If you had to pick a single human being who embodied Woodstock’s ragged blend of artistic ambition, anarchic humor, and stubborn refusal to give a damn what the establishment thinks—well, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better candidate than Ed Sanders. Poet, publisher, pacifist agitator, and proto-punk troubadour, Sanders has spent the better part of eight decades making trouble in all the right ways. And now, at the ripe young age of 85, he’s bringing his lifelong band of merry pranksters, The Fugs, back to where it all began.
On August 22 and 23, the Byrdcliffe Barn plays host to two evenings of joyful noise as The Fugs mark the 60th anniversary of their first-ever concert. That first gig was in February 1965 at the Peace Eye Bookstore in the East Village, a storefront cultural grenade run by Sanders that doubled as a gathering spot for poets, protesters, and proto-hippies. Back then, Sanders and fellow bohemian Tuli Kupferberg assembled a shifting gang of misfits and musicians (some could actually play) who turned Blakean mysticism, dirty jokes, and antiwar invective into something approaching music—if your idea of music involves chanting “Kill for Peace” and setting poems to three guitar chords and a tom-tom beat.
And somehow, it worked. The Fugs became underground legends, recording several albums in the late ’60s that straddled the line between folk, rock, and performance art, sneaking radical politics and Rabelaisian humor onto vinyl in an era when that could still get you put on an FBI watchlist. They disbanded in the early ’70s, only to reunite (of course they did) in 1985 with a tighter lineup and a little more polish, but without losing their ragged charm.
The Fugs’ current incarnation—still helmed by Sanders, who lives just down the road from the Byrdcliffe Barn—has been together now for four decades, outlasting most marriages, presidential administrations, and social movements. Their music is looser these days, maybe a little mellower, but no less alive. Sanders, for his part, has lost none of his fire. When he’s not leading the band, he’s writing books (his investigative work The Family remains a definitive chronicle of the Manson murders), composing epic poems, or chanting ancient Greek hymns in his home studio.
These shows at Byrdcliffe aren’t just another reunion gig. They’re a celebration of an extraordinary American life, a Woodstock life, a life spent stirring the pot and singing the songs of the disaffected, the devout, and the joyfully obscene. It’s been sixty years, and The Fugs are still here. Praise be.
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This article appears in July 2025.
That “tighter lineup” before and after Tuli Kupferberg’s passing, has helped to keep the Fugs alive for 40 years, they have names and deserve to be credited for their long term and passionate participation.
Scott Petito: plays bass, keys and other assorted instruments, while also recording and facilitating many Fugs records over the years at his NRS Recording Studio, originally in Hurley and currently in Catskill.
Steven Taylor: guitar, vocals and songwriting.
Coby Batty: drums, vocals and songwriting.