a pop-up GG, coming out of a coffin?" I ask. As of this writing, I still don't know the final plan. But Res-Erected it is.
So you hold in one hand, the only CD of GG live during the Holymen times. I have no idea what you hold in the other hand. But this is it. GG live. Recorded first on video-tape. It's raw as GG. You wouldn't want it any other way, would you?
Mykel Board, August 1999
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