The Fugs at Wayne, April 6, were super everything. Jumping, humping, singing, dancing, running, making love on stage in front of, and for everyone at the same time. They led the audience in a chorus of RIVER OF SHIT, sang old hits like SUPER GIRL, and blew my mind with their togetherness and lack of up-tightness.
They laughed at Warner Stringfellow, the Sunday Church Come on (send your money into BJ, Baby Jesus), war, hate, and sexual hang-ups. They were screaming love, love, love up there and after a while I didn’t hear the words that used to be so funny because they shocked me to hear someone putting “dirty” words together so rightly.
When I saw them in NY last year I remember they really blew my mind. It was a much more shocking show. Probably because it was set up for mainly the Village tourist. In the strange Community Arts Auditorium they must have known who and what their audience was, and instead of using a lot of their energy to jump curtains and pantomime jacking off, they were soft and Sanders sang into the head of the microphone like it was the penis of God.
Tuli Kupferberg is the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, just running and wacking a beat with his jingling stick all over every one. Sanders’ physical movements on stage are dance; motion perfectly together with the music. They had another set of musicians with them than the last time I saw them. Maybe that is why all their material sounded different. I know the Fugs aren’t going to just play the same thing every night. They are probably like no other group, just don’t need to be.
Musically the Fugs are as primitive as the message they’re screaming out. There are no weird chord changes or any technically super agility on any instruments. When you sing about something you feel you don’t have to sell it. They come to a musical orgasm in their music by using “sounds” as their music. They make some of the most beautiful noise I’ve ever heard. The Fugs said a lot of the beauty and hurt I’ve felt and seeing them scream it out made me feel pretty good.
I got the MC5 record and I played it full volume both sides over and over again on my record player and decided it was great. The production is about the worst I’ve ever heard for an RR record, in fact you might not even realize it’s them playing if you’re used to them singing live.
It’s too bad it will never be released because the band won’t sign some weird contract for the record company that robs them of their total being for the next two years. If they signed the contract, the company is legally justified to never release another disc, yet can use them as studio musicians, or break them up into separate pieces if they don’t think they’re making it. So you’ll never hear them on WKNR but you probably wouldn’t have any way. Detroit radio is pretty strange. Ronny Dove and the Tijuana Brass forever.
New records! The Grateful Dead have an album out now. It’s just plain RR, no gimmicks or bullshit. Its slow. I couldn’t rush to listen to it, cause that’s not where it’s at. Musically they’re together, and the last cut on the album has them working things out for themselves for about ten minutes. It’s an album like the Jefferson Airplane, the more I play it the more I’m going to like it.
There is a record out by the Psychedelic Psoul that’s great. They do some musical talking changes that are beautiful, and Grok is an eastern change of complete nitrous oneness of sameness in everything. The Peanut Butter Conspiracy album is a burn; the words are right but their music got stuck in 1860—It’s not very good.
I heard the Young Bloods’ album; it’s in the West Coast vein of good music. The Buffalo Springfield were on TV and in the slight three minutes capsule they were on, they filled the void with “live” sounds. If you ever talked to anyone who ever played on TV, they’ll tell you the 100 hangups of trying to get together in a studio with gobs of “money pressure on you. The Springfield jammed and they took turns singing; two lead guitars making a whole with the bass at the same time. It was the best R & R I’ve ever heard on TV.