Nugent that is, I went to see him last night at the House of Blues.<\/p>\n
Am I a huge fan?<\/p>\n
No.\u00c2\u00a0 But some of the FM classics move me, and I love "Journey To The Center Of Your Mind", the old Amboy Dukes chestnut.<\/p>\n
And although Ted did not play this, he did do some Motor City classics, like "Cool Jerk".\u00c2\u00a0 He told me without the black music of Motown, there was no rock, it was the underpinning.<\/p>\n
Yes, we had a conversation.\u00c2\u00a0 A long one.<\/p>\n
I went to the gig because I’m friends with Ted’s manager, Doug Banker, who’s been spending time out on the road with Axl Rose and Guns N’ Roses.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, the tales he could and did tell.\u00c2\u00a0 At some point someone’s gonna do an oral history\/book, probably after Axl’s gone, and we’ll all have a peek inside.\u00c2\u00a0 But Doug did say despite all the craziness, Axl was a believer in rock and roll.\u00c2\u00a0 That he was about keeping it pure, capturing the energy…I leave you to make your own decision.<\/p>\n
And after b.s.’ing with Doug and agent Dennis Arfa after the show, Doug asked me if I wanted to meet Ted.<\/p>\n
I told him my policy.\u00c2\u00a0 That if the artist knows who I am and we’re gonna have a conversation, sure.\u00c2\u00a0 But I don’t want to shake the hand of someone who’s got no clue who I am as a photographer snaps a pic that I can trot out to try and impress people.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just plain creepy.<\/p>\n
But Doug said Ted knew who I was and that he was gonna go up to the dressing room and find out if the Motor City Madman was up for it.<\/p>\n
And when he returned five minutes later with the thumbs-up, we ascended into the inner sanctum.<\/p>\n
Now I’m not sure Ted can hear.\u00c2\u00a0 He turned the amps up to 11 as if he were playing Staples, it was truly deafening.\u00c2\u00a0 Is that why he insisted I sit on the couch right next to him?<\/p>\n
I don’t know.\u00c2\u00a0 But there was no issue of comprehension as we got into it.<\/p>\n
And it was fascinating.<\/p>\n
Ted’s there in his robe.\u00c2\u00a0 With the American flag patch and his name on the front.\u00c2\u00a0 And sure, he’s hyped up on the two hour performance, but he’s ready to hunt, ready to get into it, speaking with enough zeal to kill a deer sans arrow.<\/p>\n
Yes, he talked about hunting.\u00c2\u00a0 I connected with his passion.\u00c2\u00a0 He grew up camping and tracking, it turns him on.\u00c2\u00a0 Too many people today have no passion, they’re just lumps on a log watching television.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually, that’s another thing Ted’s got an opinion on, obesity.\u00c2\u00a0 Get those kids outdoors!<\/p>\n
Speaking of kids, Ted insisted on introducing me to three of his seven.\u00c2\u00a0 He said he kept the lines of communication open, he spoke to or texted them every day…and I must say, these three young adults seemed completely reasonable.<\/p>\n
And then Ted introduced me to his wife.\u00c2\u00a0 She was pretty hot and utterly devoted to him and the guitar slinger insisted that I now looked at him differently, that after meeting his wife, his stock went up.<\/p>\n
That’s conversation with Ted.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s defensive.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, he gets tons of shit, but doesn’t that go with the territory?\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t that true with all famous people, like Sarah Palin?<\/p>\n
"Have you spoken with her Bob?\u00c2\u00a0 Do you know her?"<\/p>\n
And that’s when it became clear, not only were they buds, Ted knew every conservative Republican.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’d like to tell you I argued with him about their politics, but it was hard to get a word in edgewise, and Ted kept poking me for emphasis…I’d be lying if I didn’t say he scared me a bit.<\/p>\n
You see Sarah had to resign because she couldn’t govern!<\/p>\n
Come on Ted, would you resign?\u00c2\u00a0 Would you ever cancel a gig?<\/p>\n
"Of course not, BUT I’M TED NUGENT!"<\/p>\n
The guy truly is a wonder.\u00c2\u00a0 There is only one Ted Nugent.\u00c2\u00a0 62, in fantastic shape, looking ten years younger, and full of piss and vinegar.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s got an opinion on everything.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s not always what you’d expect.<\/p>\n
Sarah Palin can’t be President.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s too divisive, she’s not qualified.<\/p>\n
But we need a leader.<\/p>\n
I’m down with that, we need someone to point the way, to tell everybody to buckle down and work for the good of the country and themselves.<\/p>\n
Ted would end welfare tomorrow.<\/p>\n
But what about underprivileged kids?<\/p>\n
The Church can feed them, it’s sitting on tons of gold!<\/p>\n
How about immigration?<\/p>\n
Announce you’re gonna shoot illegals on sight, that’ll take care of the problem…<\/p>\n
Yes, Ted’s out there.\u00c2\u00a0 A weird combination of huckster\/hypester\/provocateur, whose philosophy works for himself, but can others follow in his footsteps?<\/p>\n
He says they can, he says he’s put 21,000 kids through his camp.<\/p>\n
And the longer he talked, the more I believed he was a crackpot who was incapable of listening, or if he listened, wouldn’t digest what I was saying, but…<\/p>\n
Ted Nugent is brilliant.\u00c2\u00a0 An incredibly smart guy in a dumb business.\u00c2\u00a0 If I was a record executive of yore, I’d make a deal with him in an instant.\u00c2\u00a0 Because this guy is hungry, he’ll do whatever it takes to make it.\u00c2\u00a0 He won’t be off drinking, doing drugs, he’ll be practicing his guitar, yes, his trio still rehearses.<\/p>\n
And finally, I asked Ted about the music business, what did he think of that?<\/p>\n
He said in 1975, the musicians loved the music.\u00c2\u00a0 The promotion man at the label loved the music.\u00c2\u00a0 The President of the label loved the music.\u00c2\u00a0 The retailer loved the music.\u00c2\u00a0 The deejay loved the music.\u00c2\u00a0 The people loved the music.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, NO ONE LOVES THE MUSIC!<\/p>\n
Whew!\u00c2\u00a0 You think Ted’s taking a detour to nowhere, but at one in the morning, he’s totally on track.<\/p>\n
Sure, he said there’s no incentive to record music, ever the capitalist, but he insisted he was an independent.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, he said Barack Obama should go back to Singapore.<\/p>\n
And he’s asking if I read his books, did I see him on Anderson Cooper?\u00c2\u00a0 He was calm there…\u00c2\u00a0 "Bob, you’ve got to inform yourself.", as if I was about to dedicate my life to following the wit and wisdom of Ted Nugent.<\/p>\n
Then again, he’s a better hang than most people.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s got opinions and he states them.\u00c2\u00a0 In a world where everybody’s duplicitous, plotting how to get ahead by lying and ripping people off, Ted’s all up front.<\/p>\n
But he’s so embattled.<\/p>\n
Then again, he tells me he and Tom Morello are buds.\u00c2\u00a0 So what does he think about Rage Against The Machine boycotting Arizona?\u00c2\u00a0 He didn’t know about that, he said he had to set Tom straight.<\/p>\n
That’s Ted’s problem.\u00c2\u00a0 What he doesn’t know is a complete blank.\u00c2\u00a0 And since he’s been dealing with people dumber than he is, he’s been running ragged over them and refusing to listen for decades.<\/p>\n
But somewhere in that twisted philosophy of his there are some nuggets of truth.\u00c2\u00a0 He wants people to be healthy and alive.\u00c2\u00a0 He wants to help.\u00c2\u00a0 But he just can’t understand his place in the landscape, having gotten shit for so long, it’s Total Ted, 24 hours a day.<\/p>\n
But Ted’s a star.<\/p>\n
And if you don’t think this business is about stars, you’re not in it.<\/p>\n
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Nugent that is, I went to see him last night at the House of Blues. Am I a huge fan? No.\u00c2\u00a0 But some of the FM classics move me, and I love "Journey To The Center Of Your Mind", the old Amboy Dukes chestnut. And although Ted did not play this, he did do some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-shows","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-Qo","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3248"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3249,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3248\/revisions\/3249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}