06.29.10

Seventy Six Cent Nugent Album Trampled, Hurdled

Posted in Extremism, Rock 'n' Roll, Ted Nugent at 12:36 pm by George Smith

About an hour after Ted Nugent announced he was going to sell a new double-CDs worth of tunes, Happy Defiance Day Everyday for 76 cents on-line on July 4th, Amazon’s order page for it was inexplicably removed. (Now restored.)

And the link from tednugent.com also went dead.

Perhaps the Nuge’s record company — Eagle — wasn’t that thrilled about giving it all away for basically free on-line. Or maybe the Nuge himself wasn’t totally happy with the promotion. Given his well-known antipathy toward the idea of stuff on-line for zip.

Or maybe it’s just likely your standard momentary on-line screw-up. Or maybe, as my grandpap used to say, “He’s got things all balled up.” And he’s desperate.

However, Ted is nothing if not an interestingly amusing hypocrite.

Here he is, just a month or so ago:”

PopMatters.com: How much are you bothered by the fact that many people are getting Free-For-All or Double Live Gonzo! without paying for them via illegal downloading and file sharing? Do you have any thoughts on what the music industry will look like as CD sales continue to dwindle?

Nugent: “All thievery is wrong and upsetting to anyone connected to logic and decency. Fortunately, I have such an incredibly diverse and exciting lifestyle that I am able to escape the violations of my fellow man. My professional management team will always optimize my commercial entities.

And nothing says “I’m a mixed-up loser” quite as emphatically than vague doublespeak like “optimizing commercial entities.”

However for the Wall Street Journal, back in 2001, Ted was much more direct:

Hey Napster, get your greasy paws off my intellectual property.

=====

To think a third party should be allowed to give away our product
for zero compensation is brain-dead and un-American.

But perhaps Ted Nugent really has changed. And he really does like the Internet, wanting to give a digital copy of his new anthology away for about free for one whole day.

Whatever the circumstances, Nugent has his job cut out for him. Happyl Defiance Day Everyday (Ted’s lame attempt to get Independence Day renamed) is a grab bag of stuff from his days of fail, stuff that his fans — to steal a phrase — trampled and hurdled.

It contains the greatest hits from albums like “If You Can’t Lick ‘Em … Lick ‘Em,” “Little Miss Dangerous” (from when Ted was into Miami Vice), “Penetrator,” “Spirit of the Wild,” “Love Grenade” and the last couple of live albums, which were a move to consolidate some of Nugent’s classic tunes from the arena-busting days as new live versions on platters the man could actually collect royalties on. If you think you’re getting the originals, you’re not.

Of these records, Little Miss Dangerous is the most interesting. It charted a radical departure in Nugent’s sound. A a little more than half, perhaps almost all, of the record has the Scholz Rockman guitar tone that was on the Eighties hits of Def Leppard and ZZ Top. Nugent never went back to it.

The title cut itself, besides being the theme for an episode of Miami Vice, was inspired by Pele Massa, a girl Nugent met when she was underage. Massa spent ten years raising Nugent’s children, leaving when he started screwing others while out on the road.

In Nugent’s Behind the Music episode, Massa infamously described the Nugent credo: “Bag it, tag it, call a cab for it.”


Number of times Ted Nugent called the Obama administration some variation on the “Mao Tse-Tung fan club” in the last week:

The criminality of the Mao Tse-Tung fan club in the White House will go down as … — Broward/Palm Beach New Times

[But] in these here United States of America with a Mao Tse Tung fan club in the White House, our passion for real America drives our musical celebration to new highs knowing that our “we the people” demand for a return to a real America is catching fire all across this great country and it brings us much energy. — The Monitor

To establish a Mao Tse Tung fanclub in the White House is beyond the pale. — Boston Herald

Americans have had enough of political shysters, lawyer lingo, doublespeak, crooks, liars and frauds in Washington. The Mao Zedong fan club will be looking for new digs by deer season … I would much rather put our country’s future in the hands of Wall Street than in the bumbling hands of Fedzilla. — Washington Times, I

After watching Gen. McChrystal in a “60 Minutes” interview a year or so ago, I had no doubt that he believed then that the Afghanistan war was a total klusterphunk in progress because of the community-organizer-in-chief, Mr. Obama, and the Mao Zedong fan club with whom he had surrounded himself. — Washington Times, II

They are nothing but economic parasites who live off the sweat and hard work of the producers. Mao Zedong would be proud. — Washington Times, III

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