Stampfel & Weber

Although technically they have only released one album as Stampfel & Weber, 1981's Going Nowhere Fast, singer/violinist/banjoist Peter Stampfel (b. October 29, 1938, in Wauwautosa, WI) and singer/guitarist Steve Weber (b. June 22, 1942, in Philadelphia, PA) have worked together off and on, as a duo and with others, since they met in New York City in 1962, introduced by singer/songwriter Antonia Duren, Weber's former girlfriend, and Stampfel's current one at the time. In May 1963, they formed the Holy Modal Rounders as a duo. Their music mixed elements of traditional folk and old-timey country with an urban sensibility informed by humorous and surreal elements of beat poetry, making them one of the oddest acts in the folk boom. They signed to Prestige/Folkore Records, the folk division of the independent jazz label Prestige Records, and recorded their debut album, The Holy Modal Rounders, on December 11, 1963, and January 17, 1964; it was released in 1964. Their second album, The Holy Modal Rounders/2, was recorded on July 16, 1964, and released in 1965. (After Prestige was acquired by Fantasy Records, Fantasy re-released the albums as a two-LP set under the title Stampfel & Weber in 1972. In 1999, Fantasy again reissued the albums, this time as a single CD called The Holy Modal Rounders 1 & 2.) Hooking up with the Greenwich Village poets Tuli Kupferberg and Ed Sanders and drummer Ken Weaver, Stampfel and Weber then became part of the Village Fugs, who were at least as strange as the Holy Modal Rounders, but more interested in playing rock music. The Village Fugs' debut album, The Village Fugs Sing Ballads of Contemporary Protest, Point of Views, and General Dissatisfaction, was released by the Broadside subsidiary of Folkways Records in 1965. The group simplified its...