Ted Nugent: Motor City Mayhem (Shock DVD)

 |   |  1 min read

Ted Nugent: Motor City Mayhem (Shock DVD)

While I would never defend the man and his music in any serious way, I think every home should have a Ted Nugent album. (Cat Scratch Fever from '77 would be my guess but I will let fans correct me, my vinyl does sound very thin these days).

I would recoil at the thought of TWO Nugent albums however, but I am going to make an exception: one album and one DVD. This is the one DVD.

It is hilarious and awful in equal measure, but thoroughly enjoyable.

Nugent -- or "Uncle Ted" as he styles himself for his hometown crowd -- is here celebrating his 6,000th concert in Detroit on Independence Day '08 and so naturally he opens with his version of Star Spangled Banner which Hendrix deconstructed for a different, and shall we say less patriotic/more questioning, audience at Woodstock.

Ted -- with some out-of-shape guys in camoflage gear behind him, roadies not miltary, surely? --  takes apart the tune too in wails of feedback and so on: but when the blonde in the bikini pops out of the cake and shakes her things (rather hesitantly, the"cake" looks pretty fragile) you suspect you are in for a rather different concert experience.

After that it is heads-down rock'n'boogie and although my oldest son had mastered most of this guitarwork by the time he was 15 there is something rather uplifting about seeing a man who, after 40 years on the road, still enjoys making a noise, saying rude words quite a lot and seems to think the essence of democracy is about his right to raise a middle-finger at the world and make exactly the kind of music he is making.

And you know what? Try as I might to think of a more simple or even more subtle definition of democracy, when I'm watching this with the volume way up that one seems about as good as any.

He's an unthinking patriot prone to yelping knee-yerk cliches about "America" -- and so it seems is his beer-chugging Pavlovain audience -- and I don't respect him a bit for his constant references to Motown as if that had something to do with him.

But he rocks in a primal and lunk-headed way and I can live with that. At least he isn't Charlie Daniels.

And anyway, would you want to argue with a man who kills his own meat with a bow and arrow?

Rubbish, but fun rubbish. 

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Film at Elsewhere articles index

FIVE MINUTES OF HEAVEN, a film by OLIVER HIRSCHBIEGEL (Madman DVD)

FIVE MINUTES OF HEAVEN, a film by OLIVER HIRSCHBIEGEL (Madman DVD)

Although this seems to have all the hallmarks of a stage play adapted for the screen, Five Minutes to Heaven (by the director of the gripping Hitler-bunker drama Downfalll) is based on a true story... > Read more

THE WHO'S QUADROPHENIA ON DVD (2001): The Mods will ride again

THE WHO'S QUADROPHENIA ON DVD (2001): The Mods will ride again

Quadrophenia -- the story and music written by Pete Townshend of the Who -- shifted the focus back to pre-Beatles Britain, to the world of Mods and Rockers, of battles on Brighton Beach... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

BENNY SOEBARDJA PROFILED (2012): The godfather of the Indonesian prog-rock underground

BENNY SOEBARDJA PROFILED (2012): The godfather of the Indonesian prog-rock underground

Even today with better access to information, the excavation of musical vaults around the globe and the acceptance of world music, it still seems to come as a surprise to many that countries such... > Read more

ENRICO RAVA AND NEW YORK DAYS: The trumpet calls the faithful

ENRICO RAVA AND NEW YORK DAYS: The trumpet calls the faithful

It’s disappointing and embarrassing that one encounter may put you off a musician for such a long time. Then, shame-faced, you crawl your way back later and have to concede everybody else was... > Read more