CD/DVD Review: Ted Nugent – Ultralive Ballisticrock

CD/DVD Review: Ted Nugent – Ultralive Ballisticrock

Frontiers Records

All Access Rating: A- 

Ted Nugent - Ultralive Ballisticrock 2013

Ted Nugent makes some people … well, uncomfortable. More than that, actually, Nugent, so willing to fan the flames of controversy every chance he gets, inspires outright hatred from the Left and utter devotion from the Right, and there's hardly any middle ground to walk. Whether for or against him, it's hard deny the Nugent's messianic passion, be it for hunting, the Constitution or hot-blooded American rock 'n' roll and R&B. 

A believer in the "no guts, no glory" ethos, Nugent goes for the throat on "Ultralive Ballisticrock," which is about as good a description as any for this thrilling double CD/DVD lightning bolt from Frontiers Records. The "balls to the wall" energy of this recording is off the charts. Words like "soul" and "spirit" are invoked in what amounts to a fiery sermon on the need for getting back to what is primal, what is unspoiled and what is real about screaming guitars, propulsive bass and blasting-cap drums coming together to create a life-affirming racket. This is communion for Ted, and everybody can eat of his body or drink of his blood, or they can leave well enough alone. 

Invoking the image of Christ is not without precedent when it comes to Nugent. Who can forget that iconic image of Ted in nothing but a loin cloth and all that frizzy hair spilling out all over the place. It certainly comes to mind when watching or listening to this recording Nugent performing in 2011 alongside Derek St. Holmes on rhythm guitar/vocals, Greg Smith of Rainbow fame on bass and Mick Brown (Dokken) on drums at Penn's Peak in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.

Cussing up a storm, they launch into bubbling proto-metal boils "Free For All," "Wango Tango," "Just What the Doctor Ordered" and "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang" on the first disc like a pack of wild dogs, with mangy, tenacious riffs chomping at the bit and Nugent, perfectly at ease in the spotlight, tearing off savage, biting solos that attack like hungry predators and are as sharp as knives used to field dress a deer. There is no letting up on Disc 2, where the sonic powder keg that is "Motorcity Madhouse" simply explodes, sending chords and notes everywhere like emptied shell casings. Snarling and pacing back and forth, Nugent and crew turn "Cat Scratch Fever" into a caged animal that is too dangerous to ever be released, while the slithering grooves of "Stranglehold," that great, almost hypnotic riff sounding more vicious than ever, coil around simmering rhythms like smoke.

Want to know the origins of stoner metal? It all starts here, and when these versions climax, they do so with volume and emotion. Let's not forget that Nugent absolutely worships the MC5, and those all-consuming, fiery stage shows they used to kick out in hard-scrabble Detroit left an impression on a burgeoning young talent who saw a bit of himself in them. What storming rhythmic section support he has, too, with Brown's full-on percussive hammering and Smith's bass providing thunder and relentless momentum.

The sound is magnificent, cooking both the fat and lean sinew of Nugent's performance into a tasty dish, and it is vividly filmed with multiple cameras that seem to stalk and gravitate toward each member of the band at just that right moment when they are ready for their close-ups. Nugent isn't getting older. He's becoming more intensely driven, and that's a good thing for rock 'n' roll.
– Peter Lindblad

Various Artists – CBGB: Original Movie Soundtrack

Various Artists – CBGB: Original Movie Soundtrack

Omnivore Records

All Access Rating: B

Various artists - CBGB: Original Movie
Soundtrack 2013

So far, the critics haven’t been at all kind to the movie“CBGB.” Even though Television's Richard Lloyd and the Dead Boys’ Cheetah Chrome, both of whom have a long history with the iconic punk venue, have gone on record giving it their stamp of approval, others aren’t so enamored.

Their knives sharpened, the film’s detractors have crucified it, in fact. Actors were reportedly miscast for important roles or gave performances that were just plain flat. Inaccuracies are said to abound, at the very least compromising its authenticity. And these are just a few of the complaints.

Worst of all, there’s a sense that the filmmakers failed to go that extra mile to capture the explosive zeitgeist of the times or the energy of a place that was so vital in nurturing the innovation and raw fury of the nascent punk rock scene of New York City in the late 1970s, not to mention its propensity for good, dumb fun. The Ramones had a lot of it, and so did The Dictators.

If nothing else then, the Omnivore Records soundtrack has to be good, right? Well, yes and no. Taken out of context, without any regard for what actually took place at CBGB, this is a fine collection of riotous, vicious rock ‘n’ roll that provokes and agitates, with a pulse that simply races and lyrics that are poetic and unflinchingly honest. The tension of almost every track threatens to boil over at any point, even if stylistically speaking, there is a good amount of diversity. Whatever qualms people – especially the old punks “who were there” – have about the film, the track listing of the soundtrack offers at least some measure of salvation.

Containing all of 20 songs within its graffiti-splattered walls, it is not, by any means, an exhaustive survey of the trailblazing acts or performers who made CBGB their home. And some of the choices are predictable, but perhaps necessary, like the Talking Heads’ anxiety-ridden “Life during Wartime.” Exactly what the MC5’s wild-eyed “Kick Out the Jams” or The Stooges’ bad acid trip “I Wanna Be Your Dog” – both groundbreaking pieces of great significance and influence, no doubt – are doing here is up for debate, seeing as how the scene of the most memorable meltdowns from these Motor City proto-punks was probably the Grande Ballroom in Detroit.

In between such obvious and controversial selections, however, lies the true identity of CBGB, where the Tuff Darts’ gnarly, bull-in-a-china-shop manifesto “All for the Love of Rock ‘N’ Roll” knocks the martini glass out of the hand of Blondie’s sweet and stylish 2013 remake of the sunny and sophisticated “Sunday Girl.” What could be more CBGB than Wayne County and the Electric Chairs’ edgy, kinetic “Out of Control” sharing garish makeup tips with the New York Dolls’ gleefully obnoxious and thoroughly pugnacious “Chatterbox” or Television’s nervous art-pop tale of romantic bitterness “Careful” commiserating with Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers’ punched-up, soul-searing lament “All By Myself.” God, but the serrated guitars everywhere on this soundtrack cut you to the quick.

All of these songs bristle with frustrated energy just begging for an outlet. CBGB and its eccentric owner Hilly Kristal were only too happy to oblige the poetic vitriol and tortured self-loathing of “Blank Generation” by Richard Hell & the Voidoids, as well as The Dictators’ obscenely funny, amphetamine-fueled romp through The Rivieras’ classic rocker “California Sun.” Two songs by the Dead Boys, the snarling “Caught with the Meat in Your Mouth” and the blazing arson that is “Sonic Reducer,” have a seat at CBGB’s table, as do the swaggering, hip-shaking garage-rockers “Slow Death” and “Psychotic Reaction,” by the Flamin’ Groovies and The Count Five, respectively.

Of course, they also made room for The Police, who played at CBGB just before they broke it big. Their super-tight, bubbling paean to a painted-prostitute “Roxanne” is part of the soundtrack, which, as many critics will undoubtedly say, could serve a musical textbook for any Punk Rock 101 class. It should have been much better though.

Although Joey Ramone’s bare-knuckled brawler “I Get Knocked Down (But I’ll Get Up)” makes an appearance, how is there nothing from The Ramones as a whole here? And why give space to a Blondie remake of “Sunday Girl” when some other original from back in the band’s more subversively sexual heyday would have lent the set more heat? For that matter, who needs yet another chance to own “Kick out the Jams” or “I Wanna Be Your Dog”? Every winning choice and every unexpected surprise on the “CBGB” soundtrack is matched by another that’s completely baffling or gallingly superfluous. Give this to a kid who needs some real punk rock in his or her life, but tell them there was more to CBGB than this.

 –    Peter Lindblad

Book Review: The Stooges Head On

Book Review: The Stooges Head On
Author: Brett Callwood

Wayne State University Press, Painted Turtle

All Access Review:  B+

Sorting through The Stooges’ trash to dig up whatever dirt is left to uncover about the Ann Arbor proto-punks has become a sort of blood sport with rock journalists. By now, though, it would seem that every lurid tale of debauchery and mayhem involving Iggy Pop and the boys — especially, Iggy — has been told and retold to the point where nothing’s shocking with them. 

The whole ugly, unvarnished truth has been exposed, and if there is more out there hidden by the fog of time and fading memories, it probably wouldn't add much to a mangy mythology built on The Stooges' violent appetite for self-destruction. With the heart of a fan, then, author Brett Callwood, who is familiar with the terrain having written about the MC5, smartly rises above the fray with “The Stooges: Head On,” preferring to tell the band’s story without a great reliance on sensationalism, and that's to be celebrated. 

And it is The Stooges’ story that Callwood sticks to. This is not a band biography masquerading as an Iggy tell-all. In fact, Iggy’s part in this tragic-comedy is muted in Callwood’s book. Relying heavily on in-depth, and often very funny and insightful, interviews with both Asheton brothers, Ron doing his before he died in 2009, and all the other Stooges, including Iggy, James Williamson, Steve McKay, Mike Watt and Scott Thurston, Callwood paints a broad, graffiti-splashed mural that encompasses the band’s entire history without getting bogged down in unnecessary details. Other offbeat characters, underground journalists and Detroit-area musical revolutionaries, like the MC5’s Dennis Thompson make sure the weirdness never ends.

In drawing and developing fully realized portraits of each Stooge, Callwood doesn’t play favorites. His solid, substantive writing humanizes and spotlights every character in The Stooges’ epic, giving them all equal time. Callwood’s interest in The Stooges is undeniably genuine, as he dissects the recorded violent they put on wax and walks through the fists-flying riots they spawned in concert. He traces The Stooges' origins in bleak, rusted-out Michigan and follows each band member's life prior to The Stooges on through the band’s 1970s implosion and all the way through the post-millennial reunions. Of particular interest is the thorough excavation of Ron Asheton's musical adventures in Destroy All Monsters and the New Order, the post-Stooges' groups that he took part in to fill the void in the wake of the breakup. Perhaps no other Stooges' book has paid more attention to Ron, including the deep disappointment he felt in being replaced by Williamson on guitar for Raw Power.

While there is much to digest here, Callwood organizes the book in a free-flowing fashion that makes it an easy read. Much of the content is delivered in long, well-chosen quotes that, when pieced together with Callwood's light transitional touch, carry the story along like a fast-moving river current. A black-and-white photo section in the book's midsection seems like a dysfunctional family album, one awash in the white-trash environs that birthed the Stooges. And, even though Callwood doesn't dwell on the scary chaos that surrounded the band, he doesn't run from it either. There's enough violence, hilariously mean pranks and borderline insanity to fix any reader who comes looking for it. 

- Peter Lindblad