Arguably the first underground rock group of all time, the Fugs formed at the Peace Eye bookstore in New York's East Village in late 1964. The nucleus of the band throughout their many personnel changes was Peace Eye owner Ed Sanders and fellow poet Tuli Kupferberg with Ken Weaver on drums. Sanders and Kupferberg had strong ties to the beat literary scene, but charged, in the manner of their friend Allen Ginsberg, full steam ahead into the maelstrom of '60s political involvement and psychedelia. Later that year they were joined by Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber of the Holy Modal Rounders. They were joined at various times in the 1960s on stage and in the studio by a number of others, some of whom were noted session musicians or members of other bands. These included Weber and Stampfel, bassist John Anderson, guitarist Vinny Leary, guitarist Peter Kearney, keyboardist Lee Crabtree, guitarist Jon Kalb, guitarist Stefan Grossman, singer/guitarist Jake Jacobs, guitarist Eric Gale, bassist Chuck Rainey, keyboardist Robert Banks, bassist Charles Larkey, guitarist Ken Pine, guitarist Danny Kortchmar, and drummer Bill Wolf.

The Fugs were, and are more than thirty years later, a satirical and self-satirizing rock band that in its early years performed at war protests [against the Vietnam War and since the 1980s at events around other US-instigated wars]. The band's often frank and almost always humorous lyrics about sex, drugs, and politics have caused a sometimes hostile reaction in some quarters. Their irreverent humor is comparable to that of a number of musical and comedic groups performing satirical commentary on contemporary affairs (such as Saturday Night Live and other late-night political satire shows).



Having attained a professional rock-band sound on Tenderness Junction, the Fugs seemed determined to further expand their arrangements (aided, perhaps, by a major-label budget) on It Crawled into My Hand, Honest. Indeed, the album is ridiculously eclectic. There's stoned psychedelic folk-rock ("Crystal Liaison"); cry-in-your-beer country music with vehemently satirical or surrealistic lyrics ("Ramses II Is Dead My Love," "Johnny Pissoff Meets the Red Angel"); grand, sweeping classical orchestration ("Burial Waltz"); a Gregorian chant about "Marijuana"; down-home gospel with lyrics that no preacher would dare enunciate ("Wide Wide River," with the line: "I've been swimming in this river of sh*t/More than 20 years and I'm getting tired of it"); and, almost buried along the way, the kind of tuneful, countercultural folk-rock Tuli Kupferberg contributed to earlier albums ("Life Is Strange"). Choral backup vocals abound, and the mere presence of a half-dozen outside arrangers testifies to how much the group's attitude toward exploiting the studio had developed since the bare-bones ESP albums. Generally, the songs (most written by the core trio of Sanders, Kupferberg, and Weaver) are more concerned with deft poetry and humor than political statements, although the customary social satire and calls for sexual freedom and drug use are present in diminishing degrees. Although side one is five discrete tracks, side two is a side-long cut-and-paste of tracks varying in length from three seconds to four minutes, the stylistic jump-cuts similar to those employed by the Mothers of Invention in the same era. It's an impressive and, usually, fun record, but it's also less-lyrically cogent and powerful than their early albums.

Tracks:
1. Crystal Liaison
2. Ramses II Is Dead, My Love
3. Burial Waltz
4. Wide Wide River
5. Life Is Strange
6. Johnny Pissoff Meets The Red Angel
7. Marijuana
8. Leprechaun
9. When The Mode Of The Music Changes
10. Whimpers From The Jello
11. The Divine Toe - Part I
12. We're Both Dead Now, Alice
13. Life Is Funny
14. Grope Need - Part I
15. Tuli, Visited By The Ghost Of Plontinus
16. More Grope Need (Grope Need - Part II)
17. Robinson Crusoe
18. Claude Pelieu And JJ Lebel Discuss The Early Verlaine Bread Crust Fragments
19. The National Haiku Contest
20. The Divine Toe - Part II
21. Irene


I'm curious if I'm the only madman in the world who likes this, so I'd like to see some comments from people who have listened to this.