1965 – THE FUGS’ SONGBOOK – UNHEARD OF FIRST EDITION – A SCARCE FIND
Prepared by Ed Sanders, Ken Weaver, & Betsy Klein at the evil PEACE EYE BOOKSTORE in New York City. 8 1/2 by 11 inches side-stapled mimeographed sheets, the Fugs’ Songbook is from the counterculture NYC band founded in 1964. This First Edition consists of two preliminary pages followed by 27 numbered pages, all on different color sheets. The Fugs were a political satire band active through the early to mid-1960’s. Formed by Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg, their namesake was taken from a euphemism for “f–k” used in Norman Mailer’s novel, The Naked and The Dead. Sanders produced this book of Fugs’ lyrics through his small edition press out of the Lower East Side in New York. The Fugs included: Ed Sanders, Tuli Kupferberg, Ken Weaver, Betsy Klein, Steve Weber, Peter Stampfel, Vinny Leary and Moe Mahoney.
Later editions in 1965, 1966, 1967 were published by: The Sexual Freedom League of San Francisco (second edition); Artists’ Workshop Press, Detroit (1966 and 67). This copy has faults as seen below, but this is a fragile ephemeral item.
The front cover has a glass ring stain, pencil drawing on the right corner portion, some staining, and owner’s name.
following are some sample two page spreads
per the contents page, the issue is complete, but the last page (page 27) is loose as shown below. If there was a rear cover following this last page, I do not know, sorry.
the rear as it exists.
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