Tuli Kupferberg has been widely celebrated for writing songs such as “Nothing,” “Morning Morning,” “Carpe Diem,” “Kill for Peace,” “The Ten Commandments,” “When the Mode of the Music Changes,” and “CIA Man,” which was featured in the Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading. In 1965, he co-founded the Fugs with Ed Sanders; the band released a number of albums now considered classics before breaking up in 1969, and when they re-formed in 1984.

Beginning in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Kupferberg became a leading Beat poet and underground publisher, with periodicals such as Birth, Swing, and the magazine Yeah. His famous 1001 Ways to Beat the Draft was published by Grove Press in 1967; and his 1001 Ways to Make Love was published by Grove in ’69. He was arrested at the historic Exorcism of the Pentagon in October of 1967. Along with his songs, his poems made him an integral part of the social revolutions of the 1960s and ’70s. He became a noted political cartoonist beginning around the late 1970s, and has a long running bi-weekly television show on public access in New York City. At the time of his stroke, the Fugs were completing a new album, Be Free, which the band plans to release this year.

As he convalesces at his home in New York City, Kupferberg continues to write songs. His old friend, the author Larry “Ratso” Sloman, says, “Tuli Kupferberg was a mentor to all of us who grew up in the ‘60s and sensed there was more to life than shuffling off to Vietnam and, if you returned, getting a job as an accountant and paying off a white picket fenced home in Levitttown. Like a Colossus he bridged the worlds of the literary Beats and the hedonistic hippies and infused his gentile, pacifist worldview into everything he did. His work would make you laugh out loud and cry inside. Watching him perform his incredible songs like “Nothing,” “Morning Morning,” and “Kill for Peace” with The Fugs was a cultural revelation and more mind-altering than any psychedelic. The fact that Tuli continues to make his voice heard, via You Tube, at 86, and after two debilitating strokes, makes him an American treasure and puts all of us who can still feel greatly in his debt.”

    The Fugs are a seminal folk rock band founded in 1965 by Tuli Kupferberg and Ed Sanders.  During the 1960s, they honed their act by appearing in a number of off-Broadway Theaters for extended runs.  They recorded for Folkways, ESP, and for a number of years for Warner Brothers/Reprise.  They toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe.  The early Fugs broke up in 1969, but reformed in 1984, and have been performing regular reunion concerts, with the same band, and issuing CDs for the past 25 years.

    The Fugs consist of founders Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg, and Steve Taylor, on vocals and guitars, Scott Petito, on bass and keyboards, and Coby Batty, on vocals and drums.

Hal Willner is among the most eclectic and original producers in contemporary music. Growing up in the sixties and seventies, he turned childhood obsessions with TV variety shows, sixties FM, comedy albums, and any music that his classmates hated into an inimitable career. He first earned notice in 1981 with Amarcord Nino Rota, an exploration of the legendary composer best known for his collaborations with filmmaker Federico Fellini that featured contributions from Debbie Harry, jazz piano great Jaki Byard, and many others—including the then-undiscovered Wynton Marsalis and Bill Frisell. That same year, Willner signed on as the sketch music supervisor for Saturday Night Live, a position he still holds.

Amarcord Nino Rota was a landmark recording and set the template for Willner’s wildly ambitious concept albums. That's the Way I Feel Now: A Tribute to Thelonious Monk, which included interpretations by Dr. John, Joe Jackson, and John Zorn among others, came out in 1984, and a year later Willner produced Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill, featuring Sting, Tom Waits, and Lou Reed. In 1988 Willner earned considerable notice for Stay Awake, a record of music of Disney animated films with Ringo Starr, Sun Ra, Waits again, Sinéad O'Connor, and other diverse luminaries. Animated music remained one of Willner's preoccupations in the years to follow, and in 1990 he assembled The Carl Stalling Project, a collection of vintage cartoon scores from the legendary Warner Bros. Studios composer.

In 1993, he collaborated with filmmaker Robert Altman on Short Cuts, a working relationship which extended into 1996's Kansas City and its accompanying Robert Altman's Jazz '34. He has worked as music supervisor on numerous other films, including Finding Forrester and Talladega Nights.

Willner’s unique multi-artist live events include The Harry Smith Project (at Royal Albert Hall, London and Royce Hall, Los Angeles); Closed on Account of Rabies and Never Bet the Devil Your Head, two Halloween evenings of Edgar Allan Poe (Royce Hall, UCLA); The Doc Pomus Project (St. Mark's Church, New York; reprised last year Celebrate Brooklyn); Came So Far for Beauty: An Evening of Leonard Cohen Songs (Celebrate Brooklyn! Performing Arts Festival 2003, the Brighton Dome for the Brighton Festival 2004, the Sydney Opera House for the Sydney Festival 2005; the Point for the Dublin International Theatre Festival, 2006); Shock & Awe: The Songs of Randy Newman (Royce Hall, UCLA); Let's Eat! Feasting on the Firesign Theater (Royce Hall, UCLA); Dream Comfort Memory Despair: An Evening of Songs by Neil Young (Celebrate Brooklyn); Perfect Partners: Frederico Fellini and Nino Rota (the Barbican, London).

Among the recent albums Willner has produced are Bill Frisell's Unspeakable, which won a Best Jazz Album Grammy in 2005, Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man the Motion Picture Soundtrack, which captures performances from the Brighton and Sydney productions of Came So Far for Beauty, Lucinda Williams’ West, and Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys, which included contributions from Bono, Sting, Nick Cave, Bryan Ferry, Lou Reed, Lucinda Williams, Loudon Wainwright III, Richard Thompson, Gavin Friday, Andrea Corr, and Rufus Wainwright among others. Rogue’s Gallery became a live show at St. Ann’s Warehouse and has since toured internationally. Willner was musical director for Lou Reed’s Berlin, which debuted in New York 2007 and went on to tour internationally. He is currently working on volume two of the Rogue’s Gallery project, and recently produced Marianne Faithfull’s album Easy Come Easy Go, among other projects. In February 2010 Willner will bring his Neil Young project, originally presented at the 2004 Celebrate Brooklyn festival, to the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad during the Winter Olympics.

    Chandra Ratner and Jacques del Conte began BoxerBabe Productions in January 2009 to produce a benefit concert for Chandra’s cousin Rory O’Sullivan, who had been suffering from a brain tumor. The concert, Rock4Rorz, brought together a mixture of Brooklyn’s finest musicians to celebrate Rory and raise awareness about Brain Cancer. The benefit raised over $40,000 for the O’Sullivan family, and strengthened the fight for many people touched with Cancer.

Tuli Kupferberg, the influential songwriter who co-founded the Fugs, suffered two strokes, in April and September 2009, which left him blind, confined to his apartment and in need of 24-hour care. He is recovering well—he is able to speak clearly—but has overwhelming medical expenses not covered by Medicare or the very modest publishing/royalties income he earns at the age of 86. A number of his friends and admirers are coming to his aid by performing in a benefit concert produced by Hal Willner, including his fellow Fugs, John Kruth and an all-star band, Lou Reed, Elliott Sharp, Sonic Youth, Pete Stampfel, John Zorn and others who will be announced soon. The concert will take place at St. Ann’s Warehouse, Friday, January 22 at 7:30 P.M.

Tickets, whose proceeds will contribute to Kupferberg’s medical expenses, are $75—$125 and are available online at www.NothingConcert.com and by phone at 718.254.8779 (Tuesday—Saturday, 1:00 P.M.—7:00 P.M.) or 866.811.4111 (extended hours Monday—Friday, 9:00 A.M.—9:00 P.M.; Saturday and Sunday, 10:00 A.M.—6:00 P.M.). Tickets can also be purchased at the St. Ann’s Warehouse Box Office at 38 Water Street Tuesday—Saturday, 1:00 P.M.—7:00 P.M.

For the past 30 years, St. Ann’s has commissioned, produced and presented an eclectic body of innovative theater and concert presentations that meet at the intersection of theater and rock and roll. Since 2001, the organization has helped vitalize the emerging Brooklyn waterfront neighborhood, DUMBO, where St. Ann’s Warehouse at 38 Water Street has become one of New York City’s most important and compelling live performance destinations.

Through its signature multi-artist concerts and groundbreaking music/theater collaborations, St. Ann’s Warehouse has become the home for the American avant-garde and international companies of stature. Highly acclaimed landmark productions include Lou Reed’s and John Cale’s Songs for ‘Drella; Marianne Faithfull’s Seven Deadly Sins; Artistic Director Susan Feldman’s Band in Berlin; Charlie Kaufman and the Coen Brothers’ Theater of the New Ear; The Royal Court Theater’s 4:48 Psychosis; The Wooster Group’s La Didone, Hamlet, The Emperor Jones, House/Lights, Brace Up! and To You, The Birdie! (Phèdre); The Globe Theatre of London’s Measure for Measure; Antony’s Turning; Mabou Mines DollHouse; Lou Reed’s Berlin; Drama Desk Award-nominated productions of Les Freres Corbusier’s Hell House and Gate Theatre London’s Woyzeck; and the National Theater of Scotland’s Black Watch, which was recognized as “the number 1 theatrical event of 2007” on several lists, including Ben Brantley of The New York Times. Black Watch recently completed a three-month, sold-out return engagement at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Brantley called it “one of the most richly human works of art to have emerged from this long-lived war.” Over 26,000 people saw the production.

In 2004, Susan Feldman and St. Ann’s Warehouse were awarded the Ross Wetzsteon OBIE Award for the development of new work. The OBIE Award Committee honored St. Ann’s for “inviting artists to treat their cavernous DUMBO space as both an inspiring laboratory and a sleek venue where its super-informed audience charges the atmosphere with hip vitality.” New York Magazine recently proclaimed Feldman “The Saint of Experimental Theater.”

For more information, please contact Blake Zidell at
Blake Zidell & Associates, 718.643.9052 or blake@blakezidell.com.

Hal Willner

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