The Amboy Dukes: Tooth, Fang & Claw

THE AMBOY DUKES: TOOTH, FANG & CLAW (1974)

1) Lady Luck; 2) Living In The Woods; 3) Hibernation; 4) Free Flight; 5) Maybelline; 6) The Great White Buffalo; 7) Sasha; 8) No Holds Barred.

The Amboy Dukes finally reach the end of their transmutational career with this record — upon completing it, Nugent officially disbanded the group and embarked on a three-month deer-killing spree, a bloody intermission that formally separates «Ted Nugent & The Amboy Dukes» from «Ted Nugent, Solo Madman». But since Tooth, Fang & Claw is very much just Call Of The Wild Vol. 2, there is a substantial difference, too.

This is the last time Uncle Ted flirts with an itty-bitty bit of artsiness, coming in the form of two consequent in­strumentals: 'Hibernation' and 'Free Flight'. The former is just as long as 'Below The Belt' on the previous album, but much faster and much more relying on speed runs from Ted's fingers, happily bursting out in seemingly endless waves. The latter also runs fast, but is more riff-based, centered around an equally happy, memorable melody. But as loud and energetic as these guitarfests are, they are not at all «heavy», and the sweaty sexual aggression that Ted would start cultivating so hard in just a year is nowhere in sight.

It is much more evident on vocal numbers, such as the opening 'Lady Luck' and the closing 'No Holds Barred'; the former, in particular, is classic Nugent — not one, but several crunchy and evocative riffs, lyrics that leave no doubts about the directions of Uncle Ted's mind, and a heavy as heck, macho as muck atmosphere that, in 1974, Ted was still learning to borrow from his pre­decessors (Steppenwolf, etc.), but of which he would soon become the ultimate priest. Great tune! As recommendable for sissies as 'Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme' is for bodybuilders.

'Lady Luck' and the instrumental rampage are the chief reasons why I believe this record to be almost as satisfactory as Call Of The Wild, but there are other points of interest, including:

— 'The Great White Buffalo', a Nugent classic and one of the very few Amboy Dukes-era sur­vi­vors that made it into his regular set — an environmentalist tune, mind you, blaming the stupid white man for the fate of the buffalo. (Come to think of it, I can understand Uncle Ted's rage at the stupid white man — exterminating all the buffalo before Un­cle Ted got there! Now all Uncle Ted's got left are these puny little deer things). The important thing about the song is not its ly­rics, though, but rather the quirky little riff, built around several loop-like flourishes that Ted bravely reproduces in each bar of the verse melody;

— 'Maybellene': Chuck's prime chestnut is updated here for the 1970s, with everything bigger, louder, faster, and dumber than it used to be, but that's to be expected. The funniest part of it is Ted imploring the drum guy to "Hit me... hit me... hit me!" in the very end, like a junkie screa­ming for a shot, then, once the desired hit finally comes — a relieved "Ah, thank you!". That fun­ny old Mr. Nugent, eh?;

— 'Sasha': a rather mediocre acoustic-folk ballad, but it's a NUGE-APPROVED acoustic-folk ballad, his first one, actually — and it's about his newborn daughter, so cut the caveman some slack for a little sentimental tenderness, something like the first time ever. After all, even loin­cloth-clad primordial hunters could have a weakness for babies.

Strange as it is, I would not say that, at any point during the album, Ted feels like he is tired of his current direction, or feeling under pressure from some atavistic obligation to inject a shot of «art» into whatever it is that he is doing. Tooth, Fang & Claw is not a great hard rock album, but it's fairly solid, so Nugent's final decision to concentrate on one and one thing only in the fu­ture really comes off as a surprise. Believe it or not, there used to be a time when Uncle Ted kept trying different things from time to time — if anything, none of these records sound as cartoonish as whatever followed. Of course, Ted's cartoons are one of a kind, too, but still, there is some­thing about his Amboy Dukes past that brews up a little nostalgia. Thumbs up to commemorate this yearning — oh, and for all the swell guitar runs, too, of course.

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The Amboy Dukes: Call Of The Wild

THE AMBOY DUKES: CALL OF THE WILD (1973)

1) Call Of The Wild; 2) Sweet Revenge; 3) Pony Express; 4) Ain't It The Truth; 5) Renegade; 6) Rot Gut; 7) Below The Belt; 8) Cannon Balls.

Well! Is this already a completely solo Ted Nugent album in all but name? With Andy Solomon out of the band, the Nuge is now officially the only link to any sort of the Amboy Dukes' past — now there is no one but himself to even remember who the heck was a «Steve Farmer» and whe­ther he was a real farmer or just pretended to be one. Actually, with the second wildlife-dedicated album title in a row, Ted drives the last nail into the coffin of the agricultural revolution. From now on and all the way down to eternity, a-hunting we will go.

And yet, the label «Ted Nugent & The Amboy Dukes» still makes some sense. For one thing, Un­cle Ted's limitless libido is still kept under control: the occupation of «looking for meat», as applied to Call Of The Wild, is mostly to be understood in the literal, not figurative, way, with most of the album's rockers celebrating the simple pleasures of enjoying nature and freedom, ra­ther than the self-imposed chains of the sex drive. For another, Ted still requires a full-fledged «band-like» sound — Solomon's replacement, Gabriel Magno, contributes thick keyboard layers that are regularly battling with Ted's guitar runs. (On vocals, by the way, we sometimes find Ted himself, sometimes a certain Andy Jezowski whom I really know nothing about).

But, most importantly, about half of Side B is still turned over to an atmospheric, quasi-psychede­lic instrumental suite ('Below The Belt') — granted, its slow, moody unveiling, with Ted gradual­ly laying on echos, distortion, wobble, phasing, feedback, etc., is probably just supposed to illus­trate a thrilling journey through the jungle, which every brave hunter is expected to undertake in order to feel himself one with the things of nature before killing and eating them. (More nutritious that way, not to mention spiritual.) However, 'Below The Belt's direct musical influence is unque­stionably Pink Floyd's 'Careful With That Axe, Eugene' — same type of relentlessly creeping cre­scendo, culminating in blood-curdling screams. For the classic Ted Nugent style, this is much too artsy-fartsy, and fully justifies still dragging along the «Amboy Dukes» tag.

The real good news is that Call Of The Wild rocks. Right until 'Below The Belt' softens up and colorizes the atmosphere, it is just one energetic rocker after another — truly wild, conveniently fast, and each containing either a decent riff, or a decent chorus, or both, and all of them featuring Mr. Ted in overdrive mode, soloing away like there was no tomorrow, no holds barred at all. The man is just completely unchained — one listen to the solo on 'Sweet Revenge' at 1:56 into the song is enough to witness a happy soul in fully free flight. This is one of those seminal spots where any disgust one might harbor towards Ted Nugent, the sickening human being, must be left behind that door and replaced with admiration for such inspired musicianship.

Obviously, if you are asserting yourself as a major hard-rocking machine as late as 1973, some of your music will be ripped off, and Uncle Ted's listening stand, by that time, must have included quite a bit of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple — 'Pony Express', as much ass as it kicks, is very much a slightly slowed down, bluesier take on 'Highway Star' (check the beginning of each verse, in particular). But then, one thing Uncle Ted never ever pretended to was trend-setting — other than masterminding an unfortunate association between cock rock and the National Rifle Associ­ation — and his is far from the only brand of derivative hard-rock that is still enjoyable from top to bottom. Who needs historical innovation with the kind of awesome guitar thunderstorm inter­lude Uncle Ted showers on our heads at 2:16 into 'Call Of The Wild'? That's just, like, totally MURDEROUS guitar playing out there! Beats even Mötörhead for sheer headbanging purposes, if you ask me.

To put it short, I can understand how all those «transitional era» Amboy Dukes albums had so little impact — but why an album like Call Of The Wild should so slumpily fall through the cracks of benevolent public attention and reluctant critical recognition, I have no idea. With a bunch of steamin'-hot rockers like the title track and 'Sweet Revenge', and a fun seven-minute at­mospheric romp through the realm of sound like 'Below The Belt', it is the first Nugent-associated record I had the pleasure of enjoying all the way through — and, possibly, my thumbs up might stimulate someone else into sharing that pleasure. This may not yet be the completely print-ready cartoonish version of Uncle Ted with the cat scratch fever, but this is where Nugent truly arrives on the scene as a force in a class of his own. And no Jack London-related jokes, please.

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The Amboy Dukes: Survival Of The Fittest

THE AMBOY DUKES: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST (1971)

1) Survival Of The Fittest; 2) Rattle My Snake; 3) Mr. Jones' Hanging Party; 4) Papa's Will; 5) Slidin' On; 6) Prodi­gal Man.

Some pressings of Marriage On The Rocks already added a «Featuring Ted Nugent» note in small print right on the sleeve. With the band's next album, all doubts were lifted. The band is now officially «Ted Nugent And The Amboy Dukes», with TED NUGENT in thick blood-red let­ters and THE AMBOY DUKES in a poorly discernible, malicious yellow. If that ain't enough, there is TED NUGENT himself, staring right at you from the sleeve photo, dressed up in Native Ame­rican garb and ready to shoot himself some fleshy dinner.

Still, at least there is some small connection with the earlier Amboy Dukes, because keyboardist Andy Solomon is still part of Ted's band — a very important, in fact, ingredient of the overall sound — and he even co-writes the title track. All of the other band members have been replaced: now we have K. J. Knight on drums and Rob Ruzga on bass — not that it seriously matters, since neither of the two had enough stamina to last too long around Uncle Ted. Survival Of The Fit­test indeed — and say what you will about Mr. Nugent and his social-darwinist stance on life, but one thing nobody can deny is that the guy does belong in the «fittest» category.

The entire album was recorded live over two nights of playing at a Detroit theater in the summer of 1970 — home grounds boosting self-confidence — yet consists almost entirely of new materi­al, with the sole exception of 'Prodigal Man', and even that one, by the time of the recording, had evolved into a typically early Seventies twenty-minute long jam with extended soloing from all the members. This makes Survival an obligatory must for Nuge fans — whether it is an equal must for general hard rock audiences is a tougher question.

As close as he is getting there, the Nuge still had not shaken the artsy cobwebs out properly; his wildman image is gradually starting to get the better of him, but a little bit of shyness and, more importantly, a little bit of pretense to something bigger than blunt ass-kicking still remains. The title track begins with an intentional false start — the band launches straight into the main riff of 'Journey To The Center Of The Mind' — then transforms into another 'Marriage'-like suite with alternating blues-rock and R'n'B sections; the grooves are smooth, but the little pizzazz that can push a thing like that into overdrive is, unfortunately, missing.

Other than the okayish hard rocker 'Rattle My Snake' ("rattle my snake! feel free to," a young Uncle Ted invites his audience at the end of the track, officially initiating his long history of sala­cious live routines) and a semi-psychedelic workout called 'Mr. Jones' Hanging Party', the mag­num opus of Side 1 is unquestionably 'Papa's Will'. A slowly lumbering grumbly monster, it ne­ver truly kicks off until the last minutes, when it's all about Mr. Ted and his wildman behaviour, culminating in a series of feral screams that are almost the equal of Pink Floyd's 'Careful With That Axe, Eugene' — and, in a way, even sound more natural.

The good news is that Survival Of The Fittest drops most of the clumsy and pointless elements that Marriage On The Rocks tried to associate with the Amboy Dukes. No straightahead psy­chedelia or ambitious messing around with Bartok pieces — this is rock'n'roll that tries to be more than three-chord entertainment, but still remains pure rock'n'roll. And yet, the Nuge still had a short way to go: except for the rip-roaring finale of 'Prodigal Man' (for which you have to wade through fifteen minutes of mediocre drum, bass, and organ soloing), not one song on here truly cuts loose with the appropriate degree of Madness from the Motor City Madman; I doubt that 'Rattle My Snake' or 'Slidin' On' might ever rank high on anyone's top 100 list of Harder Than A Rock Classics. The flaming bits are truly flaming, but, overall, this is a boring thumbs down — a transitional stage that no one needs to spend too much time on.

I mean, this was 1970, for God's sake — with the Who, the Stones, Led Zep, the Allman Brothers, and Derek & The Dominos all at the peak of their powers that year, someone still needs Ted Nugent? Just give the smartass his due — by steering clear of drugs, in five years' time, he'd outlast all these peaks — and THEN there would be something to finally talk about.

The Amboy Dukes: Marriage On The Rocks/Rock Bottom

THE AMBOY DUKES: MARRIAGE ON THE ROCKS/ROCK BOTTOM (1970)

1) Marriage; 2) Breast-Fed Gator; 3) Get Yer Guns; 4) Non-Conformist Wildebeest Man; 5) Today's Lesson; 6) Chil­dren Of The Woods; 7) Brain Games Of Yesteryear; 8) The Inexhaustible Quest For The Cosmic Cabbage.

All right — now that Steve Farmer is officially out of the band and complete control passes on to Nugent, you'd think The Amboy Dukes must have kicked aside all the silly psycho shit and moved on to a sort of permanently fixed 'Cat Scratch Fever'-like type of groove, right?

Dead wrong. Not only has Farmer's departure not affected Uncle Ted's testosterone level one lit­tle bit, it seems to have initially worked the wrong way — for one brief moment at least, Nugent assumed that it was now up to him to fill in the «artsy slots», left vacant with Farmer's departure. The result is, hands down, the weirdest album to ever bear association with the name of Ted Nu­gent. Were he ever to unexpectedly perform 'Marriage' or 'Children Of The Woods' at one of his shows, at least half of his fans' heads would explode. Fortunately, there is no danger of that. «He was young, he was foolish, he was angry, he was vain», Mick would describe this.

I do not like any of these songs. The Nuge still has problems coming up with memorable riffs, and much of the time he is not even trying. What he is doing, though, is being all over the place. No single song on here ends where it begins, and most go through several transformations at least — constant tempo and key changes, constant juggling around with instruments and guitar tones, constant mood-shifting that borders on psychic disturbance.

If there is any primary influence here, it is Frank Zappa, closely followed by the «street mob va­riety art rock» of Blue Cheer, Vanilla Fudge, Iron Butterfly, and various other heavy psychedelic bands (I have met comparisons with Jethro Tull, but that's out of the question; it is unlikely that the Dukes had even heard Jethro Tull by then, much less could have been carried away by them). The major Zappa fan in the band was keyboard player Andy Solomon: his only contribution, the crazy disjointed ten-minute suite 'The Inexhaustible Quest For The Cosmic Cabbage' is fully Zap­paesque in name and spirit, except it's also boring as hell: the free-form jazz / Brit-pop / avant­garde noise / pseudo-barbershop quartet harmony bits do not mesh together with nearly as much professionalism or conceptuality as they do on Frank's Absolutely Free, and it is not really until Uncle Ted properly picks up the guitar and starts whuppin' its ass at the tail end of the show that the track belatedly justifies its existence. Still, it's a fascinating misfire in its own way.

Ted's own brave stab at a multi-part epic ('Marriage') is much better — it is listenable as a normal and mildly interesting piece of music with progressive overtones, although its main flaw also fol­lows the main flaw of so many aspiring progressive musicians: it is basically just a set of mode­rately complex rhythmic grooves, none of which have any real significance, over which Nugent gets a chance to showcase his melodic soloing. That Ted has a gift, and that he is not merely «wa­nking» all over the studio, but trying to invoke beauty one minute and fury the next one, is crys­tal clear. That 'Marriage' is a breathtaking prog epic, capable of taking its rightful place next to 'Wat­cher Of The Skies' or 'Gates Of Delirium', is not quite so evident.

The shorter hard-rockers are more in line with the Dukes' previous body of work — meaty, braw­ny, worth tapping a toe or two or kicking a butt or three. But no review of an album like this can bypass a track as crazy as 'Non-Conformist Wildebeest Man' — which could only be described as «Nashville meets Orange County hardcore»: ninety seconds of a lively country shuffle played at over-breakneck speed, nothing in 1970 could even remotely sound like that. Alas, on the ninety first second it mutates into the mid-tempo art-metal of 'Today's Lesson', a much less interesting track, even if it takes itself much more seriously.

Had the new-look Amboy Dukes continued that way, who knows, this could have perhaps evol­ved into a whole new genre. On the other hand, Nugent clearly shows that he is in no position to pen really complex material: he gets by on the strength of his fire-breathing playing, but any em­bellishments that the band tries to load on top of his riffs mainly fall flat. Whatever you could say, some people are born into this world to bring it 'Thick As A Brick' — and some are born to sim­ply give it some 'Wang Dang Sweet Poontang'.