Steven Taylor

February 17, 2018Simon Pettet

[Steven Taylor,  Tibet House Benefit rehearsal, February 28, 1995. Photo: Allen Ginsberg]

[Allen Ginsberg photographed by Steven Taylor/ Steven Taylor photographed by Allen Ginsberg, NYC 1995 – courtesy The Estate of Allen Ginsberg]

The dedication to Allen’s Cosmopolitan Geetings volume (1994) reads -“To Steven Taylor”  followed by that echoing line of William Shakespeare – “If music be the food of love, play on” – Steven, most definitely, did and has. It is a major omission that we haven’t focused on him before, here on the Allen Ginsberg Project – (altho’ we have – see for example here, here, here… Read More

Ed Sanders on Harry Smith

August 16, 2014admin

In anticipation of Ed Sanders’ seventy-fifth birthday tomorrow “Ed Sanders, poet and founding member of The Fugs, recalls his deep friendship with Harry Smith, compiler of the highly influential Anthology of American Folk Music. (Smith produced the Fugs’ first album in 1965) for Folkways Records“) “The recording sessions for Folkways Records resulted in the 1965 album “The Village Fugs Sing Ballads of Contemporary Protest, Point of Views, and General Dissatisfaction.” The album was reissued in 1966 as The Fugs First Album by the ESP-Disk Label, followed by several reissues with additional tracks”

[Harry Smith (1923-1991)]

(For more

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Investigative Poetics – 3

November 4, 2013admin

AG: So what I want to do this period is to talk about just what I understand of his (Ed Sanders) notion of “Investigative Poetry”, and the things that we’ve done in common (maybe touching on some things that he’ll go into in more extensive detail. I’ll just give my angle on the same). 

I want to begin with a sample of..  This is something that I did that Ed approved or encouraged, (and) that I, actually, got a little bit out of Ed. It’s a song. Ed started The Fugs, a rock group, which also … Read More

Fugs Howl

July 14, 2013Simon Pettet

And here’s one more from the Thelma Blitz Tuli Kupferberg/Fugs archive trove – “I Saw the Best Minds of My Generation Rot”, The Fugs lively 1966 musical interpretation of Allen’s classic“Howl” (which first appeared on the ESP disc, Virgin Fugs). Contributions to the video also from Jeffrey Lewis and Norman Savitt. That is, of course, Ed Sanders taking the lead vocal, but Tuli can be heard intoning here too.

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1968 Beat Exorcism

July 13, 2013Simon Pettet

Thelma Blitz’s dutiful documentation of The Fugs and, most particularly, the late great Tuli Kupferberg, we mentioned yesterday. Here’s a montage by her to audio of a fabled and curious event – the 1968 “Exorcism” at the Grave of Senator Joe McCarthy, in St Mary’s Parish Cemetery, Appleton, Wisconsin

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[Senator Joe McCarthy (1908-1957)]

Ed Sanders, in his recent memoir, Fug You, (despite contrary, incendiary, reports), describes the action as “dignified and respectful” (occurring, as it did, just a few months after he and various other Vietnam war protesters staged their famous (absurdist but necessary and

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Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 134

July 12, 2013Simon Pettet
[Allen Ginsberg – Photograph by Alain Dister – via “Beat Generation/Allen Ginsberg” at ZKM]

Big Allen-celebration in San Francisco this evening, Beat Reunion For more details here.

The current July/August issue of Poetry magazine includes this memoir by Marjorie Perloff –“Allen Ginsberg – Remembering A Rose Rabbi” – “I have been listening to (his) lectures and marveling at Allen’s interest in the minutiae of prosody“, she writes. She recalls his participation at the 1993 NPF (National Poetry Foundation) Conference (on American poetry of the (19)30’s) – (“(he) had been invited to pay homage to the ninety-year-old

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The Beats: A Graphic History

March 27, 2009admin

By Harvey Pekar, Nancy J. Peters, Penelope Rosemont, Joyce Brabner, Trina Robbins and Tuli Kupferberg

(Hill and Wang; 199 pages; $22)

We haven’t had a chance to check out the recently-published The Beats: A Graphic History so for now we’re relying on Gerald Nicosia’s review in last Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle. He points out some troubling factual errors, some fairly egregious ones in fact, but is even-handed enough to point out the book’s strong points, of which there seem to be many.

However, our favorite, without a doubt the most amusing & no-holds-barred vicious review, comes via Greg Adams … Read More