"I remember meeting my idol Ted Nugent on the set of supergroup...

He should now wear a shirt that says "NUGE, kills fags dead"

Rock n roll used to be so cool in this way.

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I swear I hear about him losing his house in some way different every other year

Ted Nugent's band, The Amboy Dukes, were from the same scene as the MC5. I can't imagine how they got along.

Nuge is a conservative and racist. The MC5 were communists who supported the Black Panther Party. Nuge is anti-drug. The MC5 were notorious for drugs. Nuge is a Trumpist. Wayne Kramer is practically antifa.

The power of rock n' roll. People weren't as thin skinned back in the day as they are now, people dealt with racism and political differences a whole lot more casually and with less throwing a fit.

Stranglehold [Epic, 1975]
Side one is well-wrought heavy metal--pure, fast, and clean with a minimum of myopthia and bombast. Side two is fraught with the usual frantic melodrama. B-

Cat Scratch Fever [Epic, 1977]
Ted Nugent may have turned into a living cartoon, but better cartoon carnivores than cartoon vegans and better the Kiss impersonation of today than the Robin Trowers of yesteryear. Ted's no more misogynist than Kiss, plus he sings better. Ten fast, simple, stupid songs for guitar, voice, and shoutalong, four or five of which ought to keep anyone under 25 awake on the interstate for half an hour. B

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I didn't expect him to be that generous with Ted Nugent of all people.

Van Halen [Warner Bros., 1978]
For some reason Warners wants us to know that this is the biggest bar band in the San Fernando Valley. This doesn't mean much--all new bands are bar bands, unless they're Boston. The term becomes honorific when the music belongs in a bar. This music belongs on an aircraft carrier. C

Van Halen II [Warner Bros., 1979]
Never let it be said that popular styles don't evolve--in the wake of Kiss and Boston, this is heavy metal that's pure, fast, and clean. No mythopoeia, no bombast, and even the guitar features are defined as just that. So how come formalists don't love the shit out of these guys? Not because they're into dominating women, I'm sure. C+

Women and Children First [Warner Bros., 1980]
Eddie VH's quicksilver whomp earns the Hendrix comparisons, and he's no clone--he's faster, colder, more structural. David Lee Roth adds a wild-ass sophistication to the usual macho--no mortal arena singer would even think of the goofy country blues takeoff that provides the title. But the message of the music isn't the exuberance of untrammeled skill, it's the arrogance of unchallenged mastery. Without being pompous about it, which is a plus, these guys show as little feeling for their zonked, hopelessly adoring fans as Queen. They're kings of the hill and we're not. B

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>Boston
>heavy metal
Bob, I...

Fair Warning [Warner Bros., 1981]
Pretty impressive show-off stuff--not just Eddie's latest sound effects, but a few good jokes along with the mean ones and a rhythm section that can handle punk speed emotionally and technically. At times Eddie could even be said to play an expressive--lyrical?--role. Of course, what he's expressing is hard to say. Technocracy putting a patina on cynicism, a critic might say. B-

Diver Down [Warner Bros., 1982]
Less impressive, if only because hangloose covers like "Big Bad Bill" and "Happy Trails" are for more attractive bands. More attractive, if only because the Ray Davies and Roy Orbison covers are so carefully conceived. Attractive sexist original, unatttractive (hence unimpressive) sexist original, guitar as cathedral organ. And so it goes. B-

1984 [Warner Bros., 1984]
Side one is pure up, and not only that, it sticks to the ears: their pop move avoids fluff because they're heavy and schlock because they're built for speed, finally creating an all-purpose mise-en-scene for Brother Eddie's hair-raising, stomach-churning chops. Side two is consolation for their loyal fans--a little sexism, a lot of pyrotechnics, and a standard HM bass attack on something called "House of Pain." B+

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He gave Van Halen an oddly high amount of press, probably because they were humorous and self-aware which he likes--dude has a difficult time with dark music, which makes him a bad critic because he's unable to put aside his own sentiments to understand what the artist he's reviewing is feeling.

>I don't feel this way myself or like it, so I can't understand or appreciate how someone else could

>The MC5 supported the Black Panther Party
So they have racism in common.

Uh huh. That's what happens when the critic puts himself above the artist he's reviewing. It ends up being what he thinks and feels, not what the artist thinks and feels.

You literally can't be racist against wh*tes

5150 [Warner Bros., 1986]
Wonder how the guitar mavens who thought Eddie equalled Van Halen are going to like his fireworks displays and balls-to-the-wall hooks now that video star David Lee Roth has given way to one of the biggest schmucks in the known biz. No musician with something to say could stomach responding to Sammy Hagar's call, and this album proves it. C+

OU812 [Warner Bros., 1988]
Not that they give a shit, but trading Dave for Sammy sure wrecked their shot at Led Zep of the '80s--master guitarist, signature vocalist, underrated rhythm section. They wouldn't have made it anyway, of course. Eddie's obsessed with technique, Roth's contemptuous of technique, rhythm section's got enough technique and no klutz genius. But Sammy . . . like wow. If I can't claim the new boy owns them (property rights they protect), you can't deny he defines them. Not that they give a shit. C

For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge [Warner Bros., 1991] Dud

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That's pretty stupid to think

So is Ted right about the Detroit riots of 67?

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Idk, what he say about them

>I don't like Skid Row

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Skid Row is simultaneously overrated and underrated. Sebastian has become something of a figure in pop culture so people think they're a lot bigger than they are, but also not many people know their music outside of a couple hits.

Ted Nugent can't be racist. His daughterwife he adopted and then married was asian looking.

Oh, I'm sure SEBASTIAN BACH was really fucking offended by that...

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Last month, Bach was criticized by AIDS activists after a heavy-metal fan mag ran a picture of the 21-year-old singer wearing a T-shirt with an insensitive AIDS-related, anti-gay epithet that cannot be printed in The Times.

Quizzed about the shirt by MTV last month, Skid Row's lead singer lightheartedly responded: "I understand it's not cool to make fun of death. I guess nobody gets my jokes. Anyway, a kid threw (the shirt) on stage, I put it on, and all these people got mad at me. But let me just state this--I do not know, condone, comprehend or understand homosexuality in any way, shape, form or (laughs) size."

This month, he's back in the news after MTV began airing footage from a Dec. 27 Springfield, Mass., concert where the singer was struck by a bottle hurled from the audience. Enraged, he screamed obscenities and threw the bottle back into the crowd, hitting a 17-year-old girl in the face. Bach then leaped into the audience where, according to MTV's account, he landed on the girl and kicked another fan in the chin before being dragged back on stage by his roadies.

cringe Cringegau poster.