Amboy Dukes

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…

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…

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…

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.

In the late '60s, when such things mattered, Ted Nugent was quickly gaining a reputation as a young-gun guitar hotshot, largely based on the back-to-back success of two singles issued by his group, the Amboy Dukes. The first, "Baby Please Don't Go," was a hopped-up rendition of the old blues standard, which Nugent and the band had learned off the version by Van Morrison's group, Them. The second was a group original, "Journey to the Center of the Mind," one of those tunes that shows up regularly on TV record ads for "Psychedelic Groovy '60s" collections. Nugent and the group continued to make great, musically interesting albums for the tiny Mainstream label, but had no more hits.

If one had to point to a single initial salvo that launched the garage rock revival movement in the 1970s and ‘80s, it would have to be the release of Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968 in 1972. Elektra Records had approached rock critic Lenny Kaye (not yet the guitarist with the Patti Smith Group) with the notion of compiling an album of great, overlooked rock tunes, but what Kaye came up with was something significantly different – an overview of the great, wild era when American bands, goaded by the British Invasion, began honing in on a tougher and more eclectic rock & roll sound, and kids were reawakened to the possibilities of two guitars, bass, and drum…