Performer who defecated on stage and threw feces at audience blasts jury
The public defender for Kevin (G.G.) Allin says he will appeal the rock singer's conviction on disorderly conduct charges stemming from a 1989 performance in which Allin defecated on stage, hurled feces at the audience and simulated sex acts.
Public defender Peter Goldberg said he would appeal the verdict, reached Thursday by a jury in Milwaukee County Circuit Court, because he believed the law used to convict Allin was too broad and did not recognize constitutional developments over the past 35 years.
Allin, however, was not concerned with legal niceties. In remarks to reporters after the verdict was announced, he said of the jury:
"They're just a bunch of narrow-minded, robotic puppets of society. They were just a bunch of old women. They looked like my dead grandmother."
Circuit Judge John DiMotto set sentencing for Sept. 13. Allin faces a maximum possible penalty of 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Allin, 34, who never testified during the three-day trial, said he felt that through its verdict the jury "is trying to kill rock and roll, but they can't do it."
He proclaimed himself "the king of underground rock and roll," adding that "I've been doing this stuff for 13 years and I'm going to keep on doing it."
Allin, of Ann Arbor, Mich., who told police after he was arrested that he planned to kill himself in 1990, renewed the threat Thursday, saying he would "commit suicide on stage on Oct. 31, 1992, as a sacrifice to rock and roll."
Questions Of Criminality
Goldberg, in his closing statement to the jury, insisted that prosecutors failed to show that Allin had committed a crime during his performance Feb. 28, 1989, at a South Side club, because there was no evidence that anyone who watched his show had a negative reaction to it.
People in the audience, he said, "were there by choice. They were laughing and cheering. At worst, some people were put off by it and left, but there was no disturbance, no disorder. In fact, the owner of the bar said they loved it."
Goldberg read the lyrics of the songs Allin sang during his performance, saying that they demonstrated his anger and efforts to flout authority. He claimed that the performance was "in the tradition of the avant-garde in art," and that it was "intended to provoke, to make you think."
Asst. Dist. Atty. Michael Steinhafel said that Goldberg's argument that Allin's performance was art was beside the point.
"So it's art," Steinhafel said. "It's also a crime."
He said the state was "not prosecuting his songs or his lyrics or his personal beliefs. We're prosecuting his conduct. Was his conduct abusive and indecent? Absolutely."
Steinhafel also said that despite Goldberg's argument that club patrons enjoyed the performance, the videotape of Allin's performance showed that after Allin defecated on the stage, he complained because people weren't watching and doubted if he should go on because he felt people in the audience "weren't into it."
"We are an organized society and there are levels of decency," Steinhafel said. Allin's action, he said, "crossed the line."
Mark Ward
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