"Free-for-All" by Ted Nugent (1976)

View the Premise & Ground Rules for Revisiting Vinyl.

Key Tracks:
The title track finds a really sweet groove and hangs with it until you can't help but boogie along.  Writing on the Wall is also really groovy, albeit a good bit slower.  It should probably be called Stranglehold (Part 2) because it gets that same sort of sparse, jammy vibe with a droning bassline and a long, echoing guitar solo.  And then there's Hammerdown. With its fast, highly technical guitar work, operatic vocal delivery and a couple of tempo changes, the song moves out of the hard rock world and straight into heavy metal - and it's awesome.

Obvious Filler:
Dog Eat Dog is about as vanilla, mid-tempo rock as it can get; it sounds like the generic output you'd get if all the elements of classic radio rock were input into a computer program.  Obviously, somebody disagreed because Dog Eat Dog was the only single released from "Free-for-All."  Together is the LP's sole ballad, and a terrible one at that.  It only serves to prove that you shouldn't let the rhythm section write songs for you.  Light My Way only serves to prove that you shouldn't let the lead singer you're about to kick out of the band write songs for you either.

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Above Average (2.5/4 stars).  Even though there's a lot of filler, Uncle Ted's guitar holds up through all of it and makes the tracks easy to digest.

I suspect there was a lot of pressure on the Nuge to follow up his debut album.  Unfortunately, I don't think he let this one cook long enough and it's painfully apparent.  The jacket doesn't even list the tracks in the correct order (in two separate places), which makes me think the whole thing was slapped together and rushed out, probably at the urging of the record company.  It makes me wonder what Ted thinks of this record compared to his others - especially since it sounds so much like somebody's hurried cash grab.

First of all, there's the songwriting.  Nugent only wrote about two-thirds of the tracks and (with the exception of Dog Eat Dog) they're all good songs.  However, most of the B-side was written by other members of the band and none of them are really interesting or sound much like Ted Nugent songs. 

Then there's the vocalist issue.  Derrick St. Holmes quit in the middle of the "Free-for-All" sessions.  Rather than re-record those tracks, we're left with three lead singers on the LP - Ted Nugent (on the title track only), St. Holmes and... um... well... Meat Loaf (yes, that Meat Loaf) doing a mediocre Derrick St. Holmes impression.  However, there are glimpses of The Loaf unleashed.  Hammerdown, in particular, serves as a good precursor to the "Bat out of Hell" recordings he would begin soon afterward.

So, is it an album?  No.  The stitches mentioned above show through badly.  Also, the experience never feels like a journey.  To me, that's key for "an album."  If the music doesn't start you in one place and leave you in another when it's all over, then it's just a bunch of music.  That's what happens on "Free-for-All."  There are some really good tracks individually, but the experience just stagnates - it never goes anywhere.

Up next, we break free from the "dude rock" theme of the last few reviews, but keep the dial tuned to classic rock with "London Town" by Paul McCartney & Wings.