Customer Reviews

Motor City Madness

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Say what you want about his loincloth, gun collection, politics, or the several embarassingly bad albums he put out in the 80s before starting Damn Yankees. But Ted Nugent is a talent to be reckoned with when he's on -- he defined a style of straight-ahead Chuck-Berry-on-speed rock that dozens of artists copied but few were willing to admit copying. In 1975, he was as on as he ever would be, and the first album by Ted-Nugent-the-band stands tall 23 years hence. Not metal, not blues, the vintage Nugent sound is really just rock n' roll, a Gibson Byrdland jazz guitar plugged into a wall of Fender Bassman amps turned up loud and played fiercely. Readers of Guitar World recently voted "Stranglehold" into the 100 greatest guitar solos of all time, and this phased, echoplexed groove starts off this great CD. Running through a handful of other classic rockers -- broken up by one cheese but snappy love ditty in "You Make Me Feel Right At Home" -- Nugent would never again craft a nearly-perfect album. Some of the individual songs on Cat Scratch Fever and elsewhere are more memorable, and other works charted higher, but as a full studio album, this is his biggest achievement. A must for any collection which includes hard rock of the 70s, a seminal LP.

I love this album but let me honestly say that I'm not a big fan of Ted Nugent. When you have such a cartoonish, buffoonish persona, it's hard to seperate the goofy personality from the artist.

Setting that aside, this is an awesome hard rock album from the mid 70's era that is right up there with the other bluesy Deep Purple, Montrose, Aeromsith, etc. (Notice, legendary rock Gods Led Zeppelin are not included since you could not honestly put Nugent and Zep in the same sentence. I love this album but I'n not that enamored).

I remember buying this when I was in 12 years old...before Ted did the whole "wang dang sweet poontang" stuff. I believe this was his first album coming off the Amboy Dukes. This was a work representative of a strong Midwest ethic, of which me being a "Chicago boy", I was in that fraternity. This was an album listened to by the serious music purveyor at a time when Nugent was considered a pretty obscure artist on the hard rock fringe. You had to [initially] stay up pretty late to catch a whiff of this on album rock, FM radio.

I pretty much bought this because a friend's cool older brother was listening to it. I obtained the album, glared at the slightly out of focus (couldn't really see his face), close up image of Nugent playing his trusty Gibson Birdland and then put on side one. "Stranglehold" starts it out and boy was I hooked!.

The song starts out with that classic simple riff, the vocals rip into those "tough guy" (well... it sounded like that at the time) lyrics and then the long spacey interlude takes place (you know, with the flanging effects that jump from speaker to speaker while Nugent shreds away on the guitar). Building up into a cresendo the song then comes back to the initial riff and lyrics. Obviously, as you are reading this you can tell I'm no journalist but this is 8:24 of a great song.

Although this is, most definitely, an in your face hard rock work, there are a wide variety of tunes and tempos.

"Hey Baby" has an electric, Chicago blues, familiar groove. All though there is some minimum lead playing, the objective for this one is more the melody and groove.

"Just what the Doctor ordered" has a decending, blues scale riff that carries the tune as vocalist Derek Saint-Holmes wails with his acrobatic yet very honest voice being the shining point.

My favorite song is "Snakeskin Cowboys" a testosterone-driven song that first casts a riff, with no accompaying instrumentation, and then gears towards a cliched (yet enjoyable) rock and roll progression.

Although there is a boatload of lead guitar playing here, there really is no self-indulgent noodling. Every note that is played counts!

The songs are great yet Ted Nugent is not the only active ingredient on this. Singer Derek Saint Holmes acts as a perfect foil to the guitar...tough singing being matched with tough guitar playing.

I started this review out by stressing that I do not worship this artist. After "Free for All" Ted Nugent became a ridiculous caricature of himself. But this album, with it's measley 10 songs, is one of the best, driving-with-top-down, guzzling beer, taking-a-deep- hit albums ever.

Highly recommended.

Skip this "best of" (hardly) CD. Taken on its own, the music on the disc is great but it does not represent Nugent's "best" (it fails to include his two most popular songs -"stranglehold" and "cat scratch fever"). If you are looking for a hit package I would suggest that you pick up "super hits", "great gonzos", or better yet, the "out of control" 2 disc set (this in the only "best of" collection that contains the legendary "great white buffalo").

The Motor City Madman is one of the best guitar player of all time, and his is a collection of songs from his first 7 albums. All the songs are some what good but I would only recomend this to big Nugent fans, because the albums are a lot better then this, but if you are a really big Nug fan then you must get this. But I personaly would recomend getting his first albums Ted Nugent, Cat Scratch Fever, and Scream Dream because on those albums the band really shines. This isnt that band either though. But I would not recomend this.

Made in USA in 1996 Serial#A-28066 Playing Time: 39 mins.

A compilation of material up to his 7th album, "Scream Dream", this compilation is way too short and excludes "essential" tracks from his days with the SONY label.

It's worth getting (used) if you're unfamiliar with his work, and for a bit more money, you can get the "Expanded Editions" of his first few albums.

Some in-your-face guitar performances, with lyrics like "You have to pretend your face is a Maserati"

It deserves 3-and-a-half stars, because it simply rocks!

Going way back to the wide-leg post-woodstock years of the 70's, the Motor City Madman was undisputably THE American guitar hero of the decade for legions of pubescent teens before a certain Eddie somebody showed up in late 1977 to swipe his crown. Ted's mouth that runneth over in concert and in interviews was new and exciting in a subdued time way before he was known as a right-wing wacko. The "voice" of this LP is the under-appreciated Derek St. Holmes who gives Ted the needed heart - or "ying" - to Ted's gonzo "yang". Had Ted not been so autocratic and shared the spotlight with the rest of the band featured on this landmark recording, they might have stayed together and been a supergroup for the ages, but they only stuck it out for 3 great studio albums which will always light up testosterone-filled memories for me and millions of other teen boys at that time who lived their lives according to the gospel of St. Ted's ode to the fair sex: "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang."

New to Ted Nugent? This album is his most definitive work. Get it, you won't be disappointed!

More vain glorious rantings from a guy who lost any music sense when he stopped listening to others. Narcissism personified.