The Amboy Dukes Albums (6)
'Survival of the Fittest: Live'
Release Date 1/1/1974
Tracks 6
Label Polydor
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
After three albums on Mainstream Records and a Top 20 smash with "Journey to the Center of the Mind," Ted Nugent brought his new aggregation to Polydor(the late Lillian Roxon claimed there were 35 personnel changes prior to their first and only hit). This second album on that label (and before they would jump to Warner and eventually Epic), was recorded live at The Eastowne Theater in Detroit, MI, July 31 and August 1, 1970. A prime candidate for re-release with bonus tracks, the full hit is not here; the single disc contains six tracks, including the 21-minute-and-20-second epic "Prodigal Man," written by Nugent and sung by keyboardist Andy Solomon. Solomon handles the majority of the vocals on this album, with drummer K.J. Knight vocalizing on the bluesy "Mr.Jones Hanging Party" and songwriter/guitarist/focal point Nugent doing the chores on "Papa's Will." Solomon provides nice sax on "Mr. Jones' Hanging Party," showing the considerable talent he brought to the table. What's this live disc like? The riff to "Journey to the Center of the Mind" opens the album inside the instrumental collaboration written by the group, "Survival of the Fittest," and it is a big tease. Unlike the bad mutations of the Electric Prunes, H.P. Lovecraft, and the most blatant example, the Velvet Underground's pseudo-record, Squeeze, this is the leader of an original group as he goes through musical changes. "Rattle My Snake" is certainly more in the Pat Travers vein than the psychedelic intrigue of the original (on record anyway) Amboy Dukes, and though this recording is live and has that live excitement, it feels more like a new album, with none of the tracks appearing on previous discs. "Papa's Will" is Ted Nugent stretching out a riff that -- if it were brought up in the mix -- could inspire Black Sabbath. The collage of the four members on back is as bizarre as another Michigan product, Survival by Grand Funk Railroad. This album has that primal feel, though it is Ted Nugent with bows and arrows, in Native American garb, who is the solitary figure on the front cover. "Slidin' On" is a weak opening to side two, and the lengthy "Prodigal Man" contains obligatory drum solo and bass musings, but fails to kick in à la "In a Gadda da Vida" or Rare Earth's "Get Ready," which spread across entire sides of their respective discs. OK, so it is Ted Nugent doing Ten Years After without the flash of Alvin Lee, but "Prodigal Son" is one long jam with no climax, when you know 20 minutes of riffing on "Journey to the Center of the Mind" is really what the record-buying public wanted. Years later someone needs to tell these Amboy Dukes why Procul Harum had to put "A Whiter Shade of Pale" back in the set. Steve Farmer is long gone from here, and only Andy Solomon and Ted Nugent remain from the band who had the hit two years before this concert was recorded. This is really Ted Nugent moving away from the group concept and gearing up for his heavy metal fame in the '70s and '80s. It is mildly interesting. ~ Joe Viglione, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
As Ted Nugent's dominant persona took over the sound as well as the band name, Tooth, Fang & Claw brought his Amboy Dukes concept a step closer to the stadiums than its predecessor, Call of the Wild. The bandmembers don't get photos on the back this time, it's just Nugent being a madman up against some Fender and Marshall amps. The songwriting credits on the originals are all his now as well. "Lady Luck" plays as if the "American Woman" riff by the Guess Who got inverted, placed upside down in the middle of the song, and then finds itself coated in Ted Nugent's flashy and glitzy guitar work. The instrumental "Hibernation kinda touches upon the "Journey to the Center of the Mind" riff just for a moment and veers off into points unknown. Where on previous albums, Marriage on the Rocks/Rock Bottom and even Call of the Wild, there was musical experimentation, the axe is front and center on this platter and all the experimentation is now with notes and how fast they can be played -- and in what order. Riff. Thud. Crunch. But beyond Nugent's further emerging hard rock sound, a conscious shift away from the blues of the Polydor albums and psychedelia of the material on Mainstream records, these Discreet/Warner Brothers releases document the forging of a sound and identity that would establish the controversial guitar hero as a true rock icon. Though Billy Squier would have more and bigger hits in the '80s, this foundation, coupled with Nugent's press antics, paved the way for lasting stardom. The version of "Maybelline" is so mutated you won't know it's a Chuck Berry song unless you listen hard; the melody gets put through the meat grinder. But the musicianship is refined. How could it not be with players like drummer Vic Mastrianni? The instrumental "Free Flight" is totally brilliant. That song isn't hard rock or heavy metal; it is just fine musicianship displaying an elegance few hard rock acts can muster. When he does want to crank it up, as with "The Great White Buffalo," he's set the table, and the listener is primed and ready. Where his contemporaries from the '60s, the Blues Magoos, drifted from the psychedelic to jazz and blues before fizzling out, Nugent fused his blues base with hard rock, and found a stadium audience ready to devour it. Tooth, Fang & Claw shows those claws just starting to extend. ~ Joe Viglione, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Would author Jack London be appalled? A table set with freshly killed game on back of this 1974 release by the trio known as Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes has the guitar being edged out of the picture by a rifle while using London's famous book title as a handle for the music inside. Not as blistering as his Cat Scratch Fever, but more metallic than the psychedelia/blues of the original Amboy Dukes, the riff-jamming opening track of side two is more Jeff Beck gone rock than the quasi-Ozzie persona Nugent gleefully would embrace. The opening and title track plays more like the band Spirit or Jo Jo Gunne, and "Sweet Revenge" maintains its pop sensibilities enough to keep it from going off the scale -- it lifts a Grass Roots melody from "Things I Should Have Said," the album taking liberally from AM and FM radio of the day. "Pony Express" is a strange amalgam of '60s out-of-the-garage/heading-toward-stadiums riff rock, nicking the melody from Deep Purple's "Highway Star," which was released on Machine Head the year before. "Ain't It the Truth" ends side one with a "Jumpin' Jack Flash"-plus piano boogie number. "Rot Gut" on side two could be Joe Perry emulatingJeff Beck on "Red House," while "Below the Belt" is adventurous vamping on the Rolling Stones' "2000 Light Years From Home" riff, de facto band member Gabe Magno's keyboards and flute add some depth to the proceedings, and it is interesting stuff that you wouldn't expect from either the original Amboy Dukes or the madman the world knows as Ted Nugent. Side two plays like one long jam; highly creative stuff that the album cover of a tiger penetrating a sleeping city hardly hints at. Drummer Vic Mastrianni would later find himself on records by Crystal Gayle, Reba McEntire, and joining The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. The mostly instrumental second side culminates in a heavy vocal progressive rocker, "Cannon Balls." It's Ted Nugent going through another mutation, but shows him as more diverse and adventurous than he sometimes gets credit for. It's nice to see bassist/vocalist Rob Grange stay onboard the ever changing merry-go-round here that was the Amboy Dukes. ~ Joe Viglione, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The debut album by the Amboy Dukes should be high on collectors' lists. Fusing the psychedelia of the early Blues Magoos with Hendrix riffs and British pop, the band which launched the legend of Ted Nugent has surprises galore in these lost grooves. More experimental than Ambrose Slade's Ballzy -- could you conceive of the Cat Scratch Fever guy performing on Peter Townshend's "It's Not True" and Joe Williams' classic "Baby Please Don't Go"? The latter tune was the flip side of the group Them's single "Gloria," but Ted Nugent and the boys totally twist it to their point-of-view, even tossing a complete Jimi Hendrix nick into the mix. The Amboy Dukes issued this as the single backed with their sitar-laden and heady "Psalms of Aftermath." "Baby Please Don't Go" is extraordinary, but isn't the hit single that "Journey to the Center of the Mind" would be from their follow-up LP titled after that radio-friendly gem. Producer Bob Shad's work with Vic Damone, Dinah Washington, and Sarah Vaughan wasn't what prepared him for the psychedelic hard rock of "Colors," a song with some of the experimentation Nugent would take further on the Survival of the Fittest, Live and Marriage on the Rocks/Rock Bottom albums further down the road. Those latter-day Dukes projects took themselves too seriously and got a bit too out there. The fun that is the Amboy Dukes take on the Ashford/Simpson/Armstead standard "Let's Go Get Stoned"; it's the kind of thing that could have stripped away the pretension of the post-Mainstream discs. The dancing piano runs and Ted Nugent confined to a pop-blues structure certainly got the benefit of Shad's record making experience, and it is a treat. Of the 11 tunes, seven are band originals. Taking on a faithful version of Cream's "I Feel Free" is interesting, and like Slade's first disc, they inject enough cover material to make the product interesting for those who had never heard of this group. "Down on Philips Escalator" could be early Syd Barrett Pink Floyd, and that's what makes this album so very inviting. As essential to the Amboy Dukes' catalog as the non-hit material on Psychedelic Lollipop was to the Blues Magoos, the first album from the Amboy Dukes is a real find and fun listening experience. "The Lovely Lady" almost sounds like the Velvet Underground meets the Small Faces by way of Peanut Butter Conspiracy. This is a far cry from Cat Scratch Fever, and that's why fans of psychedelia and '60s music should cherish this early diamond. ~ Joe Viglione, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The most prominent feature of Migration (the Amboy Dukes' third recording, originally released on Mainstream records) is the lack of a spaced-out follow-up to the group's biggest hit, "Journey to the Center of Your Mind." Perhaps "terrible" Ted Nugent was starting to win the drug war that was beginning to wage within the band, a war that would ultimately claim more than a few key lineup casualties. No matter the reason, Migration -- with it's less opaque drug references and general grooviness -- was given a cool reception at record stores as listeners perhaps became slightly confused about the Michigan band's intentions while pondering Nugent's relatively eclectic musical approach. Case in point: the spot-on version of Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers' "I'm Not a Juvenile Delinquent." Besides this bizarre but affective cover, other highlights include the instrumental opener "Migration" and one of Nugent's all-time favorite songs, "Good Natured Emma." More ambitious than the group's huge-selling effort from the year before, "Migration" might be the better of the two discs, if not the best of the Amboy Dukes' career. ~ Vincent Jeffries, All Music Guide
'Journey to the Center of the Mind'
Release Date 1/1/1968
Tracks 14
Label Mainstream
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Long before Ted Nugent made his name as a mighty crossbow hunter, there was this heavy Detroit band in which he was content to play lead guitar, something he does very well and with much less threat to the Midwest's deer population. The Nuge shouldn't try to take all the credit for this band, because the other members such as vocalist John Drake and rhythm guitarist Steve Farmer contributed with great aplomb, the latter writing much of the material on the second side's ambitious suite as well as co-writing the title hit with Nugent. This is some hard-hitting, well-done psychedelic music, recorded with taste by a producer known much more for his work with mainstream jazz artists, Bob Shad. One thing that made the Amboy Dukes special was the amount of power and drive in their playing, something lacking in other psychedelic outfits that take a more airy-fairy approach. The Nuge's guitar sound is recorded as if this was a mainstream jazz album by Harold Land, and it helps. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide
