The Fugs – The Fugs First Album

Part jug band, part freak folk, part psychedelic rock, part Allen Ginsburg-esque Beat poetry, part rhythm-and-blues-experimental-garage-protopunk rock, The Fugs instantaneously defied all that was known and believed to be true about music when they hit the scene in the mid 60s. Before The Fugs First Album was released in 1965 on ESP-Disk, it was briefly released as The Village Fugs Sing Ballads of Contemporary Protest, Points of View, and General Dissatisfaction on Folkways Records. If this original album title is not enough to help define who they are and what they do, imagine chaotic and raunchy music played with traditional, nontraditional and self-created instruments played with little or no care for rhythm or harmonization. This album is raunchy, disorganized, self-imposing and at times can barely be described as music. Yet, it’s beautiful. The Fugs’ complete defiance of all socially accepted norms surrounding rock ‘n’ roll music is bewildering at first; however the deeper down the rabbit hole you are willing to travel with the band, the more pleasantly refreshing the album becomes. Take for example, the song “Carpe Diem:” at first several vocalists appear to be horrifically out of step with one other. At times, it’s almost as if three different people are singing three songs all on top of each other. The song lacks anything that could be described as harmony by contemporary pop standards; however, by the second or third listen, the song begins to reveal its own system of harmonization that puts the focus on the content of the song rather than the delivery. Ultimately, The Fugs are just as much poets as they are musicians. With clear ties to the British Romantic poetry movement of the late 1700s and early 1800s, the band wanders into a prehistoric version of spoken word with little or no assistance from musical instruments. For example “Ah! Sunflower, Weary of Time” is a recitation of William Blake’s poem with the addition of new lyrics set to minimal guitar and tambourine sounds. While The Fugs can be soft and poetic with renditions of Beat and Romantic poetry, they can also be raunchy with in-your-face numbers like “Boobs a Lot” and “Nothing.” Whereas “Boobs a Lot” is sexual, vulgar and purposely over the top, “Nothing” is a disturbing yet magically beautiful psychedelic Nihilistic chant about a full range of nothingness. The Fugs would go on to produce quite a few more experimental freak folk albums throughout the 60s, but none would be as jarring and envelope-pushing as The Fugs First Album. As the 60s progressed, the weirdness bar was set higher and higher, but The Fugs were arguably the ones who set it first and set it the highest. Their music was such a break from their contemporaries that it is often overlooked in the vast saga of 60s music. Although The Fugs are strange, their strangeness paved the way for other underground sounds, including psychedelic rock, punk rock and experimental rock. Many people will not like this album. In fact, most people will find it vulgar or chaotic or both. But for those who like the weird, the freaky, the unclassifiable––this is your album.  A