The Fugs - Crystal Liaison Live

I've picked up a couple of Fugs albums over the years, but can't claim to be a fan. The albums I had were patchy and spent a lot of time gazing at their own sub Frank Zappa navels. The mix of frankly pretentious wordplay and beatnik dope fiend posturing never impressed me and the music wasn't that inspiring either. That said, when they went with a fairly standard psychedelic acid rock style of song, they were capable of greatness. For me, one of the finest songs was off the 1968 LP - It Crawled Into My Hand, Honest - the opening Crystal Liaison.

It was downhill all the way after that track for me. It was ok, but nothing that really made me want to embrace their music as anything other than a footnote on rock history. I've never seen footage of them playing at all, so it was nice to happen across this video of them from Sweden today. There's some self indulgent padding around the track, but if you just want the music, jump forward to 2.20 and enjoy a stonking live rendition of said same Crystal Liaison. It's a pared down version to the rich production of the LP version of the track, but it shows the band strutting their stuff and an early stage dancer who'd put Bez to shame.

Posted by Dio Bach at 1:45 PM