The FugsRezensionen

The sleeve notes were written by Allen Ginsberg and contain these perennial yet prescient lines: “Who’s on the other side? People who think we are bad. Other side? No, let’s not make it a war, we’ll all be destroyed, we’ll go on suffering till we die if we take the War Door.” I found on the Internet the text for a newsprint ad for the Fugs, who, coupled with the Velvet Underground, played the April Fools Dance and Models Ball at the Village Gate in 1966. The F.B.I. had them on the books as “the Fags.” This was surely one of the most lyrically explosive underground bands ever. Not the greatest musicians in the world, but how “punk” was all that? Tuli Kupferberg, Fugs co-writer and performer, in collaboration with Ed Sanders, has just finished the new Fugs album as I write. Tuli is 80 years old.