Mislabeled.

March 20th – It’s interesting the way things work out, how as one door shuts another opens (or in my case, as the one door behind me closes so a fake breeze blows in from nowhere and shuts the one that had just opened therefore enclosing me in a black box which is empty of opportunities and avenues of escape). In the music business, as in almost any branch of the entertainment industry, you rely on who and what you are for your shop window and you’re only as good as your last show. Often-times, as soon as you get one job, you know for a certainty that you’re unemployed, the contract you’re on will end, you’re sacked and you need to start scrabbling around for the next job…now! However, all is not lost.

One of the many continue-in-work lifelines that’ve been thrown to composers and performers has been the use of popular music in advertising. It can revive back-catalogues and make stars of unknowns. The stone-washed jeans/‘Heard it Through the Grapevine’ commercial phenomena is a case in point; right up to the point when that kid opened his mouth to sing…some things don’t always end up as balloons and cake sessions and are best left to the imagination. Another has been the rise in the use of established genres and well known composers to create the sound backdrop to video games and, in recent times, of the highly sophisticated games-market for youngsters.

All this started back in 1982. There were musical soundtracks laid down to other fledgling games before then but these were usually electronic in nature and far from listenable to all but an android. It was only when the pop duo Buckner & Garcia released their hit single, ‘Pac-Man Fever’ on this day, that the seed must have been sown in the fallow (shallow) minds of the recording industry that here was an avenue of longevity for their roster of artists…and another way for them to shell a buck. Now you may think the preceding is a neat segue into something cranial in the literate cannon of pop music…? Fools! You should know me by now.

What this is actually about is that I made a connection that wasn't there, and with a mind that resembles a rummage sale in a woollen warehouse, it sort of made sense to me. The thought was that the title of Buckner & Garcia’s single, ‘Pac-Man Fever’, reminded me of an album title: ‘Cat-Scratch Fever’ (see; I’m a really uncomplicated individual with poor hearing and even poorer cognitive skills). This album, released by Ted Nugent, is where the connection ends because on past performance he can possibly be classed as a video nasty.

Mr. Nugent first came to my notice when I picked up an album, ‘Journey to the Centre of the Mind’ released in 1968 by a band called ‘The American Amboy Dukes’. They added the tag ‘American’ so they wouldn't be confused with a U.K. band, ‘The Amboy Dukes’. In fairness that’d be some stretch of the imagination as you only have to listen to the opening of the title track of the ‘Journey…..’ album and compare it with the single release of ‘The Amboy Dukes’ called ‘Judy in Disguise (with glasses)’ to discover there’s no way any confusion could have been made. 

‘The American Amboy Dukes’ were a full-on, 60’s hippie band rock band (one look at their YouTube footage of ‘Journey to the Centre of the Mind’ will show you the sell-tactic they used; the costume, the hair, the dancing wallpaper (sorry, dancing girls) the whole ball of wax). With an album cover that boasted a selection of drug paraphernalia and album tracks with the titles, ‘Why Is a Carrot More Orange than an Orange?’ and ‘Death is Life’ and ‘Surrender To Your Kinks’ and ‘Missionary Mary’ (as well as the album’s title track) it was easy for his followers to penetrate the central tenet of  him and this band; namely an anti-establishment collective who, in order to step outside the world of the suited cretins who ruled our lives so badly and got us into wars, chose a path of drugs, booze and broads or, in these PC times, of substance abuse and misogyny in order to stick two fingers up at the ‘the man’. When Mr. Nugent went solo he built on that reputation with the adrenaline-fuelled shows he put on and the album covers he used to advertise his wares all spoke of a wild, wild guy, fuckaring and hookahring his way through a life destined to be short. This was the persona he peddled. His playing style and lyrics seemingly spoke of fighting, drinking, shagging and dying…all good stuff for the hurricane-rock generation; except that wasn't what he was about; not at all.

Apparently he didn't drink…or smoke…or do drugs but was and is in fact a very strong advocate of the Second Amendment. So-much-so that when Obama was elected he said, basically, this Presidency was a ‘Pimps, whores and welfare brats’ dream come true (?) But he still attended Obama’s inaugural ceremony… (??)

That sort of mixed-message, ‘stardom whatever the cost’ attitude I find a bit…well…questionable. I mean, if it’s something you don’t subscribe to then why make it a feature of your work, unless, of course, it’s just the way to a means, which then becomes something a little more than just questionable; it’s shallow and disingenuous. Or am I, are we, all being just a little naïve when reading the messages of our chosen cultural leaders; like the slebs of today sporting tattoos. Featured heavily in all their promo shoots this body-art is seen and copied by kids. It’s only after they’re branded for real that it then becomes apparent the stars have had theirs painted on ‘cos although they can’t afford to be permanently marked, on account of their modelling/film career, unlike all their fans they can afford the employ of an artist to paint 'em and wipe 'em. Reminds me; went to an after gig party in Brum in 68/9, I think. A girlfriend of my then fiancé, whose boyfriend had gone to get more booze, came out of a darkened room where she’d obviously been canoodling with another.

“Is my make-up smudged?” she asked, “Shouldn't have really but he is a hunk…and I don’t want X to suspect anything.” but not realising the guy she’d been necking with had obviously had a nosebleed mid-snog…
Sorry, off-message. Ted Nugent and the meaning of hypocrisy.

Well the sleb tattoo thing is a bit like me finding out that Mr. Nugent had hidden shallows in his on-stage/off stage persona; yes, I know;

“That’s very naive of you, Peter. ‘Course it’s an act!”

I never said I was perfect. If nothing else, these gibberings of mine should have proven that by now. But what I will say in my defence is when I discover something I’ve once supported is not right, I own up and don’t give it credence or support…except when it comes to making my recipe for decadent porridge for my breakfast; then, I’m afraid, against all the information and warnings… Whatever, the more misogynistic, psychedelic (with all that that word implies to a 60’s kid) and samey Mr. Nugent’s albums got and the more I found out about him, the more I lost interest.

So, Mr. Nugent fell off my radar and it was only when he resurfaced as a champion of the NRA just a couple of years ago that I realised he’d stopped touring and retired to his ranch, purchased no doubt with the proceeds of his live-a-fib philosophy, and was busy killing stuff (shot-cat fever possibly) that I did a little more considering…and then couldn't help thinking about that other American icon, Charlton Heston. You see, we do it all the time, we mix up the entertainment persona with the actual persona and our trusting nature robs us of our innate common sense which would normally say;

“Ha! You've GOT to be kidding; right?”

about those we think are just too good to be true; you know the phrase, don’t you? ‘If something’s too good to be true then it probably is’.

You see, Mr. Heston made films like ‘The Ten Commandments’ and ‘El Cid’ and ‘Ben Hur’ and by that output and in our childish eyes was seemingly a spokesman for Judeo Christian values and morals. Then gradually the mixed messages started coming. He marched with Martin Luther King yet voted for Goldwater…he spoke against the Vietnam War but supported the Iraq invasion…he bollocked Time Warner for releasing an ‘Ice-T' track called, ‘Cop Killer’ (the words of which supposedly support the killing of policemen) yet made that speech during his time as the NRA spokesman about a proposed change to the Second Amendment which would compromise his right to own a gun; remember it? That they would have to remove his rifle from his, “cold, dead hand”?

Today’s moral: - Rock Stars, Film Stars and Celebrities. They don’t always do what it says on the tin.