Fug You: An Informal History of the Peace Eye Bookstore, the Fuck You Press, the Fugs, and Counterculture in the Lower East Side

by Sanders, Ed

  It was a well-known studio. Bob Gallo was instrumental in the production of a good number of hit singles, such as James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s World,” “96 Tears” by Question Mark and the Mysterians, and, soon, “Groovin’” by the Young Rascals. He would write for and produce such acts as Otis Redding, Patti LaBelle, Aretha Franklin, The Drifters, and Bo Diddley. Atlantic Records’ Jerry Wexler had arranged to buy into Bob Gallo’s Talent Master recording studios.

  Recording at Talent Masters

  Beginning in early February the lineup was Ed Sanders, Ken Weaver, Tuli Kupferberg, Jake Jacobs, Lee Crabtree, and some great studio players—Eric Gale on guitar, Chuck Rainey on bass, Robert Banks on piano and organ, and Bernard Purdie on drums.

  Chris Huston was our engineer. Huston was a young Englishman who had been the guitarist for a group called The Undertakers, which had recorded an album at Gallo’s studio. Huston went on to engineer and produce sessions for such groups as Led Zepplin, The Who, War, the Rascals, Todd Rundgren, Van Morrison, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, Ben E. King, The Drifters, Patti La Belle and the Blue-belles, Solomon Burke, Mary Wells, Wilson Pickett, John Hammond Jr., James Brown, not to mention Question Mark and the Mysterians.

  When recording at Talent Masters, we noticed that there were all these unused sixteen-track Otis Redding instrumental tapes in the tape storage room. We listened to some of them. They were great!! What a temptation! They featured guys like the great studio drummer Bernard Purdie. All we would have had to do was stick on our own wild Fugs lyrics and vocals and we’d have had a bunch of quick tunes!

  It gave us the idea to cut some songs with some of the hot Atlantic session players. So we booked some legendary Atlantic players—Bernard Purdie, Eric Gale, Chuck Rainey—to cut some basic tracks. This ensemble recorded the track, for instance, to “River of Shit,” Lionel Goldbart’s tune.

  I was struggling mightily, through plenty of rehearsals, and shifting and adding musicians in the studio, to make an album that was both revolutionary and commercially appealing.

  Jake Jacobs performed on guitar, vocals, bells, sitar, and vibes, and Lee Crabtree, on organ, piano, and flute. Jacobs had been in a band called The Magicians, which had taken over the gig of house band at the Night Owl on West Third from the Lovin’ Spoonful, when the latter had surged to fame. Jake had a beautiful voice and was an excellent arranger.

  We recorded “Nameless Voices Crying for Kindness,” based on a line from an interview Allen Ginsberg gave that I had spotted in the underground newspaper the Los Angeles Free Press. We recorded “Hare Krishna” that winter, with Allen Ginsberg singing lead, Gregory Corso on harmonium, Maretta Greer and Peter Orlovsky singing along, and Jake Jacobs on sitar. Allen came to me and suggested he might copyright the melody. I replied, “It’s a 5,000-year-old tune!” And so that plan was scrapped. I was busy making lists of possible titles for the Atlantic album: Weirdness Pie was one, Ablution in the Abyss was another, Aphrodite Mass was yet another, plus The Fugs Eat It.

  Still Playing at the Players Theatre

  While The Fugs recorded at Talent Masters, we played weekends at the Players Theatre.

  On the David Susskind Show

  The Fugs appeared on the prestigious David Susskind Show in early 1967. Susskind was a leading television producer and winner of numerous Emmy awards. In my archives is a reel of tape containing the interview, which in the interest of completeness I listened to while writing this book.

  The tape commences with Susskind introducing us:

  Some of the most rebellious people I know, and some of the most way-out people—they are The Fugs, and I’d like to present them individually: Ed Sanders, he founded The Fugs in ’65, a poet, he’s also the editor of the Marijuana Newsletter, a graduate of New York University, Ed Sanders was born in Kansas City, Missouri; next Ken Weaver, also a poet, he’s been with The Fugs since the group was formed; and Tuli Kupferberg, who in addition to his Fugs activities also teaches a course on the Sexual Revolution at the Free University of New York, and he is the editor of the Birth Press. Now The Fugs make record albums—they’re musicians, and they have extraordinary tunes and songs—“Kill for Peace,” “Slum Goddess,” “We Love Grass,” “Group Grope,” “What Are You Gonna Do After the Orgy?” “Hallucination Horrors,” and “Bed Is Getting Crowded” [rise of laughter]. Now, WHY do you compose such songs, and where can you sing and perform them, Ed?

  Ed: All over the United States. We perform at colleges, campuses, coffeehouses, and theaters. Why do we write songs like that? Because it feels good [another round of laughter]. No, because it’s a manifestation of certain concerns we have about changes in sexual mores in this country, and it has to do with our opinions on a number of psychosocial, and philosophical, and religious and spiritual things.

  Susskind: Yeah, but these songs are pretty dirty.

  Ed: Because we have seventy songs, man, you just went through our songbook, and copied out—you left out some songs I bet you couldn’t say here.

  Susskind: Yes, I have left those songs out [more laughter]. But the language is so guttural.

  Tuli: Like guttural, like in the gutter.

  Susskind: Yes.

  Tuli: I thought you meant guttural, like in the German language.

  Susskind: Are you sort of doing what those people do who write dirty stuff on walls? Doesn’t it amount to the same thing?

  Tuli: Some of that’s good poetry [big laugh].

  Ed: “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls.” You miss the point. The point is that we’re taking highly charged language, we’re taking poetry, some of which is highly charged with sexual connotations, and we’re dropping it into modern music, into pop music, into rock and roll, into chants and religious statements, and social statements. Some of it involves using the Blip words, the four-letter words, the seven-letter words, and the sixteen-letter words that are banned on the airwaves, but which we can say in the context of theater, and we actually say them on albums.

  Tuli: These words are implied in all the other music; it’s just that they are euphemistic. But I think that most young people who sing those songs know what they’re singing about.

  Ed: Hey, man, the American automobile has revolutionized sex. The backseat has revolutionized. . . . You can’t go out to Freakville, Arkansas, without having everybody knowing what’s on page thirty-seven of the Kama Sutra. They know all about pot and music and the “backseat boogie.”

  Susskind: Why do you look this way? Ken, why no haircut ever?

  Ken: Actually, I’m emulating Uncle Sam. He has long hair and a beard [laughter and applause].

  Tuli: Not only Uncle Sam, but Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Hamilton, George, Ben Franklin, Andrew Jackson.

  Susskind: Is the whole thing adding up to total rebellion—appearance? . . .

  Ed: Not at all. The point is there’s no reason for a man to restrict himself to repressive clothing [pointing to Susskind]. Your suit has embellishments; you’ve got some sort of modified Beatle boots on [lots of laughter]. The point is, there’s a way of expressing yourself through clothes; there’s a way of going around expressing yourself colorfully, with artistry; it’s esthetic. If more people tried to make their lives more esthetic, and more complexly and richly colorful, then you’d have a more interesting and fruitful voyage as a human being.

  Susskind: Doesn’t it add up to slobness?

  Ed: Up against the Wall! We dress very carefully. We’re not slobs.

  Tuli: Aren’t you bored by black jackets?

  Susskind: No, not particularly.

  Susskind: What is it about the sexual mores of the country that give you a pain?

  Ed: The repression of sex by people who are growing old and are afraid they’re going to die is often manifested in war hysteria.

  Susskind: What’s wrong with the sexual conventions of America today. What is it that you’re so angry about?

  Tuli: The fact that people can be punished b
y indulging in any kind of sexual practice they want that does not hurt anyone.

  Susskind: You’re for total promiscuity?

  Ed: No, people want a full spectrum of sexual activity . . . .

  Susskind: Let’s not get too clinical.

  Ed: If a man and woman discover that they want to live together in a monogamous situation without any adultery, then that’s fine. Although there are some in the United States that want to engage in group marriages, or situations where they have matrilinear descent for children, you have situations where three or four people want to live together, you have where people don’t want to marry at all; you have a right to be a homosexual. The point is, man, you’ve got to examine the sexual possibilities, and in all the sexual possibilities where there is no violence and no one hurt, then they should be allowed by the law.

  Tuli: These are crimes without victims.

  Susskind: How about drugs. Do you advocate complete permissiveness, Ken?

  Ken: How do I feel about drugs? I really like them [big surge of laughter]. I don’t foist what I like on other people. I never tell people to take LSD.

  Susskind: Do you take LSD?

  Weaver: I have taken it, yeah.

  Susskind: Do you find it productive?

  Weaver: Unutterably beautiful.

  Susskind: Can you describe what it does for you that makes it unutterably beautiful?

  Weaver: Nope [burst of laughter from audience].

  Susskind: Is marijuana part of your lives?

  Ed: The Fugs take no formal positions about any of these things. It’s not like we’re running some sort of Freak Cell here, that’s giving out manifestos, but some of us, I particularly, happen to believe in the legalization of marijuana. I think marijuana is a gentle, benevolent herb falsely prosecuted by alcoholics and creeps [laughter].

  Susskind: You think it does no harm?

  Ed: I think it does infinite good to the human psyche, and I think it should be sold in vending machines just like cigarettes and combs in Howard Johnsons.

  And on it went, this tape from early 1967, giving a slice of Fugs Thought before a large national television audience. This was at a moment of fairly great fame for The Fugs.

  On the Cover of Life Magazine

  In late January and early February I was interviewed a number of times by Barry Farrell, who was writing a piece on the New York underground for Life magazine. A photographer came to 196 Avenue A and took some pictures. I had no idea I would be on the cover.

  Sudden Fame

  I learned I was on the cover of Life magazine for the February 17 issue when the Johnny Carson television show called to have me on as a guest. Before I would appear, I insisted on Carson allowing The Fugs to sing “Kill for Peace” as a protest against the Vietnam War, which was refused. In retro-spect I should have taken up the offer. Maybe I could have started to appear regularly, like Truman Capote, in front of late-night millions. For a while I basked in the Glory of being on the cover. I remembered my bet with Lanny Kenfield that The Fugs would some day be on the cover of Time magazine. For now Life would do.

  Ed Sanders, a leader of New York’s other culture.

  On February 12, for instance, we flew to a large celebration in Toronto called “Perception ’67,” with Marshall McLuhan, The Fugs, Richard Alpert, Allen Ginsberg, Tim Leary (who was not allowed into Canada), and Paul Krassner. My issue of Life was on the newsstand at the Toronto airport, where it was minus five degrees outside! No one told us that fame did not automatically mean getting a glut of money. It was sometimes not so easy to pay the rents for our apartment on Avenue A and the Peace Eye Bookstore. Nevertheless, it’s a place of masks, this fame, so when my father visited New York City from Kansas City not long after I was on the cover of Life, I went out in a limousine to pick him up at the airport. He stayed at the 1 Fifth Avenue Hotel and enjoyed himself immensely.

  I remember there was a party for Jimi Hendrix at a club in Sheridan Square in the West Village, where brilliant photographer Margaret Bourke-White was on hand. She mentioned me being a Life cover, and she pulled down her blouse to show me a tattoo above one of her breasts.

  “The Fugs Turned Them On”

  This was the headline of a front-page article in the Toronto Daily Star for February 13 tracing The Fugs’ performance at the Perception ’67 weekend. The article reported:At 11:15 last night, the whole psychedelic weekend at the University of Toronto fused into a blinding white light. Everybody who was a psychedelic anybody blew his mind. It happened as a New York group called the Fugs held a “concert” in hallowed Convocation Hall. Dr. Richard Alpert, who says you don’t need drugs to blow your mind if you’re turned on, pulled a fur coat he was holding over his nose, sprawled on a stage raiser, and tapped his foot to an anti–Viet Nam song titled “Kill for Peace.” Crazy-clothes fashion designer Tiger Morse nodded madly, her oversize sunglasses bobbing with the beat. Michael Hayden, the 24-year-old behind the 10-room mind excursion of popcorn, strobe lights and total experience, grinned happily at Fug Tuli Kupferberg. Cynic Paul Krassner tried to look bored, then laughed and bounced up and down; poet Allen Ginsberg giggled and bobbed his beard in time to “Knock! Knock! Knock!” Suddenly the whole audience of 2,000 heard the Fugs screaming words that are only an echo today—and probably won’t be heard again.

  What everybody had been talking about for two days finally happened; the whole place just sort of turned on.

  Some Hostility

  It wasn’t always so friendly to be suddenly famous. Someone mailed a package to me at my post office box in the East Village. I opened it up in the lobby of the post office. It was a brand-new copy, with a bright red dust jacket, of the Modern Library edition of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. As I held it, the cover popped open and I heard a kind of mousetraplike whacking sound. I saw that the inside had been very neatly cut away to make a square compartment into which were arrayed a battery, a spring-driven on/off switch, and some wires attached to some small cylinders. I walked over to the counter and told the clerk, “I think someone has sent me a bomb.” Wow, did the postal employees scatter!

  It was very handsomely designed but turned out to be a fake bomb. The “explosive” cylinders, wired into place to look dangerous, were actually CO2 cartridges of the sort that were used to power model rockets. Whoever sent it had glued a card to the inside of the cover:

  The card from Postal Inspector J. R. Stephens, who took the fake bomb from me.

  Big Boy has the Contract

  Red is the Finger

  You are the Mark

  Not long thereafter an anonymous phone call came to our apartment on Avenue A, with our two-year-old daughter asleep in her room. The caller announced that he was first going to bomb my house, then the home of Frank Zappa. As a result for the next ten years we had to have an unlisted telephone number.

  Craziness

  By early 1967, around the time I was on the cover of Life, sometimes there were fans hanging out on the street at Avenue A and Twelfth, beneath our second-floor apartment. To get things done, I had to detach myself from the craziness. One time a guy named Joe Forn, a friend of Tuli’s, somehow got in through the buzzer and came to our door. When I answered his knock, he had a wild look to his eyes, he handed me a lightbulb, paused, then said, “Please give this to Tim Leary. I know you know him.” Then he trundled back down the flight of steps to the street.

  A few days later he was back, knocking at the door. I opened it. He said to forget about giving the lightbulb to Tim. His arms were bare, and he twisted the left arm and the right so that I could see the not-yet-quite-healed slash marks where he had cut his wrists.

  “Give this to Tim Leary” stayed in my mind throughout the rest of the ’60s.

  Plimpton

  There was another, more pleasant phone call, this one from George Plimpton. He wanted to go on the road with The Fugs, perform with the band, and write about it. Things got pretty wild on the road, and I didn’t want George Plimpton snoozling around. Plus, I was
still puzzled over the police informant that George had called me about, who had posed as a guitarist and tried out for The Fugs (from an ad I’d run in the Village Voice!) in the fall of ’65, so I turned down his request.

  Awareness of the Diggers

  It was right around this time, amid the craziness of being on the cover of Life, getting the hostile phone call, hearing the crazy guy with the lightbulb saying, “Give this to Tim,” that I became aware of the San Francisco Diggers.

  They proposed to transform the economics of the Now through the Creativity of Sharing. One of their lasting concepts was the concept of the Free Store, in which items were given away free. The essay “Trip Without a Ticket,” in The Digger Papers, a free newsprint anthology published in 1967, reported:Diggers assume free stores to liberate human nature. First free the space, goods and services. Let theories of economics follow social facts. Once a free store is assumed, human wanting and giving, needing and taking become wide open to improvisation.

  Someone asked how much a book cost. How much did he think it was worth? 75 cents. The money was taken and held out for anyone. “Who wants 75 cents?” A girl who had just walked in came over and took it.