Terrible, Ted

Ted Nugent doesn’t just show up in your town, play a show and leave quietly. It’s more like he storms the gates of you community, gives you a proper thrashing and leaves you in a heap on the floor. That’s been his Modus operandi over the span of his legendary career, and if Ted’s recent tour stop in Providence is any indication, he’ll be doing this for years to come. In his words “Hell, I’m 60 years old and I’m having the time of my life!”

Weather you know him as Terrible Ted, The Motor City Madman, or your uncle Ted the end result for his fans is always the same; Ted Nugent will exercise his inalienable right to beat you senseless with his unrelenting brand of pure American Rock ‘n Roll and impassioned political diatribes. Yet, herein lies a problem.

Let me explain:

If you know anything about Terrible Ted you know that he is a staunch supporter of the 2nd amendment (the right to keep and bear arms), somewhat anti-immigrant and a ferocious conservative/Republican. So passionate is Mr. Nugent about politics he’s developed a conservative radio program and writes a weekly article for the Waco Tribune-Herald. This is a man that has spent most of his adult life defending the Constitution of the United States and telling anybody within shouting distance all about it. His live shows are yet another forum for his politics and a good portion of his time on stage is devoted to such principled notions as “automatic weapons for the children” and calling into question if the Democrat’s contender for the White House is “American enough!” That’s all well and fine but there is a gaping hole in his unquestioned support for the Conservative movement in America.

According to an article Ted penned himself for the aforementioned Waco Tribune-Herald, "I was serious when I threatened to run for office in the past if I cannot find a candidate who respects the U.S. Constitution and our sacred Bill of Rights." Sir, the very party you support has made an abomination of our justice system and virtually blown their collective noses on “the Constitution and our sacred Bill of Rights." The Bush administration is tantamount to a criminal enterprise and he thinks they are defenders of the Constitution? He bring up the fact that Barack Obama is in favor of gun control laws, even though as Ted would have you believe, willing to abolish the 2nd amendment. Ted Nugent refuses to even entertain the notion that the Republicans have virtually declared war on “our sacred Bill of Rights.”

If his politics aren’t misguided enough, at one point of the show he decided to pay homage to his Motown heroes… then drops the “N BOMB” on them? Way to show respect to the musicians that blazed that trail so many years ago. However, that brings us back around to the fact that at his heart Ted Nugent is a true American Rock ‘n Roll legend.

Joining him on stage were Dokken’s former Thunder God “Wild” Mick Brown and his close friend Greg Smith on Bass. No doubt powerful enough players to handle joining The Nuge on stage, while not overpowering the headliner himself. The band played everything you’d want to hear at a Ted Nugent show and a couple of nice surprises. A couple of the true highlights were Ted’s tribute to his father, a song called “Fred Bear” and the show closer “White Buffalo.” Of course the two sexiest riffs of all time were well represented and well introduced by Ted as he launch from “Cat Scratch Fever straight” into “Stranglhold” taking the crowd to a fever pitch.

Over the last four decades the man has honed his craft to the point where there are few live acts on Earth that compare to him. It’s too bad that he is so painfully misguided in his political slant that he no longer can discern the real threat to our American freedoms. As far as the musical portion of the program there’s nothing but raves to share, but the political diatribes? Repugnant. Having said that, I would defend his right to say whatever he wants where ever he wants with my life.

Who's Alex Winston?

When one thinks of a Ted Nugent concert the imagery would undoubtedly consist of guns, grenades and Gibson guitars. Any visions you may have of an opening act, if you have any to begin with, would follow that same swath of rock ‘n roll destruction as the headliner. However, your Uncle Ted is always full of surprises and his recent tour stop in Providence was no different.

Alex Winston was pegged as the opener and if you haven’t heard of the Alex Winston Band don’t be ashamed. Nobody I talked to knew a wit about Alex. The first thing I noticed was the four racks of amps symmetrically placed across the stage each with one letter on them A – L – E – X. I smiled and asked the guy behind me if he knew who this Alex Winston was and his reply was spot on, “No idea, but if you decorate your amps with your name you better be good or it’ll be a short night.”

When the lights came down and the band hit the stage, this crowd was in for a mild rock ‘n roll shock. Alex Winston happened to be a 20 year old woman, with a red hollow body Gibson, 4 mates looking to enter an epic sideburns contest, and a whole can of whoop ass that was about to get sprung. Taking a look around the crowd I saw I was surrounded by raised eyebrows and slacked jaws. Moments later those slack jaws were becoming pleasant smiles. Nothing is more fun for a music fan that thinking they are in on something and that night they were.

Alex Winston, from song one, the fittingly titled track “Hello” imposed her will on the crowd with her blend of strong rock ‘n roll roots and a sex appeal and stage presence that cannot be learned. It was as though she was made for this job. Bear in mind that this was a crowd that, for the most part, had been following the career of a rock legend that cut his musical teeth ten years before Ms. Winston was even born. Talk about a challenging crow to win over. Win them over she did though with the help of the Mutton Chop Quartet backing her up.

In a setting like this, Alex is only going to be as good as the musicians behind her and she has surrounded herself with some very talented musicians. With Nick Quinn and Chris Peters taking up a bulk of the guitar work, and a rhythm section that kept it tighter than a fat guy in a phone booth the band sounded like they’d been together for years. They deserve a ton of credit for what was becoming a triumphant introduction to the Providence scene.

Alex’s show in Providence left me thinking that the people here can someday say that they “saw her in a club in Providence, before she was a huge star.” I recommend you see her now so you can say so too. This is a young performer, with a stellar band that has nothing but an unbelievable future ahead of her. Take my word for it, you will not be disappointed.

Musical Crossroads/Thanks to the Axis of Evil

You were at a musical crossroads at some point in your life. It was after you’d gotten past your parents influence and decided Neil Sadaka or Tom Jones wasn’t going to be your cup of tea. It was when your buddies had just picked up a copy of Run DMC’s latest release or a copy of Straight Outta Compton and “you just have to hear what they say!” It was when a kid in your high school had his mother sew an Iron Maiden patch on his Guess jean jacket. You couldn’t identify with it but sometimes you just gotta keep on keeping on until you find your muse.
Well, this weekend you can thank the music gods you had that older sibling or influential uncle that handed you your first copy of “Europe ‘72” and the quirky cover aside, you gave it a listen. Or when you got a beat up cassette that looked like it had been passed around more than a few times and at least once somebody tried to smoke it. It had a hand-written label that simply read “The Dead” followed by a date from the 70’s or 80’s. You had buddy with a scratched up CD in his car that read “Strangefolk” that a girl he had a crush on from Burlington gave him. Clearly it was passed around by people you’ll never meet but you’ll always know as kindred spirits.
So as you get geared up for The Gathering of the Vibes you put on a Dead bootleg and you hear Sampson and Delilah or a raucous Help/Slip/Frank and in an instant you’re at The Old Boston Garden and the crumbling foundation is shaking a little and the waft of Patchouli and kind buds almost floats to you from your past. Your walk out into the common areas of the arena and were surrounded by twirling sundresses and everyone had nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile...
20 years from now you’ll be telling stories about “The ’08 Vibes” festival and the memories will flood back. How you’d never heard Strangefolk before that and they became your favorite band that Saturday; or how you met friends that have been with you ever since because the beauty of the music we’ll share this weekend was that you didn’t hear it on the radio. Somebody that loved you shared it with you and since you’ve shared it too.

Zappa Plays Zappa -Gathering of the Vibes '08 (Part One)

There is an interesting dichotomy with the fans that attend the Gathering of the Vibes. On one hand there are the old hippies that have become a mainstay at the growing community of festivals of the past decade, not reliving their past but continuing to carry the ideas of the 60’s. And for better or worse, 21st Century sensibilities. The other is a little harder to describe. It’s almost as though there is another generation looking for its own identity. I think we can all agree that there are much worse lifestyles to associate yourself with of course and moreover is there a better group of mentors than the Aging Hippie Collective? At the same time there are forces at work that would have that generation be, in its simplest terms, mindless music consumers. I was very happy to see the huge numbers of 16 to 28 year olds embracing a less commercially successful but infinitely more profound genre of music than the alternatives. As Midday Friday arrived it was becoming a memorable festival, but that night one band would bridge the separation of those generations and make a good GotV into a great one in the span of less than 2 hours.
Flashback to a couple of weeks ago when I’d started researching the bands and getting familiar with the huge amounts of music. Friday’s potent schedule included Zappa Plays Zappa, and I reexamine not only Frank Zappa’s material, but some of Dweezil’s solo stuff. I didn’t remember too much of Dweezil’s material but I did remember you could hear he was heavily influenced by greats like Steve Vai, Eddie Van Halen and Joe Satriani. Not entirely dissimilar from his father but not exactly cut from the same cloth. I purposely avoided the ZPZ Live CD that came out in 2006 as well, wanting a completely fresh perspective.
Here’s where the skeptic in me had some conflicting feelings about ZPZ. As both a father and a son, I clearly understood Dweezil’s motivation to explore his father’s life’s work. However, I was also well aware of the challenges that this presented. Frank Zappa legions of fans are seldom casual. They tend to be closer to students of his music, and therein lay the largest hurdles. How does Dweezil play his father’s music to the high standards his fans set but also maintain his own musical identity? How would his band accomplish the Herculean feat of managing the in intricacies of the often unique time signatures and tempo changes of Rock ‘n Roll’s first real orchestral composer but remembers at its core, this is a venue to entertain? By the end of the first song it was clear. My questions were well on their way to being answered and my lofty expectation were about to be exceeded.

Zappa Plays Zappa -Gathering of the Vibes '08 (Part Two)

Zappa and his band; Aaron Arntz (keyboard & trumpet), Scheila Gonzalez (saxophone, flute, keys & vocals), Pete Griffin (bass), Billy Hulting (percussion), Jamie Kime (guitar), Joe Travers (drums & vocals) and special guest Ray White (guitar, vocals & awesomeness that needs to be seen to be believed), took the stage as the sun was going down on day two of the Gathering of the Vibes. After a brief introduction they launched into a hellacious (yeah, you heard me hellacious) version of “I Am the Slime” and there would be no looking back. To my left one of the Aging Hippie Collective was holding on to the barrier at the front of the stage and closed his eyes. He began to follow the beat with, not headbanging exactly but a nod? Sure. After “Slime” ended I asked “How’s that sound to you?” His reply was simple and perfect, “Close your eyes and it is Frank…” Could Dweezil and band ever get a better compliment in this forum?
For the next song, “City of Tiny Lites” Ray White, a former member of The Mothers of Invention took over the vocal duties and, line by line, measure by measure a bridge from the late 60’s and early 70’s to the 21st century was being sonically fabricated by Zappa Plays Zappa. It barely took the 15 minutes or so between the first and third song for an entirely new generation of music fans to enter the world of Frank Zappa’s music. A world that stood a generation on its ear 40 years earlier and still defies category and comparison to this day.
As the show started I would guess that about 30% of the festival attendees were crowding the main stage area… by the time “Flakes” started, either word was spreading or the music was carrying across the park and the crowd had to nearly triple.

And we are the people who will make it all happen

This gave the crowd its first opportunity to be introduced to Scheila Gonzalez’s amazing talents. Sure anyone can do an Eric Cartman impression but purely on her stage presents and talent as a musician, she was in danger of stealing the show. A guy that I named “The Saint of the Gate” (more on him later), claimed to fall in love with her… I certainly saw what he meant. Personally I’ll harbor a crush on this amazing talent from hence fourth.
The sun was setting over the beautiful beaches of Bridgeport and night #2 of the GotV was being ushered in by a band that only found the pedal on the right and didn’t let up for a second. “Bamboozled By Love” was in the process of being nearly perfected by this superlative band, and in a nice bit of musical serendipity during the blazing guitar solo, the band broke into a few measures of the Yes classic “Owner of a Lonely Heart.” Flawless.
We could go around this May Pole a few dozen more times but I think you get the point. This is a show that any music fan needs to see. In particular, if you are not entirely familiar with Frank Zappa’s music Zappa Plays Zappa is a perfect introduction. Oh, and about Dweezil’s guitar influences and own musical identity I wrote about earlier? During “Cosmic Debris” he played a guitar solo that harkened back to his heavy metal-esque roots to the utter fascination of the thousands of fans eating out of the palm of ZPZ’s hands. Well done DZ. Your father would have been/is proud.