Music : Don't Stop Don't Stop

Rating: - 5 stars for the music... 2 stars for the reissues
Anybody reading this knows who The Fugs are and most likely owns their first two albums already on CD (or LP). It certainly was a nice idea to release more unreleased material, which is featured on Disc 3 and Disc 4, but what's the story on reissuing The Fugs First Album and the self-titled, second album, The Fugs, as Disc 1 and Disc 2? Paying big money like this for a boxed set that features 2 already released CDs is not a great bargain.

And after reading the liner notes, it becomes obvious it didn't have to be this way. Ed Sanders writes that he listened to hundreds of hours of unreleased material to gather material for this set. It is very surprising that out of at least 4 days worth of music, another 2 discs could not have been garnered from such a treasure trove to fill out this set with completely unreleased material.

As for what you get with regards to the unreleased material, Disc 3 is mainly material from Belle of Avenue A and Sanders Truckstop years, with an occasional (and jarringly loud) live track from a significantly earlier time-frame thrown into the mix. Of course, with programming features available on most players, this can remedied.

Disc 4 features plenty of Tuli Kupferburg, starting with 5 versions of Nothing, some outtakes from the first Folkways sessions, a couple other rarities, and finishes with early solo Tuli recordings that are unfortunately narrated by a modern Ed Sanders, which detracts from the ability to replay this frequently.

Overall, while it's not likely there are such people out there, this would make a fine introduction to the early Fugs. For the rest of us, it is essential for completists, but not a good buy overall.