Old Enough to Forget

Okay boy howdy hang on to your hat, I'm about to drop the needle on Ted Nugent's 1977 release Cat Scratch Fever . This will be my first time sitting and actually listening to the album. At the risk of repeating myself, something I do a lot, as a kid my love of Ted started and ended with Double Live Gonzo! It was everything I wanted in an album, and with my limited budget it covered all the bases. As the years went by I never really felt the need to go back and revisit his early albums, and that was okay. Over the last couple of years I've managed to snag a couple albums and they've been good fun, but listening to albums now doesn't have the emotional gut punch I used to get in my youth. If there's anything that kind of sucks about getting old (and there are a lot of things that suck, trust me) it's that making deep connections with anything is harder than it used to be. Hearing the studio cuts of some of the songs I only really knew from their live iteration...

This is a new to me release, as the only album I really knew was his 1978 Double Live Gonzo , which was face meltingly awesome. I had always wanted to pick up his earlier albums, but never did. Time would march on, and invariably I'd move on as well leaving Ted as a pleasant footnote in my musical development. Of course, nowadays Mister Nugent is a tad divisive. His personality, which was always huge and as bombastic as his music, seems to overshadow his music for a lot of people. Which is a shame, but then again the musical landscape is littered with artistic pariahs who have buried their art under their own personal baggage. While I don't agree with Mister Nugent on a lot of things, I also appreciate his love of nature, hunting, and his stance on drug and alcohol abuse. He's a strange fellow. However in today's climate we don't celebrate different opinions or engage in any sort of discourse, everything has devolved into name calling and attempts to cancel each oth...

My goodness. Right out of the gate "I Need Love" hits it out of the park. I honestly had no idea what to expect. I sort of figured this would be one of those easy to shit on records because no one else knew about it either when it came out in 1981. Derek St. Holmes oddly seems to really be channelling his inner Sammy Hagar. Admittedly, I don't have the deepest well of recordings with Derek to draw upon. Double Live Gonzo from Uncle Ted about sums it up for me - don't get me wrong, that album is the cats pajamas and security blanket all rolled into one. I like Sammy, but he was never my favourite vocalist. So I guess I sort of expected Derek to sound like Derek ... maybe it's Sammy who sounds like Derek and I have it backwards. That said, Derek is all swagger and Brad Whitford was finally allowed off leash to play lead and he's really solid - the rest of the band was rounded out with Dave Hewitt on bass and Steve Pace on drums. The album was produced by Tom Al...

Here it is, Ted Nugent's 1978 aural assault Double Live Gonzo! First things first, this is about Ted the monster player. I really couldn't give a shit about his political bent, which has only become more exaggerated over the years, but the guy has his convictions and while I don't agree with many of his views, I'd still have an iced tea with the guy and talk guitars and music. Secondly see the first thing. This is coming from a guy who leans a little to the left of centre. That's about as political as I get. I'll just quote Forrest Gump, "And that’s all I’ve got to say about that." Recorded between 1976 and 1977 Double Live Gonzo! captures Ted and band (what a band!) at their zenith and the results aren't for those who can't handle sensory overload (if you were to go by the pictures in the gate fold you'd think that it was all Ted all the time). My first experiences with Ted's music was in my cousin's pickup truck with an 8 track ...