The Haze is sadly missed.

I knew Hasil pretty well at one point. He was really into his wine, so I was often tasked with going to fetch him some from SA. At that time, Ward's Donuts was open and you could buy hot dogs at 2 AM... so Hasil was in hog heaven. The Late, Great, John Kerwood (who owned Gumby's) absolutely revered Hasil and used to drive into Boone County to pick him up (The Haze drank too much to ever drive). He said that getting Hasil to the gigs on time was always an adventure!

My old band Fuzzbucket used to open for him whenever he played Huntington, and he never failed to win over an audience with his weird one-man-band routine. The weirdest gig I ever saw was a double bill featuring The Haze and GG Allin's band (GG died a few months later). GG performed nude, and kept shoving SM57 microphones up his arsehole, which made them stop working (much to Kerwood's chagrin).

Ah, college days.

What gives the SM57 the reputation of a workhorse? Maybe the fact that the Shure SM57 is versatile in application, durable, and reliable. It has been used by the President of the United States for the past 30 years, and put to the test on stage and on tour by artists such as Stewart Copeland, AC/DC, and the Stone Temple Pilots, as well as famed producer Daniel Lanois, to name a few. It can be dropped down six flights of stairs then dunked in a glass of water and still perform like it just came out of the box (please don't try this at home).

I guess versatile has its limits.

Several times during the show, the guitarist would say (in an kind of embarrassed way), "GG needs a new microphone..."

Kerwood: "Jesus! NOT ANOTHER ONE!"

The only song I remember clearly from that set was called "I'm A Motherfucker." It was simple and direct.

My friend Barlow thought it'd be a good idea to invite GG and his band to stay at his place. Bad idea.

He woke up in the morning (after a night of hard drugs) to find everything gone. Groceries, silverware, crockery, bedding, microwave... EVERYTHING.

My 30 second GG Allin encounter is so tame; I'm embarrassed. I met him at a party in Charleston, right after a show he did (that I missed) and right before about every cop in Charleston showed up to let us all know how dangerous we were, goddamn freaky looking punk kids. So I said, "Hey," and he said, "Hi, lady," or something along those lines and kind of smiled and then we all had to run away and that was it, that was the sum total of my amazing punk rock encounter with the legendary GG Allin.

I talked to him after the set, MGL, because he was wearing this amazing hand-painted leather coat. I've never seen anything like it... he said it was a gift from a fan.

He was very quiet and polite offstage, which was odd. He seemed well-educated and kind of shy. I didn't realise it was him until we were five minutes into the conversation. I assumed that he would've been deep in the bowels of Gumby's, shooting up. Instead, he was sitting (fully-dressed (with a hat on) which is what I didn't recognise him) at the bar, alone.

My wife got obsessed with gg after I told her stories about him, and after she watched Hated, she somewhere found his brother Merle's address and phone number. So she called him. He was delighted to hear from a fan, sent her all sorts of gg memorabilia, and engaged her in a correspondence that continues to this day.

We send a Christmas card every year to Merle Allin. He always writes back. Weird, huh?

I imagine that he misses his brother :-(

So chuck, is this you with the cool axe, or some other band by the same name?

Nope, that's some other band called Fuzzbucket. Our band broke up years ago, and, erm, I don't look anything like that. For starters, I'm pretty sure that dude is black.