"The Garden Is Open"

Cut to the sixties, focus on the demons: who in their right minds refused to leave. Focus on the heroes, cut to the present: dislocated, but fondly remembering Prague.

For history: Ed Sanders, poet and ringleader of the Fugs, joined the Plastic People of the Universe at the Prague Writers" Festival in June 2005.

What remains is a legendary evening.

Ed Sanders formed the Fugs with Tuli Kupferberg in early 1965, "so we could sing our poetry, party and have fun, and work for big but peaceful changes in the way our country was run. We quickly found a young poet from Texas, Ken Weaver, and added him to the conspiracy.

"We began performing almost immediately. Our first public concert was in February of 1965 at the grand opening of The Peace Eye Bookstore on East Tenth Street in the East Village. Peace Eye was where the Fugs had been formed, and we practiced there almost every afternoon."

The Fugs lived the sixties. "It had not been an easy time. We were very very controversial. We were always on the verge of getting arrested. We had bomb threats. We were picketed by right wingers. Someone sent me a fake bomb in the mail. Someone called and said he was going to bomb first me, then Frank Zappa.

"We were investigated by the FBI, by the Post Office, by the New York District Attorney. We were often encouraged not to perform at the same venue. We were tossed off a major label. It took bites out of our spirit. I was getting weary - four years had seemed like forty, and I felt as if I"d awakened inside a Samuel Beckett novel."

The Plastics formed against the wallpaper of communism, "condemned to hope". They picked up tunes from the Fugs, the Mothers and the Velvet Underground and eventually played behind bars, laying down the basic tracks for the Velvet Revolution.

In the late seventies, Ed Sanders and the Fugs held benefit concerts for the Plastics and sent them equipment.

They had never played together.

Until now.

Michael March