The Fugs: The band the FBI called the “most vulgar thing the human mind could possibly conceive”
The authorities are never going to get on board with punk rock.
A genre rooted in rebellion, it would seem hypocritical of such institutions to be seen enjoying anything that promotes organising against oppressive forces, bringing disorder to archaic government policy, and the dismantling of power structures.
Punk, likewise, is never going to get along with the authorities. When you spend your entire life suffering at the hands of organisations that do their best to silence marginalised groups at any given opportunity, why would you want to respect those responsible for piling on the misery? The goal is to topple those in power, and if you’re not prepared to use your platform to do this and will happily submit to their tactics of subjugation, then there would no longer be a reason for punk to exist and speak for the affected.
Most people will argue that the birth of punk arrived in the 1970s, but the ethos and attitude were present long before that, thanks to underground rock acts whose rebellious approaches were intent on causing a stir among the easily offended bastions of authority in America. Because of the nation’s involvement in conflicts in East Asia, having dragged themselves into wars in both Korea and Vietnam in the ‘50s and ‘60s, dissenters were largely focused on highlighting the corrupt practices that led to their involvement.
One act that caused significant commotion was the psychedelic rock and proto-punk outfit, The Fugs. Hailing from New York City and active from the mid-1960s, the band were too late and too weird to have been swept up in the Greenwich Village Scene, but were also ahead of their time when compared to the likes of The Velvet Underground and the later scenes that emerged from clubs like CBGB and Max’s Kansas City. An arguably unique prospect for their time, their lyrics were laced with satire and discontent for the authorities, and that caused something of a furore within both the FBI and Congress.
The Fugs were never hugely popular, and they still only have a cult following today, but upon laying his ears upon their third album, Virgin Fugs, an unnamed employee of the Jefferson Standard Broadcasting Company in North Carolina chose to write to Senator Sam Ervin and the then-FBI director J Edgar Hoover to get the band’s music banned across America.
Calling it “the filthiest and most vulgar thing the human mind could possibly conceive,” the employee was seemingly aghast at the morally corrupt music that The Fugs were releasing, and with songs like ‘CIA Man’ and ‘Kill For Peace’ both taking a stance against the country’s violent anti-communist actions, you might be able to understand why it made the squares of society squirm.
The letter continued: “I don’t know what, if anything, can be done to stop the distribution of such trash, but I believe something has to be done. I realize that we cannot—and should not—try to legislate morality, but surely we can, and should, try to stop dissemination of such excretory matter as this.”
The Fugs were far from the first, and far from the last band to nearly have a nationwide ban imposed upon their music, but thankfully, they were allowed to continue to express themselves in the way they wanted to; by writing even more provocative music that rallied against the government in satirical fashion.
