The Fugs

The Fugs

The Fugs are a New York-based group formed in 1964 by Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg, with Ken Weaver on drums. Their early line-up expands in 1965 with the addition of Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber of the Holy Modal Rounders, and the band remains active into the present.

Style and early work

The Fugs develop from a DIY approach to folk rock into a more refined psychedelic sound. They are associated with beat poetry, folk rock, freak folk, garage rock, proto-punk and psychedelic folk, and their early work is often retrospectively linked to punk because of its raw, confrontational character. The band is known for satirical, self-parodying performances and for lyrics that deal openly with sex, drugs and politics.

Name and influences

The group takes its name from a euphemistic substitute for a taboo word used by Norman Mailer in The Naked and the Dead, a term borrowed by Kupferberg. The Fugs also appear in Mailer’s Armies of the Night, which includes a chapter on their performance at the 1967 march on the Pentagon during anti-Vietnam War protests, with Scott Rashap on upright bass.

Recordings and songs

Their 1968 Transatlantic Records album It Crawled Into My Hand, Honest helps bring them wider recognition in Europe. The album later appears in part as tracks 11 to 30 of Electromagnetic Steamboat. Among the better-known songs are an adaptation of Matthew Arnold’s poem “Dover Beach” and another setting of a William Blake poem.

Performances and later activity

The Fugs perform at protests against the Vietnam War across the United States. They play what is described as their final concert of the 1960s in 1969 at Hersheypark Arena in Hershey, Pennsylvania, alongside the Grateful Dead. The band reunites in 1984 for several shows at New York’s Bottom Line without Weaver, with Rashap added, and tours again in 2004 with Josh Lieberman playing glass armonica at some Chicago performances.