The Fugs - The Fugs First Album

Carpe Fugum

A scrappy happy antidote to the streamlined blare of ultraslick melody makers. What The Fugs First Album lacked in polish though it more than supplied the want in anarcho-comical fark you attitude. A period piece now to be sure, a relic, but one that remains for me oddly comforting and frankly indispensable--there's still nothing like Tuli and the boys singing Slum Goddess or My Baby Done Left Me or Nothing to thoroughly recombobulate the banjaxed brainbox. Subversive imperfection never sounded so redoubtable. Like the dude sez here, cacophony forever. November 20, 2008

One of a kind

I'll just get right to describing the disc. Shorter songs than normal, on average. Songwriting style (lyrically) that could be considered very artisitic or just guys screing around trying to be vulgar in a pop-music format, dependign on your perspective.

Singing: Too many people singing at once, with no attempt at perfection, or slick-ness.

instruments: Standard pop-rock instruments, but a little heavy on the odd percussion (but so was Bo Diddley). Some guys know how to play. Some do not. Bassist John Anderson is fascinating in his "I know a little" approach, and would have been a famous musician in backwoods string bands in the early 20th century. I love his stuff. His style tends to "country folk" here, just a wall of noise there.

production: They must have done this all in one take. This is raw. Heavy, in a primituive "pre-metal" way. It was the 60's. Could not be done today. April 22, 2007

Don't get too excited

The Fugs were fun. The Fugs were cool. So were the Kingsmen at one time. Sadly, I'm old enough to have listened to the Fugs in the '60s. Putting William Blake to lame music was not radical even then. The Fugs couldn't play, they couldn't sing, and -- I'm sorry -- they couldn't write. I loved "Saran Wrap" and "I Couldn't Get High," but I also loved Playboy's "Little Annie Fannie." All were equally subversive. Please don't compare the Fugs to the Ramones or the Mothers of Invention. Save your five stars for "London Calling." July 19, 2003

Truly Original

I had this album and The Fugs Second Album in the LP collection I inherited from my older brother who bought them when they were first issued. Sadly, the disappeared years ago from the collection (I suspect a step-brother, tho he denies it). So for years I've been wanting to buy them again and finally did so recently on CD.

Was not disappointed. What can you say about songs like "Ah, Sunflower Weary of Time," "Supergirl" (perhaps my favorite), "Swinburne Stomp," "I Couldnt' Get High," "Boobs A Lot" or "Nothing"? They're too hilarious for words. This album and The Fugs Second Album are really historical snapshots of the Beat Generation coming into the hippie age, brilliant, totally irreverant, intellectual (two poems of William Blake put to music) and juvinile (e.g., "Boobs A Lot") at the same time.

Don't expect musical genius. The quality of musicianship is crude, and studio conditions are garage, but the energy, wit and spontineity of these tracks couldn't be improved upon.

Listening to them again now, I totally hear the Fugs in the music of the Ramones, Ween, the Residents, the Jazz Butcher, Robyn Hitchcock and others. I'm surprised I haven't heard more (or for that matter any) contemporary covers of these songs. "Supergirl" or "Nothing," for example, would be very stylish for some neo-punk band to cover.

Better than the original LPs I had, these two CDs have great liner notes and lots of extra tracks.

This is definitely not to everyone's taste. My wife, for example, was appalled when I put this on. But if you appreciate humor in music and are interested in the sound of the irreverant '60s anti-establishment, by all means go for it. November 17, 2002

Still waiting for the re-release of "Virgin Fugs"

I believe Lester Bangs once compared this album to a bunch of Neanderthals sitting around a fire beating on logs and baying at the moon. That's pretty accurate. Anyone looking for musical or production sophistication should look elsewhere. But if your looking for that primeval yalp that created music, and probably initiated procreation itself, you'll find it here.

As a teenager I owned all the Fugs' LPs on ESP. "The Fugs Second Album" is more polished. It should be since actual musicians were playing on it. Ed, Tuli, and Ken are writers, not musicians (unless you want to call Tuli's erectorine a musical instrument). "Virgin Fugs" was my all-time favorite ESP album by the Fugs. It's musically as crude as the "First Album", but the lyrics were more blantantly obscene and simply hilarious! I hope some bold recording company will re-release it someday.

I remember being amazed when Warner Brothers/Reprise signed the Fugs in the late sixties. I couldn't believe a major label had signed the band. Imagine something like this happening now- impossible! The Reprise Fugs albums were enjoyable, but they lacked the creative intensity and sheer chutzpah of the ESP albums. The Fugs tried like hell to sound as polished as your ordinary rock band back in those days. But it was like spraying gold paint on a pile of manure. The gold paint may look pretty, but it's what's underneath that's closer to the true essence. The Fugs were renegade satirists who did their best work on a small, independent label, ESP. They were never destined for "The Ed Sullivan Show". October 8, 2002

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