Terrible Ted rocks on

For no good reason, I was talking the other day with someone about Ted Nugent. I mentioned that I was no longer a fan because of what I feel are his right wing politics. It's hard for me, in my mind, to separate the art from the artist. The same reason I can't watch Tom Cruise movies (even Risky Business) without thinking he may have lost his mind as well.

But we chatted briefly about all of Ted's classic albums such as Cat Scratch Fever, Double Live Gonzo, and Intensities in Ten Cities (with the unforgettable "My Love is Like a Tire Iron"). Anyway, all that Nuge nostalgia got me to thinking about the Amboy Dukes. So I dug through my boxes of vinyl and brought out three discs from the early 70s: Marriage On the Rocks/Rock Bottom; Tooth, Fang & Claw; and Call of the Wild. The Amboy Dukes weren't Ted's first band: that honor goes to the Royal High Boys, followed a few years later by The Lordes. The Amboy Dukes formed in 1966, hitting it big with the garage-rock-psychedelic "Journey to the Center of Your Mind."

These days Terrible Ted hams it up on VH1's Supergroup TV show, tours, releases albums, and fights the conservative fight.


Call of the Wild.mp3 from Call of the Wild

Maybelline.mp3 from Tooth, Fang & Claw (with a “one finger guitar solo” by The Rev. Atrocious Theodosius)

Get Yer Guns.mp3 from Marriage on the Rocks/Rock Bottom

Great White Buffalo.mp3 also from Tooth, Fang & Claw. This is the original; another version would surface later on Double Live Gonzo.

(heehee I almost said “Double Wide Gonzo”!!)