The Fugs – Greatest Hits Volume 1 Proto Punk

I messed up the alphabetization again – and that by doing that, I ended learning something. In his book on George Clinton, mentioned last time I posted, Kris Needs finds some common ground between Funkadelic and The Fugs, and argues that The Fugs’ radical, revolutionary theatrical approach to music influenced George Clinton. I’ve already written about The Fugs.

I ran across this on a trip to Siren Records last year (2023), and I was a bit torn, since it wasn’t especially cheap and while I respect The Fugs, I don’t play them much. But it had a bunch of songs I didn’t already own, and was a real clean copy, so home it came. This was a 1982 release, with early hip-hop graphics and an attempt to label them as “proto punk.” In their approach and attitude, punk is accurate, but in terms of music I’d say that’s maybe more of a reach. I’m not sure who among the “young” crowd, besides me, was aware of The Fugs in the early ’80s. Whenever I talked about them, I got nothing but blank looks. Weird marketing aside, it’s a clean copy and I’m glad I got it.

Okay, the idea that The Fugs had any hits, let alone greatest hits, seems pretty funny. Yet, amazing as it is, their second album reached number 95, on a label, ESP-Disk, best known for its free jazz. So something was definitely in the air (or the water) in 1966. It has a really long article on the Fugs by Lester Bangs, which I definitely appreciated and was surprised to find in what I took to be a discount label compilation. Nice touch.