Fugs’ Kupferberg Benefit Announced

Hal Willner, Lou Reed, the Fugs, Sonic Youth and more will pitch in for the legendary, influential musician, author, rabble-rouser and Pentagon-exorciser, so step up yourselves, kids.

By Blurt Staff

Just announced: NOTHING, A BENEFIT FOR TULI KUPFERBERG, to be held Friday, Jan. 22, at St. Anne's Warehouse in NYC. Proceeds from the concert, produced by Hal Willner and featuring The Fugs, John Kruth, Lou Reed, Sonic Youth, Elliott Sharp, Pete Stampfel, John Zorn and others, will go to covering medical expenses for the Fugs co-founder, who suffered two strokes, in April and September, last year that have left him blind and in need of 24-hour care.

The Fugs legend is reportedly "recovering well [and] is able to speak clearly," according to a press release announcing the benefit, but has "overwhelming medical expenses not covered by Medicare or the very modest publishing/royalties income he earns at the age of 86."

Ticketing details are below.

The back story, for those not in the know:

Tuli Kupferberg has been widely celebrated for writing songs such as "Nothing," "Morning Morning," "Carpe Diem," "Kill for Peace," "The Ten Commandments," "When the Mode of the Music Changes" and "CIA Man" (the latter was featured in the Coen Brothers' Burn After Reading. In 1965, he co-founded the Fugs with Ed Sanders; the band released a number of albums now considered classics before breaking up in 1969, and when they re-formed in 1984.

Beginning in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Kupferberg became a leading Beat poet and underground publisher, with periodicals such as Birth, Swing, and the magazine Yeah. His famous 1001 Ways to Beat the Draft was published by Grove Press in 1967; and his 1001 Ways to Make Love was published by Grove in ¹69. He was arrested at the historic Exorcism of the Pentagon in October of 1967. Along with his songs, his poems made him an integral part of the social revolutions of the 1960s and ¹70s. He became a noted political cartoonist beginning around the late 1970s, and has a long running bi-weekly television show on public access in New York City. At the time of his stroke, the Fugs were completing a new album, Be Free, which the band plans to release this year. As he convalesces at his home in New York City, Kupferberg continues to write songs.

Blurt writer Jason Gross interviewed Kupferberg a number of years ago for Perfect Sound Forever - you can read the fascinating conversation here.

His old friend, the author Larry "Ratso" Sloman, offered the following testimonial:

"Tuli Kupferberg was a mentor to all of us who grew up in the ‘60s and sensed there was more to life than shuffling off to Vietnam and, if you returned, getting a job as an accountant and paying off a white picket fenced home in Levitttown. Like a Colossus he bridged the worlds of the literary Beats and the hedonistic hippies and infused his gentile, pacifist worldview into everything he did. His work would make you laugh out loud and cry inside.

"Watching him perform his incredible songs like "Nothing," "Morning Morning," and "Kill for Peace" with The Fugs was a cultural revelation and more mind-altering than any psychedelic. The fact that Tuli continues to make his voice heard, via You Tube, at 86, and after two debilitating strokes, makes him an American treasure and puts all of us who can still feel greatly in his debt."

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Tickets: proceeds will contribute to Kupferberg¹s medical expenses, are $75 and $125 and are available online at www.stannswarehouse.org and by phone at 718.254.8779 (Tuesday-Saturday, 1:00 P.M.-7:00 P.M.) or 866.811.4111 (extended hours Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M.-9:00 P.M.; Saturday and Sunday, 10:00 A.M.-6:00 P.M.). Tickets can also be purchased at the St. Ann¹s Warehouse Box Office at 38 Water Street Tuesday‹Saturday, 1:00 P.M.-7:00 P.M.