As is apparent in a number of my posts there was a lot of transitioning between cultures in the 70s going back to the 60s. Coming out of the 60s with the American rock bands transitioning to British Invasion bands. The 70’s in quick succession was the transitioning between long haired rock, underground rock, prog rock, proto punk rock, glam rock and arena rock. I started listening to the rock of the 60s on transistor radio. KXOK bitches! I recall sitting on our porch on Victor St. Listening to Johnny Rabbit providing updates on the Beatles show and Bush Memorial Stadium.
As a fan of rock music I was always interested in the latest thing. A lot of times this meant leaving behind music that no longer was of interest to me. This here is the story of two friends on a continuum of musical identity. Trapped by foolish concert promoters who believe having bands that would not be of interest from one music fan group to the other and the consequences in the rare occasion there was crossover with one fan that could not be crossed by another.
The concert was Ted Nugent at the Checkerdome(AKA the Arena) July 17, 1979. At that time of this concert I was totally nauseated by the thought of Ted Nugent. For good musical reasons as well. A few years back I was in a band that played Stranglehold and I was the bass player. If you ever want to look straight into the abyss try playing bass to that song. As new music came on the scene I had to spend years with the fucking KSHE crowd going on and on about how they hated the 3 chord punk rock but this fucking song was mostly 2 chords and the KSHE Neanderthals thought it was the greatest thing ever.
Article that points out Mike’s hypocrisy in the holier than thou sweepstakes.
Most people who complain about 3 chord rock have not clue of music theory and just puppet the criticisms they hear. You know, like fuck faces that watch Fox News.
Ted not only loves Fox News but also is one of the few places where he can play and have an audience.having Fox Hosts jam along on sex laden bad rock. But even Mike knew better than to play along to the monotonous Stranglehold. He picked another song. This was the song where I went from being a fan of Ted Nugent to hating him with every fiber of my being. The song… Cat Scratch Fever.
At time of this shoe Ted had parted with the passable singer that he had his breakthrough with. The one that helped Ted climb out of playing St. Louis High Schools and shitty underused ice rinks in Jefferson county. Both of which I was a witness too. To this day it brings a smile on my fact to think of that ice rink gig. Sure it sucked that they put some kind of boards over the ice. The moisture of the ice would liquify and come up through the boards so you were eventually sitting in a pool of cold water. The thing is, that wasn’t just a problem for the fans watching. You could see that every time Ted touched his mic he got quite a shock. PRICELESS!
So, he parted with someone who could sing to take over the duties for himself. And to celebrate his hack singing he came out with the most hack song in the world at this time. Cat Scratch Fever was 209 ways of boring. The boring guitar riff. The horrible singing. The laughable lyrics that were supposed to be some clever double entendre. It makes me shudder that little hosiers found this song sexy, made love and ended up unintentionally pregnant making little hosiers. But there you have it. Merica!
So I was full of loathing for Ted Nugent, decades before he went full MAGA, and here I was at his concert. You might ask, “why T-Bone, why?”
The answer was the opening band Ian Hunter & Mick Ronson. I was lucky enough to see this duo 3 times. Mick Ronson is like my one of my top five guitar heroes. Ignore the fact that he fucking single handily made Bowie. The first Hunter solo album with Mick was a Masterclass of everything I thought was the greatest in playing early to mid 70s rock. And Ian? Fuggitaboutit. Mott the Hoople?
Go ahead and listen to the choicest sounds of these gentleman together and with their other bands.
I went with my good friend Jimmy T. At this time we were playing in the punk band the Camaros. Jimmy and me go back years before this. With Chuck he was one of the new friends that I had met since I moved back to the city from South County. Where Chuck was naturally adventurous in culture Jimmy took a bit more nudging to transition from one thing to the next. Unlike myself who had no older siblings who would color my ability to accept things and Chuck who had older siblings but being the youngest they didn’t have any affect on his tastes. I believe that I may have had negative influence on Jimmy to the point where instead of playing in a ZZ Top cover band he was in a punk band.
There was cross pollination. He was a stone cold freak for Alvin Lee and Ten Year After and to this day thanks to his having me listen to all their records my appreciation for this band grows.
Here we are at a concert that I was excited for the opening band and dreading the headliner. In true punk style we were copping attitudes with the KSHE Cowboys. Someone was tossing one of those giant inflatable balloons. Like good little hippies you were supposed to push it up in the air for someone else to do the same. Not us. We popped it with a cigarette. If dirty looks were cash I could have retired right then and there. Ha Ha.
The Ian Hunter/Mick Ronson set was incredible but of course didn’t go over well with the KSHE Cowboys. I’m sure most of these cow pie eaters would end up being big fans of Ian’s song when done by a hair metal band. Maybe it was the White Christian Nationalist sounding name? Great White?
Then on came Ted. I was hanging at the back of the floor of the concert hall and I look around and Jimmy is gone. Where could he be? Kidnapped? No! He had rushed to the front of the stage. Oh well. I went up to the front as well but was not happy about it already being so over the Nuge.
Not sure how long into the show this was but I felt like being mischievous. But what to do? I reached in my pocket and I had an assortment of coins there. I picked one out and I was right in front and took the coin and hit Ted right in the head just as we was getting into one of his Ted jams. I could see him flinch. It wasn’t as good as seeing him get electrocuted at the ice rink but in this case I was the one causing the tormenting and it was fun, so plunk, right in the head with another coin. Such Fun!
All good things must come to and end and so it was with the coins in my pocket. At that point I leaned on the stage yelling at him that he sucked and his new music sucked and he’ll become a has been in short order. But once you’ve tasted inflicting physical pain on someone you can’t stand, shouting insults wasn’t providing the sick satisfaction that I was craving. So I turned behind me to the person there and said give me that chair. Pointing to the metal folding chair they used for floor seating in what was primarily a sports venue. I have seen enough wrestling to know that the action wasn’t complete until someone hit someone else in the head with a folding metal chair.
The lad dutifully grabbed the chair and was handing it to me when a person next to him said, “Don’t, he’s throwing things at the stage.” This gave the young man pause and he declined to hand it to me. It is a mystery to me to this day why I didn’t just step back and get my own chair but as it was Ted was spared the wrestling ending that I’m sure would have made for the best show ever.
Because that was they way… in the rock and roll days.