Great Rock Albums of 1979- Ted Nugent- State of Shock
This album has a bit of irony to it for me. As you have probably read many times until your sick to death of it now, I spent three months of 1979 in musical isolation. Actually it was Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, known in the film “Full Metal Jacket” as the home for the crazy brave. At the time, many of us referred to it as the land of sun and sandfleas. I digress. During those three months, I had no information of what music was coming out. Then one night, I pulled a guard duty where a radio was playing nearby. I was able to listen to it and several times during my duty, there was an advertisement for tickets to see Ted Nugent’s always kick ass live show in Savannah, Georgia. I concluded that he must have a new album out and when I went home on leave, five weeks later, I saw the “State of Shock” album at my local store.
When I first heard the album all of those long years ago, I thought it was brilliant, although it could be said that it was because I was musically starved at the time. Killer tracks like “Paralyzed” and “Satisfied” still come to mind and show what a true artist Ted Nugent is and how he can wail on a guitar like very few people could both then and now. The problem for me is time, having refamiliarised myself with the album, I am now in the mind that it doesn’t quite live up to the knock out punch of “Cat Scratch Fever,” Weekend Warriors” or the later “Scream Dream.” Still, there is nothing wrong with the album, it is still a great album with some fine guitar work from the master himself.
Track Listing:
1. Paralyzed
2. Take It Or Leave It
3. Alone
4. It Don’t Matter
5. State of Shock
6. I Want To Tell You
7. Satisfied
8. Bite Down Hard
9. Snake Charmer
10. Saddle Sore
Ted Nugent- lead guitar, vocals
Charlie Huhn- rhythm guitar, lead and backing vocals
Walt Monaghan- bass
Cliff Davies- drums, backing vocals
Let’s not get into an argument on whether “State of Shock” compares to some of the other Ted Nugent classics. It is a good album and for me, it was a great reintroduction back into music after being deprived of it for so long.
Next Post: Triumph- Just a Game
To buy Rock And Roll Children, go to http://www.strategicpublishinggroup.com/title/RockAndRollChildren.html
Also available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Froogle and on sale at Foyles Book Shop in London
This entry was posted on February 16, 2013 at 11:14 am and is filed under 1979, films, Heavy Metal, Music, Rock, Uncategorized with tags Cat Scratch Fever, Classic Rock, Full Metal Jacket, Guitarists, hard rock, Heavy Metal, Heavy Rock, State of Shock, Ted Nugent, Weekend Warriors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
9 Responses to “Great Rock Albums of 1979- Ted Nugent- State of Shock”
Leave a comment Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
February 16, 2013 at 11:21 am
Seconded. I think this is a great album of the Nuge’s. And I didn’t have any musical starvation like you did!
Without comparing it to the others… if you like Ted then you’ll like this. It’s as simple as that. I really like Charlie Huhn’s voice too and Satisfied and Paralyzed are two of my favourite Nuge tracks.
LikeLike
February 16, 2013 at 2:17 pm
I agree, it is a good album. If you like this album, then you’ll like much of his other stuff too.
LikeLike
February 16, 2013 at 12:11 pm
I did not know you were at Parris Island. Thanks for sharing! Good story too. I think it is also worth mentioning that this is a simply great album cover.
LikeLike
February 16, 2013 at 2:16 pm
Seconded on the album cover. I like this one and Weekend Warriors. Yes I spent 12 wonderful weeks at P.I. back in the summer of 79. God, that sounds like a Bryan Adams song. The ammo cans I mentioned in your post didn’t come about until later in my enlistment.
LikeLike
February 16, 2013 at 2:48 pm
Weekend Warriors had a shotgun guitar didn’t it?
12 weeks sounds like a looong time, if it was anything like the movie…
LikeLike
February 17, 2013 at 9:54 pm
Yep Weekend Warriors did have a shot gun guitar and 12 weeks was a long time. To make it worse, the DI’s were always threatening people they would recycle them and make them stay even longer.
LikeLike
February 18, 2013 at 12:52 am
Yikes. Well glad you managed to graduate in 12 weeks then! And glad that Terrible Ted’s music was there to greet you on the other side!
LikeLike
February 23, 2013 at 6:36 pm
Me too, there was one recruit who was there for seven months. It was good that Ted was there but funny thing was that the first album I bought after graduating boot camp was the soundtrack to The Warriors.
LikeLike
February 23, 2013 at 7:29 pm
Warriors…come out and play!
LikeLike