History something

The Electric Circus began as a popular New York nightclub, complete with pulsating lights, fragmented pieces of movies, colored patterns and slides sweeping the mirrored walls, strip lighting writhing on the floor, flashing on and off like a demented snake who's swallowed phosphorus. It was the hippest place in New York for the affluent celebrities, artists and social climbers to be seen.

The downstairs section was turned into a bar called the Dom. According to Ronald Sukenik in Down and In: A History of the Underground, the entire Lower East Side, "all the painters, all the poets, everybody in the world showed up." There was no attraction except nickel beer. The glorified basement began hosting live jazz and bands that played back in the larger room for dancing. Upstairs the Electric Circus was still going, but had changed from being a Jackie Onassis celebrity place to being a kids' place. Black kids replaced many of the white East Villagers to listen to the jukebox stocked with soul music.

In late 1964, when the Beatles had just hit America, the Fugs were conceived in the dark recess of the Dom. Originally attracted by the poetry readings, Ed Sanders (proud publisher of a literary magazine called Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts) and Tuli Kupferberg were two like-minded vermin who together spawned the unofficial origins of "underground" music.

The group worked out their material in other venues like Slug's and the MacDougall Street Theatre in Greenwich Village. They invented outrageous dances like "The Turkey Gobble" to go along with their songs, released on the debut album in 1965 on the small jazz-oriented ESP label. The label rejected the second set of songs as too offensive. Later released under the title Virgin Fugs, the album epitomized the Fugs' sense of humor and satire. By making fun of commercial culture ("Caca Rock" and "I Saw the Best Minds of My Generation Rot" written by Allen Ginsberg) and government institutions ("CIA Man" and "Kill For Peace"), the Fugs displayed a healthy disrespect for nearly everything, or an unhealthy anti-social attitude, depending on your perspective. The few things that deserved their respect consisted of the drug and sex culture of the Lower East Side. Songs like "New Amphetamine Shriek" and "Saran Wrap" bluntly and humorously (again, depending on your perspective) brought them to new heights of obscenity. Sanders later became better known as the author of The Family, a book on Charles Manson.