Lost and Found: The Fugs

The Fugs The Fugs
No single album better encompasses the feel of the '60s than The Fugs. Not a pretty one, but an honest one. Part political protest, part hippie drug culture, part scum bag dirty humor, this album offers what is probably one of the most honest pictures of what it was like to live in a post-Kennedy, pre-Nixon America. Initially touted as the single most offensive rock album, The Fugs' second album is a dirty, raucous, aggressive in-your-face album that's intentionally difficult. Why was the album so controversial? Well, when you consider that the album was released in 1966, song titles like "Skin Flowers" and "Kill for Peace" should be a good indication. Need more proof? Here's a video of a Fugs performance from the film Chappaqua, released the same year.

When the Fugs aren't protesting the war they're trying to make the listener laugh uncomfortably, or at least amuse themselves. It's really hard to take a song titled "Dirty Old Man" seriously, which is of course the point. Oh yeah, and then there's that 11 minute closing track, "Virgin Forest." Again, keep in mind that in 1966 you were hard pressed to get a Rock n' Roll audience to listen to any song longer than three minutes. Especially one that's full of strange noises and the sounds of several members of the band simultaneously chanting "gobble gobble" (referred to on the back of the record as the "Gobble Chorus"), well any sober audience, anyway. If The Fugs sounds like artistic brilliance to you, that's because it is. If it doesn't, that's understandable, but you should probably get out more.