2 capsule record reviews from 1981

 Directions - Miles Davis (Columbia)

 Like last year's Circle In The Round, Directions is another double record anthology of previously unreleased Davis material from 1960-70, and it's neatly divided between the coaly lyrical post-bop styles and the period when the trumpeter led his musicians into the wilds of polyrhythmic jazz-rock. For my part, I prefer the latter of the two styles on the fir t two sides, highlighting Davis' sharp, pointillistic brassiness and several swinging performances from Wayne Shorter, Hank Mobley, Ron Carter, and others. The fusion material tends to drift too far afield, lost as it is around funk riffs that are annoyingly stationary while improvisations, by Davis. John McLaughlin , Wayne Shorter and Steve Goodman, lack anything to say save for arbitrary utterances. One jam, "Willie Nelson ," do 1' , however. transcend the hit-and-miss method of the style t with superlative bassist Dave Holland elevating a simple figure into truly propulsive  groove that in turn inspires McLaughlin to give his best guitar work-out on the four record set. Still, the fusion sessions are stiff and unmotivated, and one wonders whether Davis himself would have allowed these tracks to see light. Sides one and two, though, are quite fine, and well worth the price of the package.  

Intensities In Ten Cities - Ted Nugent (Epic) 

I once thought  Ted Nugent was a  guitarist of singular style who would one day drop the meat-eater stance and make music well the equal of his instrumental skill. Well, I still think that Nugent i a good guitarist, but I’ve abandoned all hope that he might garner some dignity as a musician. Primarily, dignity and class are elements Nugent has no interest in, nor use for. Yes, he can play guitar well and one respects him for that, but he’s also a freak show, a performer, a loud and grotesque figure of masculinity who has no problems selling out arenas and moving vinyl. Intensities in  Ten Cities is more of what he' been serving up the last . ix years or so: songs in major keys using major chords with lots of screaming guitar work and plenty of lyrics that display no more odal conscience than a back alley brawl. Nugent is obviously very happy to remain where he is, his audience seems more than happy to be typified as bone heads of the first order, and presently I'm more than happy to ignore this me . Give the audience what it wants and then wash the blood off your hands

(Originally published in the  UCSD Guardian).

TED NUGENT GIVES MEAT EATERS A BAD NAME

Ted Nugent is a conservative asshole who's politics are more headline-hungry than thought-provoking; he's been emphasizing his gun-toting, quasi-libertarian survivalist side for so long that virtually everyone has forgotten what a good and unique rock and roll guitarist he is. This video, from an Amboy Dukes reunion of a kind, demonstrates that he can still play that angular, needlepoint style of his with the same backstabbing swagger that he had in the Sixties and the 70s, when he shut his mouth long enough to remind people that he used to be taken seriously as a musician. Here, the hatted one, still smirking like someone who just came back to the party after schlonging your girlfriend behind the garage in the dank tool shed discretely wedged between the trash cans and the aromatic compost heap unleashes some major E chord damage and continues with a ridiculous flurry and fury of notes that it is like nothing else other than a blood-lusting intersection when the traffic lights fail and every piece of metal gets twisted and every driver gets a headache, if they're lucky. 

That image news well with Nugent’s zeitgeist of preference, social Darwinism, the spirit of the strong and the armed taking what they need by force and the will to do so, attaining provisions and pleasures from the weak, the downtrodden, the unlucky and the losers who cannot defend their patch of the earth against invaders, marauders, hunters and rascals of nastier inclination. This is the culture of bullying laid bare and blatant, a worldview that  has absorbed the worst aspect of the warrior ethos and has used the habit of mind as a rationale sanity that goes to the marrow , that each and every act of belligerence, aggression, corrosively applied vulgarity and punch in the face is a matter of course, each an act of bravery, honor, of maintaining a natural order of things. 

Poet and essayist Robert Bly tried to humanize this mythology with his book Iron John, wherein he argued that men, as part of the species, need to reconnect with a fuller philosophy of their masculinity, not merely more the warrior, but also embracing and accepting and internalizing the responsibilities of being the father, the teacher, the leader who recognizes his obligations to the greater community of families his family is privileged to live in. Nugent’s cannibal-spirited libertarianism has none of that inconvenient consideration in its desires to make the world and the people in it cower in front of more than his guitar skills.   Being weak, sick, not of the war mentality was your own tough shit and no one was obliged to give you aid. 

A telling title in Nugent’s time as Amboy Dukes leader was an album called Survival of the Fittest.  While generally a kick-ass session of Nugent’s distinct guitar work—ambivalence creeps in hear because even I , an enemy of bullies and the like, have to admit this blathering sociopath can play that guitar pretty damned well— the title of the record, and the cover image of Nugent with arrow and bow, answers the question as to why we should be glad that artists are not the ones in charge of making social policy. The only social agreement for this grubby schoolyard punk is that if you give him your lunch money, he will let you live long enough for you get more lunch money.

SOME OLD MILES DAVIS

DIRECTIONS--Miles Davis

Directions is a double record anthology of previously unreleased Davis material from 1960-70, and it's neatly divided between the coaly lyrical post-bop styles and the period when the trumpeter led his musicians into the wilds of polyrhythmic jazz-rock. For my part, I prefer the latter of the two styles on the first two sides, highlighting Davis' sharp, pointillistic brassiness and several l swinging performances from Wayne Shorter, Hank Mobley, Ron Carter, and others. The fusion material tends to drift too far afield, lost as it is around funk riffs that are annoyingly stationary while improvisations, by Davis. John McLaughlin, Wayne Shorter, and Steve Goodman lack anything to say save for arbitrary utterances. One jam, "Willie Nelson," however. transcend the hit-and-miss method of the style that has bassist Dave Holland elevating a simple figure into something truly propulsive that in turn inspires McLaughlin to give his best guitar work-out on the four-record set. Still, the fusion sessions are stiff and unmotivated, and one wonders whether Davis himself would have allowed these tracks to see light. Sides one and two, though, are quite fine, and well worth the price of the package. 

_________________________________________________________________________________

Intensities in Ten Cities --Ted Nugent

There was a time when I was naive enough to consider Ted Nugent a rock guitarist of singular style who would someday drop the ersatz meat-eater stance and make music well the equal of his instrumental skill. Well, I still think that Nugent ia a good guitarist, but I've abandoned all hope that he might garner maybe just a hint of class. You know, act like a musician, art artist! That last sentence will give you an idea of how shallow my skull was of insight at the time, as Nugent has become something like that insane uncle of yours who shows up at every Holiday dinner. Intensities in Ten Cities is more of what he's served up years previous; songs in major keys using major chords with lots of screaming guitar work and plenty of lyrics that display the melodic content of a back alley brawl. Nugent is obviously very happy to remain where he is, his audience seems more than happy to be typified as boneheads of the first order, and presently I'm more than happy to ignore this me. Give the audience what it wants and then wash the blood off your hands