Classic Rock Album of the Day- Amboy Dukes- Journey to the Center of the Mind (1968) ** 1/2
The Amboy Dukes were a very competent innovative Detroit based band that goes even back to the mid 1960's. Their true claim to fame is that their front man was the Motor City Mad Man himself, Ted Nugent. 90% of the talent and persona was around Uncle Ted, and definitiley had the Detroit sized ego to carry the band to success.
The band never ever really charted well, but they did have some flashes of uneven talent. To best describe the Amboy Dukes, they were one of the best on our side of the pond as a poor man's Cream. Don't get me wrong, Cream was multiudes better at their craft, but these guys did do some pretty inspiring psychedelic bluesy hard rock, that was pretty out there for 1967-1968. And of course, it gave rise to Ted's solo career, which is much more known, and acknowledged. His solo work is much more AOR oriented than these prehistoric versions of his stuff. Thankfully, not many were doing psychedelia by the mid 1970's. Thank God.
This particular album (at #74) was the only one that charted in the top 100, which was somewhat a surprise to me. My best guess and estimate, is that the rest of the band though good, were not that good. Songwriting was uneven, and dumb right dumb at times. Whether that had more to do with Nugent's ego, or technical skills, that would be up for debate. But there is no doubt. Ted is center stage, and spotlighted 99% of the time., and in this particular album, he almost hit one out of the park with guitar work ahead of its time.
Fun fact: Nugent has always expressed his distaste with substance abuse, and even claimed that Journey to the Center of the Mind did not have drug inferences.... Even though the album cover art was full of hookahs? Yeah, sure Ted.
Side 1-
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Mississippi Murderer- Album starts with a Chicago-ey blues song. Nothing really sets this apart as inspiring. Hammond solo-ing was pretty nice, but in the end.... standard stuff.
5Surrender to the Kings- Dreadful vocals, which might be a lot of the reason this band never really resonated outside interest in Nugent. Ted does his thing though, and that is alwasy interesting.
9Flight of the Byrd- One the high points of the album, Bass player line down some nice lines, that augmented Nugents ax well . Too bad the rest of the album didn't take this formula instead of the strange path it did.
2Scottish Tea- Bizarre, but nice ditty that tries to recreate some traditional Scottish pipe sounding folksy uhh.. thing. I am sure the guys in kilts were laughing their asses off at this, but it worked okay for me. Maybe working on my primordial ancestry?
4Dr. Slingshot- Hard rocking that shows a lot in future Amboy Dukes work. I liked it, and it has that late 1960's feel to it.
3Side 2-
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Journey to the Center of the Mind- I think it is safe to say that if song had not been written, no one today would have ever heard of Ted Nugent. This is the one and by far, their signature, and most famous song. And a fine song it is. A rollicking rocker that was a standard of rock FM radio in the day. Provides the most typiclal style licks that were incorporatd into much of the rest of Nugent's career.
1(Then it strangely unravels rather than building on the conceptual classic)
Ivory Castles- Donovan sounding gibberish. Ill sounding, ill advised. Silly shit.
13Why is a Carrot more Orange than an Orange- More '60's silliness, and randomness
12Missionary Mary- Somewhat an upgrade from prior two songs, though it has the phrasing that borders on inane. I think Nugent was trying to recreate some kind of Sgt. Peppers kind of feel, but whatever.
8Death is Life- Sometimes trying Grandiose comes across, yeah I'll use that word again...sillingly. I know most of Side 2 has that aura to it, and in 1968 it might have seemed timely, now it just seems terribly dated.
7Saint Phillips Friend- More of the Same. Side 2 seems like a concept album without a concept. Random stuff, that would have been mostly collected into one song of riffs, and tears in the form of one song as an instrumental.
10I'll Prove I'm Right- Nice psychadelic kind of riffing in a quaint '60's kind of way. Side 2 wasn't a total loss.
6Conclusion- Pointless recount of side 2. Key to this, is to stick with Side 1, and obviously the first cut of Side 2-
11 And don't forget..... Why is a carrot more orange than an orange.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLmRYHZXvGg