I'm not entirely sure which part of this story is the most sad, or deluded. There's just too much Fail here to swallow in one bite.
First there's Ted Nugent's claim that the reason the Mayor of Longview, Texas is more willing to pay Ted his $16,000 Cancellation Fee rather than actually have him perform at their Independence Day event is - "All The Racism."
When I first read that I thought that perhaps he was saying that the Mayor was an Anti-White racist, because - well - Ted's kinda White.
But amazingly, that's Not what he's saying. He's saying that (one of) the reason he's been kicked to the curb with a measly $16K in his pocket without having to tune a single string is because the Mayor -- Doesn't Like Black People or "Their Music".
He's claiming - seriously - that he's being Racially Profiled for his music being "too much" like Black People's [Music]. Yes, seriously!
On Saturday, Nugent told the Forth Worth Star-Telegram that the real reason for the revocation of the offer was that Mayor Dean is racist. “I hear from reliable sources that the mayor is a racist and was offended that my band performs mostly African-American-influenced music,” he said.
To which I have to wonder, even before he said President Obama was a "
subhuman mongrel and chimpanzee", that the President was using HealthCare Reform and the IRS to
"Try and Start a Race War" and said Stevie Wonder (whose admitted to doing weed once -
42 years ago) "
was brain-damaged from drugs" [for Boycotting Florida over "Stand Your Ground"], that Trayyvon Martin was a
"Gangsta Wannabe, Skittles Hoodie Boy" who "Got Justice", that
Black People are the "Most Racist" because they've been plauged by "Race Hustlers" like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, and that their biggest problems
are of their own making since they're not "honest, clean, law-abiding and hard-working" enough ...
Exactly What. The. Total. FRACK. has Ted Nugent done for Black People lately? Other than, naturally, continuing the decades long theft and appropriation of OUR Music - by which I mean ROCK 'N ROLL - for his own personal enrichment?
If you aren't already gobsmacked by the chutzpa of that - you've got to simply gaffaw at his claim that his shows are totally "Family Friendly".
My family friendly concerts are legendary and will continue to be all summer long in 2014.”
“Those that hate me are following the Saul Alinsky playbook on how to dismantle, fundamentally transform the greatest nation and quality of life the world has ever known,” he continued.
“Those that hate me hate America, plain and simple.
Yeah, it's all about YOU isn't it Ted? And Saul Alinsky. Meanwhile he's been having shows like this one.
Nugent on Stage: The is an American Fucking Freedom. Say "No Shit, Uncle Ted!". God Bless America, God Bless the real music loving mother-fuckers with me hear tonight. If you're here with Ted Nugent 2011 you're a bad mother-fucker. 'Cuz I know you love the music, but I know what you really love. You love me because I cause Liberals to Shit Themselves. This is the soundtrack to make Assholes Commit Suicide. Say "THANK YOU UNCLE TED!"
Yeah, ok, sure - that's plenty "wholesome". Maybe in a Scatalogical Asylum it is.
Over the flip I get into some music history and some personal history to show that Ted is, this time, even more full of shit than his usual (Draft Dodging) pants load.
Because I'm a former member of the Black Rock Coalition which was founded by members of the band Living Colour in the late 80's I probably know more about what Ted is trying to say about black Music, than he'll ever know.
There was once a time when the majority of artists performing "Rock" were Black. From Chuck Berry, to Chubby Checker, Little Richard to Ike Turner (who recorded what has been called the Very First Rock Song "Rocket 88"), Ray Charles, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Robert Johnson, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix and Funkadelic - because in truth - Rock n Roll is a direct derivation of Blues and Honky Tonk.
Muddy Waters used to say "Blues had a Baby and they called it Rock "n Roll".
"Hound Dog" was not written or originally performed by Elvis - it was by Big Mommy Thornton.
There was a time when there actually was a strong streak of racial animus against Rock for exactly that reason. In fact, They Called it "Race Music". Or when not in mixed company - "Nigger Music".
Here's a discussion of this in regards to birth of Rock N Roll via Dick Clark and Alan Freed by Radio DJ Jim Quinn.
In the '50's, there were actually Race Riots over Rock N Roll, which ultimately led to the Payola scandal that ended the career of Alan Freed. But over the years the musics influence grew as more and more White artists like Elvis and Pat Boone continued to appropriate it, at least that is until other Rock original artists such as The Big Bopper, Buddy Holly and Richie Valens(uela) died in a small plane crash while Elvis went into the army.
Some say that was when "the Music died", and it might have stayed that way if not for the British Rock Invasion where a brand new set of English Artists who were influenced not by Elvis or the Everyly Brothers, but by Underground Black American Rock and Blues. The Beatles, the Stones and the Animals were Huge fans of Little Richard, Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf and others. For example "Twist and Shout" wasn't originally done by the Beatles, that was an Isley Brothers Song. By being from "over the pond", even if they didn't mean to they essentially "white washed" the sound and made it "safely foreign" enough that it was able to slip around the racial bias that had generated the strife and scandals that had previously derailed people like Freed. Hendrix himself couldn't get any kind of career going in the U.S. until the bassist for the Animals, Chas Chandler, took him to England where he immediately became a Superstar, then he as able to return back to America as part of the "British Invasion" safely. How ironic is that?
Being "from England" was finally a way around the race barrier for Hendrix but, IMO, it also presented another problem for the original black artists who were performing it at the time because the music also became associated with males who wore long straight hair. Black men and women didn't have hair like that naturally, although they could try to achieve it temporarily by using Lye-Based Relaxers which had a tendency to leave chemical burns on their scalp. Hair Straightening is truly an sad internal drama in the Black community, trust me on that. If you go back and look at the hairstyles worn by Little Richard, James Brown and Jimi Hendrix (who had played in both of their bands, as well as with the Isleys before going to England) they all had relaxed straightened "white" looking hair. Yet as the black power movement grew in the late a 60's and 70's the idea of letting your hair grow more "Natural", as most famously exampled by people such as Angela Davis or Shirley Chisholm grew stronger and - for a time - the use of relaxers waned at least among men. [Then came the Geri Curl which was another load of bollucks] All this hair modifying stuff was really, really a Thang for decades, just as much as the long shaggy hair of the Beatles and the Stones was.
Black Music, at the same time, also concertedly and deliberately moved deeper into more "identifiably black" forms of R&B, Funk and Soul pushing itself further and further away from Blues-Based Rock N Roll that what was becoming more increasingly "Mainstream" and dominated by more and more White Artists and fans as record labels finally realized that this R&B/Rock Gravy Train was nearly inexhaustible. Why release Tutti Fruity by the next Litttle Richard when the next Pat Boone will outsell them 3 to 1? Why have another Hendrix when you've got Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn and then Eddie Van Halen? It's not that Black Artists and Fans suddenly decided they didn't LIKE Rock, the shift was gradual, they just drifted off into other areas where they weren't - well, lust just say it - so SURROUNDED, outnumbered and outgunned.
Whereas the racial bias against the people and the music was quite naked and clear in the 50's and 60's, in the wake of the Civil Rights Era it began to change. Where it remained, it moved "under the radar". Black acts weren't openly discouraged from playing rock any more (although sometimes they were Totally shamed out of it) they were more often told that would be more "Marketable" in R&B, or Funk, or Blues an d then eventually Hip-Hop. "Codewords" were used. The Billboard R&B Charts of the 70's and 80's were literally called the "Black Music" charts. MTV originally refused to play Michael Jackson "Billie Jean" video because they fancied themselves as a "Rock" styled station (Nevermind Eddie Van Halen's presence on "Beat It" along with nearly all the members of Toto), and it wasn't until Epic threaten to pull all of their artists from the video air that they finally relented.
Living Colour's first record, which ultimately went on to win several Grammys, Originally Didn't Even Include a Picture of the Band. Their label was afraid that Black Radio stations wouldn't play it because it rocked like Led Zeppelin and that the nominally "White" Rock Stations also wouldn't play it once they saw what the band looked like. The label figured that if they SAW THE BAND, the stations wouldn't even listen to the allbum, not because they were racist per se, but because the automatic presumption and expectation would be - just like with MTV - that it was probably the "other" kind of Black Music (R&B, Funk, Soul or Reggae) which wouldn't fit into their "Rock format" simply because by that time the idea that "Black People don't do Rock" was practically calcified into the industry. That was a given, a fait accompli'. After the failure of their first single "Open Letter to a Landlord" which like the album cover had continued to obscure and hide them, the label seemed to be right about that strategy until their second single "Cult of Personality" was released, which reversed that prevailing stupidity by prominently showing JUST WHO as playing this music openly in their video.
Still, in large measure we didn't "Rock" so much at that time with notable exceptions like Bad Brains, 24-7 Spyz, King's X and Fishbone - but in the decades since many of my BRC pals from back then have shown, particularly in the 2005 documentary "Electric Purgatory", that despite the passive-aggressive nature of ongoing Subliminal Racism in the music industry and elsewhere, many of them still do Rock, and will likely never stop. I know I never will.
In the middle of all this you have people like Nugent who got his first start with the Blues-Rock group the Amboy Dukes. He played during the era of Hendrix, and with Rush during their early career - so what he says about his music being "African-American" in origin is true, but not really in a contemporary sense. Times have changed, and not really for the better.
Be all that as it may, the likelihood is that Ted was dis-invited to Longview not because of any of that but for things like the following...
To get down to brass tacks on the dis-invite, it wasn't just the Mayor who made the decision, it was the City Council who were doing something Ted likes to talk a lot of SHIT about, but apparently doesn't believe in... Democracy.
It's also interesting that when Nugent's spokesperson was first contacted about the cancellation - he claims he didn't even know about the gig and it wasn't on his schedule.
A spokesperson for Nugent told KLTV Friday that the Longview event was never on the singer's calendar and that he did not know anything about it. Organizers are still searching for the headliner that will take the Maude Cobb stage on July Fourth.
So how does Teddy get so hopping mad about something he hadn't even been scheduled to do, even when he still getting PAID?
Because Ted doesn't truly believe all this fucking Dren. This is all bullshit, it's an "I'm the Victim", fake, phony, Conservative POUTRAGE ACT. It's just his schtick, one which he exactly outed in the first video I posted... he's doing it to get Liberals to react. And I admit, it works. I'm writing this aren't I?
He's using this to maintain a fan-base of Liberal Haters. Other than nostalgia for misogynist pedaphalic screeds like "Stranglehold" and "Jailbait" they're not there for the music, they just want their FEAR AND HATE stoked and fed.
However, in full disclosure, I have more than just a hunch to think Ted is faking it here. I happen personally know Ted's current drummer, who is Wild Mike Brown from the bands Dokken and Lynch Mob in the 80's and 90s'. My wife ran Dokken's Official Fan Club in the 90's and one our best and longest friends ran their Official Website for years. We know them. I was at a surprise birthday party for Mick [and also drummer Vinne Appice] at the SF Valley home of Dokken, Dio and Foreigner bassist Jeff Pilson the night that Tupac was shot in Las Vegas. (I remember it was that night because we were so relieved when the Mike Tyson fight ended so quickly and everyone could hide before Mick & Vinnie arrived from Burbank Airport. Then we heard the news about Tupac) I also know other members of Mick's family like his brother Steve, also a drummer, who lived in Sacramento at the same time I did in the late 90's. We met many times at various gigs.
IMO Mick actually is pretty "Wild" but not so much that if Ted was truly as much of a Fucking Dickhole as he appears to be in public, not even he would put up with it. Further evidence of this can be seen in the VH1 Reality Series Supergroup which follows the short lived band "Damnocracy" that featured Ted, Skidrow's Sebastian Bach, Scott Ian from (Anthrax) and Jason Bonham (Foreigner). During the extended filming the Real Ted comes out, and he's a caring individual who took a father-figure role with Sebastian who was just beginning to deal with his alcholism, one who dotes on his wife letting her pretty much control his every move offstage. He's not exactly the "Wildman" in private that he tries to portray. The real Ted is a Pussycat. All Meow, No Bite.
I don't say this to take the heat off of Ted, quite the opposite. What's worse, someone whose an unrepentant Cockhead in public because he can't help himself, or because he's only doing it to maintain his paydays?
Seriously, since he hasn't done any music of any merit - IN DECADES - he relies on this shit talking to keep himself in the public eye. He's lifting himself up on the backs of paranoid hate-mongers that fill the GOP and NRA rank-n-file not just bolster his career, but also to further the agenda of the Wingnut Wing of the Conservative Party, who of course pay him through speaking engagements and appearances as a NRA board member, to do just that.
It's all for the MONEY.
While he's making his bank by spewing bile and hate speech against "Liberals" and "Lazy, Unclean" Blacks, he's also trying to fire-up the Conservative Base to get them energized in the 2014 midterms.
And although one might think that giving Ted this much attention is falling into his "Liberal Trap" the fact is that when you look at just what a opportunistic phony he is - it all starts to crumble. He's slunk to the depths of Extreme Boomerang Race Baiting here, simply to deflect from the fact that he's starting to become Too Toxic For TEXAS because of his own mouth diarrhea.
He's been recently called out on Fox News of all places. The cracks in the mask are widening. His Yosemite Sam Act isn't selling anymore. The reviews are in and it's not a rave.
Republicans are beginning to slowly slink away from him in embarrassment, because he actual does do what he claims to be trying to do. He FIRES UP DEMOCRATS with his outrageous bullshit talk.
So since I think it's always a good strategy to hand a drowning Wingnut a Safety Anvil, let me point out that what Ted is claiming here - that's he's being attacked for Racial Reasons - is exactly the kind of thing he recently said DIDN'T HAPPEN ANYMORE, to black People.
So, Riddle me this, Ted-Man.
“(R)acism against blacks was gone by the time I started touring the nation in the late [19]60s,” Nugent said, “Nothing of consequence existed to deter or compromise a black American’s dream. if they got an alarm clock, if they set it, if they took good care of themselves, they remained clean and sober, if they spoke clearly, and they demanded excellence of themselves and provided excellence to their employers.”
See, that - "
Racism was gone" in the late 60's. "
Nothing of consequence exists to compromise the American Dream".
So, um, then why the FUCK are you WHINING about being Racially Targeted Ted If Al Sharpton is a "Race Hustler" because he calls "Racism" when he think he sees it - and he's not always wrong by a long shot - what are YOU now, Ted?
If Racism no longer "exists" for the Black American, how in the Holy Hell can it still possibly exist, in 2014, for Ted Freakin' Nugent? And if it does, well then you've been completely Frelling Wrong the whole time haven't you?
Nevermind Fuckhole, we don't truly need to know. Happy Flailing as this kind of behavior helps accelerate the Republican parties eventual slide into demographic oblivion. It couldn't happen faster to a bigger pack of deluded self-aggrandizing crackholes. Good riddance.
Vyan
11:41 AM PT: Last year I did a Black Rock Kickstarter Project which features tons of more info music and videos about these artists - FYI. It wasn't funded, but ce lest vie, it's still a good resource.