Consumer Guide Album

The Fugs: Refuse to Be Burnt-Out [New Rose, 1985]
Rarely has an aging hippie lost his sense of humor with more grace than Ed Sanders, who could be wild-ass and even a little nasty on what looked like the brink of cultural triumph but turned careful and considerate once he realized the struggle might never end. Instead of degenerating into a "bitterly bickering bitter-shitter," he's put his youthful idealism front and center. His laughs are gentle, word choices rather than jokes; with special help from Steve Taylor, latest in the proud line of folkie-Fugs, his lyricism is resilient, reedlike; and he preaches with sounder grounding in moral philosophy than Holly Near and Johnny Rotten combined. As for Tuli Kupferberg, who was in his forties when it all began, praise the Lord--he hasn't lost a bit of his youthful sarcasm. B+