Free Republic

Tuli Kupferberg, a founding member of the New York underground rockers the Fugs, has died at age 86. Kupferberg died Monday in a Manhattan hospital, according to his friend and bandmate Ed Sanders. He had suffered several strokes in the past year. Sanders, owner of the Peace Eye Bookstore in New York, joined with beat poet Kupferberg and drummer Ken Weaver to form the group in 1964. They were among the first underground rock bands and paved the way for groups such as the Mothers of Invention and Velvet Underground. The Fugs were strong supporters of the anti-war and protest...

CREDIT: (AP/Stephen Chernin)Founding members of the Fugs, Tuli Kupferberg, right, and Ed Sanders, seated, pose with bassist Scott Petito, left, and guitarist Steve Taylor outside the Village Underground Wednesday in New York.In the 1960s, the rock group the Fugs were at the vanguard of the underground counterculture movement, railing against the Vietnam War, promoting legalization of marijuana and extolling the virtues of free sex. Nearly 40 years later, American troops are in Iraq, pot is still illegal and the sexual revolution has been blunted by the scourge of AIDS. Yet the Fugs continue to preach their gospel of peace, love...