FUG YOU

ARCsters recently attended the opening, book signing and reading at the swell Ed Sanders gallery show at Boo-Hooray Gallery on Canal Street.  Ed was kind enough to sign a copy of his new book, Fug You, (here’s a good review from the times) and two of our albums.  The reading centered on his obscenity arrest and trying to avoid getting the judge who sentenced Lenny Bruce.   Street pretzels and mustard were served.

We were a little surprised to see that one cover that we had signed was shot by society photographer Richard Avedon.  Seemed the antithesis of what the Fugs were up to.  Then an industry insider told us that a ‘certain exec’ at Reprise/Warner Bros. used big name photographers like Avedon just to say they owned a print by Avedon.   My guess is that the cost was a chargeback to the artists!

The show was put together by avid collector and impresario Johan Kugelberg, who was kind enough to offer to help us track down the recordings we are missing.

Here’s a list of The Fugs’ holdings @ ARC

• Belle of Avenue A, The  (Reprise, RS 6359, 12″, 33.3, LP, n.d.).  White label promo w/ publishing info on label.  M-

• Belle of Avenue A, The  (Reprise, RS 6359, 12″, 33.3, LP, n.d.).  Red-top label.  VG+

• Fugs First Album, The  (ESP, 1018, 12″, 33.3, LP, 1965).  Black + white photo on cover.  Black text label.

• Fugs First Album, The  (ESP, 1018, 12″, 33.3, LP, 1965).  Black + white photo on cover.  “Reissue of Broadside BR 304″ on front cover.  Riverside Dr. address on label.

• Fugs First Album, The  (ESP, 1018, 12″, 33.3, LP, 1965).  Black + white photo on cover.  Orange custom label.

• Fugs First Album, The  (ESP, 1018, 12″, 33.3, LP, 1965).  Color painying on cover.  .  Orange custom label.

• Fugs, The  (ESP, 1028, 12”, 33.3, LP, 1966).  Black + white photo on cover.  STEREO “stereo” sticker on cover. Three photos along top of back cover.

• Fugs, The  (ESP, 1028, 12″, 33.3, LP, 1966).  Black + white cover.  STEREO “stereo” on back cover. Three photos along top of back cover.

• Fugs, The  (ESP, 1028, 12″, 33.3, LP, 1966).  Black + white cover.  Mono

• Fugs, The  (ESP, 1028, 12″, 33.3, LP, 1966).  –.  COLOR COVER “STEREO” on upper right corner of back cover.

• Fugs, The  (ESP, 1028, 12″, 33.3, LP, 1966).  –.  COLOR COVER “STEREO” on left side of back cover.

• The Fugs Second Album  (Fugs, FCD-9669-2, 5″, -, CD, 1993).  .  Reissue of 1967 album with 5 bonus tracks.

• Golden Filth – Alive at the Filmore East  (Reprise, USA, 6396, 12″, 33.3, LP, 1970).  –.  Tan label w/ “stereo” on bottom.  1 M-; 1 VG-

• Golden Filth – Alive at the Filmore East  (Reprise, USA, 6396, 12″, 33.3, LP, 1970).  Tan label w/ “stereo” on bottom; “Warner Communications” on label.  M-

• Golden Filth – Alive at the Filmore East  (Reprise, USA, 6396, 12″, 33.3, LP, 1970).  Tan label w/ “Warner Communications” on label.  M-

• Golden Filth – Alive at the Filmore East  (Edsel, UK, ED 217, 12″, 33.3, LP, [1970]).  5014757132179.  Eighties British reissue of 1970 LP.

• It Crawled Into My Hand, Honest  (Reprise, 6305, 12″, 33.3, LP, n.d.).

• Proto Punk; The Fugs Greatest Hits Vol. I  (PVC / ARI, PVC 8914 / AD 4116, 12″, 33.3, LP, 1982).  Compilation of ESP recordings.

• Star Peace: a Musical Drama in Three Acts  (New Rose, France, ROSE 115, 12″, 33.3, LP, 1987).

The Fugs / Firesign Theatre .   Sampler  (Artemis, 197, 5″, , , 2003).  Advance promo in generic package, no cover.

• Songs From a Portable Forest  (Gazell, GPCD 2003, 5″,  CD, 2003).

• Tenderness Junction  (Reprise, 6280, 12″, 33.3, LP, n.d.).  Richard Avedon photo on cover.  Autographed.

by Ed Sanders:

• Beer Cans On the Moon   (Reprise, MS 2105, 12″, 33.3, LP, 1972).  M-.S-7

• Beer Cans On the Moon   (Reprise, MS 2105, 12″, 33.3, LP, 1972).  White label promo.  M-. Autographed front cover.

• Sanders TruckStop  (Reprise, 6374, 12″, 33.3, LP, n.d.).  White label promo.  Publishing info on label  M-

• Poems for New Orleans  (Paris, 2007, 5″, -, CD, 2007).  7 33792 77102 4.

Book Digitization @ ARC

Some thoughts on scanning the ARC’s 20,000+ music books in partnership with the Internet Archive by project coordinator Alexis Cavaretta…

The ARChive is the kind of place that will say yes to just about anything – no exclusions. Their collection of music books reflects this diversity. As someone who must navigate through the catalog records daily, I’ve come to appreciate the unconventional nature of this collection. Some books are indeed very bibliographic and it is easy to capture information about the object and the scope of its content. It is also true that the book collection has some non-descriptive books that are more like pictorial works or are just old, published differently, or published in a different country and/or language. Though the most difficult and elusive bibliographic items, which are also some of the most unique, are not books but serials (think: event pamphlets, record company promotional products, tour/celebrity souvenir books, etc.), art books (Elvis Presley pop-up book etc.), and/or sheet music.

When we first started the project, I was concerned mainly with understanding how to use the Internet Archive’s (IA) Scribe II book digitizing machine and how to navigate their scanning software. The Scribe was ingeniously designed to preserve the books it scans. It allows the book to sit in a cradle, partially open, while the operator lifts the glass with a pedal to turn each page after each shot of the two cameras placed on an angle above. In order to the check human and computer error, the scanner works alongside the “republisher”, who adjusts auto-crop of images, verifies page numbers, and inserts metadata for scanned books.

As the project progressed, Will Susich (Archivist) and I created a guide for interns, outlining the detail oriented tasks that running the Scribe machine and working in republishing requires. We also started troubleshooting the various software, camera, and other sundry aspects of the project, which was all made easier by the presence of the Troubleshooter-in-Chief, Paul Nguyen, our IA contact. There were also choices to be made. Soon we began setting aside oversized books that are too large to scan and pop-up books, which cannot be scanned using the Scribe. For them we wait for the fabled “foldout machine” (we are in the queue), with which both can be scanned.

Overall, we soon began to understand the scope of the many factors that effect book digitization. Yet, the books (and related bibliographic objects) are always at the center of it all, giving us glimpses into the ARChive’s amazing and diverse collection. And now, many of those books are digitized and readable in our in-house electronic online database, which is hosted by IA. How we will provide access to the collection is still being decided, but the idea that there is a searchable online archive of a part of the ARChive’s collection is very compelling. This collection represents contemporary music cultural production, visual culture, and print history, which we hope our digital ARChive will provide visitors the opportunity to analyze and reevaluate.

ps x B: Google had asked us why we were doing this, as they were scanning all books.  Well we did showed them a list of the 25 Brazilian books that we had scanned, and they had only scanned four of them.  Case closed.

Jerry Bock

ARC friend and long time supporter Jerry Bock died. (Jerrold Lewis Bock, 11/ 23/1928 – 11/3/2010)

Back in 1999 Jerry donated his personal collection of over 9,000 Broadway and original cast albums.  Needless to say there were a great many odds and ends concerning his best-known work, Fiddler on the Roof.  Like…

Ever the gentleman, Jerry paid for the shipping and delivery, and was gracious when we visited his home.  Later that year he arranged for his local library upstate, Hiram Halle Memorial Library, to donate their multi-thousands of LPs to the ARC.

Professional obituaries can be found in the Times and on the Playbill site.

Amazingly, Jerry died a little more than a week after Joseph Stein, who wrote the book for Fiddler. But then again, and pardon me for this but I think he’d like it, Jerry did write, “Too Close for Comfort.”

It was a pleasure to know Mr. Bock, an honor to have his collection, and lucky we all are to be able to enjoy his wonderful music for all time.  He was hard to forget.  As Jerry usta say, “It rhymes with Bach.”