Nuggets: Journey To The Center Of The Mind by The Amboy Dukes

38 Comments

1. Don’t even have to listen to this one. Know it well. I think the word you’re looking for is actually Republican, not Republic. And Nugent is such a hard-core asshole I won’t even feature him on my blog.

   • Oops, thank you and fixed. I think this might be the only time Nugent is ever featured on this blog.

     • Generally speaking I don’t try to judge musicians (or any artists) by their lifestyle. If I did I’d very little of any kind of art in my life. But Nugent is, IMHO, a dangerous loudmouth. Hell of a rocker though, I’ll give him that. But his politics are so offensive to me I could never enjoy seeing him. Some people feel that way about Springsteen who is, I think, far more liberal than he actually comes out and says

2. 10/10

   • I did toy with a 10.

     • Actually, maybe I should have docked it a notch for the dumb LSD trip lyrics, but the rest of it is so good that it makes you want to give it a 10/10. ha ha

       • I don’t know how well it would stand without the lead guitar.

         • All the guitars are great though. And the drums. I love the way it just speeds along like that. I always thought the song Barracuda by Heart sounds a lot like it in that way.

3. I like Nuge the musician when he sticks to his guitar. Thats all I’m going to say about that..lol

   • Before this, the only Nugent song I knew was The Beastie Boys’ ‘The Biz vs The Nuge’. I listened to Cat Scratch Fever while writing this. Seems more like a good guitarist than anything else.

     • The song Cat Scratch Fever is great. It’s really his only other great moment. Awesome classic rock song.

4. Nugent’s explanation of the meaning of the song is so asinine. He always blows it off as self-actualization but its obvious at one point he tried drugs but is in serious denial.

   • I hit reply before completing my comment but you get the gist. Whatever the case, it’s a great song from a band that was otherwise fairly substandard and went through a ton of lineups.

     • Yup, he had help writing this – feels like he’s more a very guitarist than anything else.

5. I’ve always liked this song…drug songs don’t bother me in the least…it was the times and there were good songs that came out of it. I didn’t like Ted’s music before I knew he was obnoxious…this one I do like though. . I always try to separate the art and artist…sometimes it’s hard.

   Nugent doesn’t believe in drug use but he didn’t mind underage girls in his past…I guess he is alright with that. Yea I don’t like him at all…like we have discussed before…I don’t like extremists on either side…

   • A hard-right musician is certainly a rarity. It’s like him and Pat Boone…

     • Pat Boone and Ted Nugent in the same sentence! That has to be a first!

       • There has always been a lot of conservative musicians or at least more than you would think. Even going way back. Like Ray Charles and Johnny Cash were big Nixon supporters. I don’t know why Johnny Cash is thought of as a big liberal hero because he was very famously conservative. There’s some rock band guys too but I can’t remember who they all are. Meat Loaf, I know for sure. Kid Rock is a big Republican supporter. One of the Ramones. I can’t remember any more, but I think some heavy metal guys. And a bunch of country musicians.

         • If you take out country, it’s a pretty small minority I reckon.

         • A lot of older country artist were conservative also. Like I said I try to keep all of that apart from the music…extremist liberal and conservative artists though both get on my nerves.

         • Most political music is just a bunch of attitudinizing anyway. I never really thought that musicians had anything worthwhile to say. At least as far as politics goes. All they do is repeat whatever rhetoric happens to be going around at the time. And especially now, since everything is so extreme that the left is even worse than the right, and Liberals are far more likely to make political music than conservatives are. But fortunately I don’t let anyone’s politics really affect my opinion of their music. There’s hardly anyone that I wouldn’t listen to their music just because of their political talk. Once in a while but hardly ever.

         • Joe Strummer was pretty adept, I reckon. Stuff like Washington Bullets. I like some of Jackson Browne’s mid-1980s stuff too.

         • That is the way I try to be…it does get hard at times…a few are just obnoxious like Ted and I would say Madonna at times but if I like something I like something.

         • “Liberals are far more likely to make political music…” Excluding American country music, you’re probably correct. Not only because most rockers tend to be liberal in their politics, but folk-music protest (anti-war, pro-civil rights, pro-union) laid some of the groundwork for today’s rock, and there’s still a vein of that (think Springsteen, Jackson Browne, etc.). Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, Roger McGuinn, Woody and Arlo Guthrie etc. were as important to today’s rock music as Hank Sr. and Ray Charles, in my view.

         • There’s definitely a huge majority of liberals in rock music – Nugent’s particularly unusual given his first hit was psychedelic rock with drug references.

6. Great tune! And as much as I think Nugent is a complete nutcase, I have to give credit where credit is due – he’s a damn good guitarist.

   • The guitar makes this song, really.

7. Nice one. It wasn’t a hit in the UK and if I have ever heard it, it was only once on one of the pirate radio stations. Strange era when musicians seemed almost too polite to grasp the new era. I bet the singer was nervous about his Dad hearing it.

   • That’s a funny thought, nervous about his dad hearing it.

   • I’d never heard it before listening to Nuggets – it really should get some radio play on classic rock stations, it’s tough sounding enough.

8. I couldn’t care less what Ted Nugent thinks about world affairs, but I’m here for that guitar tone all day long.

   • It can be a bit dangerous with a famous person downplaying Covid or something – I feel like you need to use your fame responsibly. But that guitar tone is great.

     • Well, we need to stop listening to famous people on serious issues. We also need to stop making stupid people famous. And we need to stop making people famous for being famous. Anyway, if he’d just play his guitar and otherwise shut up, it’d be fine.

9. I totally abhor Ted’s political views but I do respect his guitar playing and he really wails on this song.

   • I barely know his work actually, but he’s great here.

10. Like Teddy boys licks on this.

    • Yes, he’s a formidable guitarist.

      • No very little of his music. The one I do like is ‘Stranglehold’. Just a hard rock tune where Ted lets rip. Not subtle but thats ok once in a while.