Tuli Kupferberg and Ed Sanders were iconoclastic, beat-influenced poets who were in on the start of the '60s counterculture in New York City's East Village. Influenced by folk, rock, and avant-garde art, they decided to start their own group, inadvertently planting one of the first seeds of punk rock. Their willfully gritty, amateurish sound was girded by the contributions of freak folk group the Holy Modal Rounders, and they frankly addressed sex, war, drugs, and more, all with a winning sense of humor. The broke up at the beginning of the '70s, but began sporadic reunion activity in the '80s, performing and recording into the 21st century until Kupferberg's activities were curtailed by a pair of strokes in 2009; Kupferberg died in July of the following year.