by Lindsay Planer
The Fugs have long been associated with the literate and liberated denizens of the post-beatnik Greenwich Village. While their best-known recordings are the widely available Folkways Records sessions that were issued as the Fugs First Album and Fugs Second Album -- much of their legend and outrageous lore can be found on the lo-fi D.I.Y. long-player Virgin Fugs (1966). The indie avant-garde ESP-DISK label first unleashed the collective youthful exuberant ravings of Holy Modal Rounders' co-founders Peter Stampfel (guitar/fiddle/harmonica/vocals) and Steve Weber (guitar/vocals), alongside Tuli Kupferberg (tambourine/maracas/vocals), Ed Sanders (tambourine/maracas/vocals), Ken Weaver (drums/vocals), as well as Vinny Leary (guitar/vocals) and John Anderson (bass/vocals). The latter were picked up when Stampfel split. Likewise, his contribution of material to Virgin Fugs is limited to the decidedly anti-drug anthem &New Amphetamine Shriek.& With Kupferberg and Sanders at the helm, things continue further down the path of delights for the mind, body, spirit and (for those who need it) soul. &We're the Fugs& is the combo's unofficial musical charter and with an opening line that emphatically proclaims &We love grass/we love ass/we wanna hug her/we wanna bugger,& their message resounds unambiguously. Kupferberg concurs with Stampfel's views on hard drugs with the Benzedrine and morphine addicts ode &Hallucination Horrors.& Kupferberg also unleashes such pragmatic love songs as &Saran Wrap& and the potentially litigious &Coca Cola Douche& -- which had to be renamed simply &CCD& when it resurfaced on the Fugs at the Fillmore package Golden Filth (1968). Original versions of Kupferberg's modernization of &The Ten Commandments by God& and Sanders' interpretation of Allen Ginsberg's &Howl& which is recast as &I Saw the Best Minds of My Generation Rot& are among the other highlights on the only platter primal enough to be called Virgin Fugs.