|
Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZFUGS, TheA rock theatre phenomenon of the 1960s. The ringleaders were poets Ed Sanders (b 17 August 1939; published literary journal Fuck You) and Tuli Kupferberg (jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and survived in Allen Ginsberg's Howl; it was actually the Manhattan Bridge). Kupferberg (b Naphtali Kupferberg, 28 September 1923, NYC; d there 12 July 2010) was actually old enough to have been a beatnik, but he preferred the term 'bohemian'. They became hippy-era satirists with drummer Ken Weaver, the varying group personnel including Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber, later of the Holy Modal Rounders. They ran off-off-Broadway for over 900 performances, and played at the famous March on the Pentagon in 1967. Their first album The Village Fugs Sing Ballads of Contemporary Protest, Points of View and General Dissatisfaction on Broadside was reissued as First Album '65 on the pioneering ESP label, followed by Virgin Fugs '65 and Indian War Hoop '66 (with playwright Sam Shepard on drums); ESP out-takes were on Fugs 4, Rounders Score '75. They switched to Reprise for Tenderness Junction and It Crawled Into My Hand, Honest '68, The Belle Of Avenue A '69 and Golden Filth '70 (recorded at one of their last shows in '68: 'best tune was written by William Blake under the romantic sway of a lesbian troll'). Sanders made solo albums on Reprise Sanders' Truckstop '72 (whether parody of or a departure from country rock depends on the listener) and Beer Cans On The Moon (including a song about a robot in love with Dolly Parton). His are 'dirty jokes at their most divine' (quotes from Robert Christgau). Sanders also wrote best-selling The Family about the crimes and trial of Charles Manson; Kupferberg became a cartoonist (selling his work in the street) and director of the Revolting Theatre Company. Among his books was 1,001 Ways to Live Without Working. Their music was reminiscent of early Velvet Underground, their comedy of Lenny Bruce, both of Frank Zappa's early Mothers of Invention; their shambolic performance should have been an influence on punk rock, but the punks pretended to have no antecedants, and anyway were not good at comedy. Kupferberg and Sanders re-formed '85 and periodically; Songs From A Portable Forest and No More Slaves were later albums. Keeping up with the technology in the new century, Kupferberg had completed parts for a new recording, Be Free: The Fugs Final CD (Part Two), and was posting ribald 'perverbs' on YouTube.
|