The Fugs: Tenderness Junction and It Crawled Into My Hand, Honest
Mick Houghton, Uncut, February 2011
Underground, overground: two subversive major label salvos from New York's folk-punk-poets. Of their time, sure, but still worth yours.
For an underground band, in their lifetime, The Fugs made impressive inroads into the mainstream. By February 1967, founder member Ed Sanders had been on the cover of Life magazine (HAPPENINGS: THE OTHER CULTURE!), their friend and associate Allen Ginsberg had written their liner notes, and The Fugs been asked to perform on the Johnny Carson show. Yet todays it's a pretty determined countercultural explorer who has even heard the band. How did we arrive at this state of affairs? Who were The Fugs, and why was everyone talking about them?
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