The Fugs
One of the most influential, and least listened to, bands of the mid-1960s, The Village Fugs were to garage bands what Lenny Bruce was to standup comedy: a shock band whose work is in some ways more offensive today than it was in its own time, in part due to its own influence on public tastes. The Fugs used a deliberately raw, crude recording style, and experimented with various kinds of performance art in their live appearances, pushing the boundaries of both artistic expression and good taste to the breaking point. Much of their work was political and social satire of the most caustic sort.
Despite most of their work being topical, and now badly dated, their albums and films, as well as the numerous poetry books of two of their founding members, Ed Sanders and the late Tuli Kupferberg, remain cult classics.
- Buxom Is Better: "Boobs A Lot"
- CIA Evil, FBI Good: "CIA Man"
- Everybody Must Get Stoned: "I Couldn't Get High," later covered by the staunchly pro-marijuana reggae rock band Slightly Stoopid.
- Intercourse with You: Parodied with "Wet Dream", in the form of a doo-wop teenage love song.
- Protest Song: "Kill for Peace"
- Refrain From Assuming: "Wide, Wide River" is not called "River of Shit."
- Shout-Out: As the band was founded by published poets, several songs are based on poems. These include "Ah, Sunflower" and "I Saw the Best Minds of My Generation Rock".
- Unusual Euphemism: The band name was taken from a euphemism for "fuck" from The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer.