More on Tuli Kupferberg & Harvey Pekar

Tuli Kupferberg, the wispy hipster comic social critic of ol’ boho downtown NYC who died at age 86 on Monday, will be buried with a public service Saturday 7/17 at St. Mark’s Church in the East Village. According to his family, “There will be no religious element . . Fugs Coby Batty, Steve Taylor and Ed Sanders will be the main speakers, after which anyone who cants can talk, sing, recite poetry, or whatever they like.” This seems eminently sensible for a man who preached a kind of wised-up utopian socialism in goofy “parasongs” with his band the Fugs and with stick-figure cartoons, as he detailed at some length in yesterday’s post. My 2004 article which drew on that interview has more on The Fugs Final CD (Part 1), background on the tumultuous ’60s (for those who need it) and lets Ed Sanders have his say.

Also: My error to characterize Harvey Pekar, the comic-book writer and music journalist who died at age 70, also on Monday, as essentially a trad-jazz fan (though there’s nothing wrong with that). Yes, he collected 78 rpm records, but he also listened hard to and wrote seriously about mid ’60s Miles Davis, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, and other improv far from the music’s origins. A sampling of his articles is here and here (Wynton Marsalis alert!). Doug Ramsey’s piece on Harvey at Rifftides is also rewarding.

howardmandel.com
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