The Fugs – Greatest Hits Volume 1 Proto Punk
I messed up the alphabetization again – and by doing that, I ended up 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.
Great post, thanks for going the extra mile with your photos – in July of 2023 I scoured the internet for a good image of Lester’s sleeve notes and came away empty handed. This was after reading on his Wikipedia page that “he won a 1984 Grammy Award for his liner notes on The Fugs Greatest Hits, Volume 1.” Revisiting that page today, I click on the “Grammy” link and discover that although he’s listed among the nominees in ’84, he didn’t actually win the award. Assuming either Wikipedia page is correct (nominee seems more likely to me), perhaps the nomination was intended as a posthumous nod of respect to Lester.
I haven’t checked whether Lester’s notes have been reproduced in any of the collections of his writing, but it’s so good to get to see them here in their original setting. Thank you.
Ahh, that’s great! I struggle sometimes with how much interior material to include here – sometimes there’s so much that I just don’t want to take the time, especially since I am only doing these on a poor iPhone setup. But I’m glad to hear it’s been useful, that’ll enourage me to be more completist about it.