Page 28 - the NOISE January 2014

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dinary. The renamed Bob Seger System’s first Capitol single was a stunner. Released in January 1968, “2+2=?” wasn’t a celebration, but a scathing condemnation of America’s involvement in Vietnam.
Well I knew a guy in high school Just an average friendly guy
And he had himself a girlfriend And you made them say goodbye Now he’s buried in the mud
Of a foreign jungle land
And his girl just sits and cries She just doesn’t understand
So you say he died for freedom What if he died to save your lies Go ahead and call me yellow Two Plus Two is on my mind Two Plus Two is on my mind
The fuzz guitar from “East Side Story” is back, only more nasty and brutish. Perrine absolutely punishes his kit. Close to the end, the song stops dead and there’s a few sec- onds of echoey silence during which your heart is still racing from the excitement, and here comes Seger: “TWO PLUS TWO IS ON MY MIND!” and the band crashes back in for one more chorus to sock it home. A little more feedback and it wouldn’t sound a bit out of place on the MC5’s Kick Out The Jams LP, released the following year.
Unfortunately, Capitol wasn’t thrilled by the song’s explicit leftist politics and refused to promote it. While big at home, “2+2=?” was a no-show nationally and the label start- ed having second thoughts about their new golden boy.
Seger and Punch had an ace in the hole, though. And in that pivotal year of 1968, it took the whole goddamn jackpot.
It was one hell of an ace. “Ramblin’ Gamb- lin’ Man” came roaring out over the airwaves in mid-’68 and it was a real motherf*cker (still is), the culmination of all the hard work Bob Seger and Punch Andrews had put in over the last few years. Pep Perrine starts it off with THAT drumbeat (sampled many times in hip-hop) and he never ever stops, not even for a tom roll or cymbal crash, while Seger brags about what a badass he is.
“Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man” was another #1 in Detroit, but this time (with plenty of major label grease) it raced up the national charts
as well, peaking at #17. It’s still heard on the radio today and deservedly so. It’s essential rock and roll.
With this single, Bob Seger kicked the door wide open for Michigan rockers. Shortly after its release, Ted Nugent’s Amboy Dukes had a nationwide hit with “Journey To The Center Of The Mind.” Within a year came the debut LPs from Grand Funk Railroad, Iggy Pop’s Stooges, The MC5, and George Clinton’s Funkadelic, as well as the inaugural issue of the Detroit-based CREEM, which had the balls to call itself “America’s Only Rock & Roll Magazine.”
1969 also brought us The Bob Seger Sys- tem’s first album, named after its biggest hit. Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man is a fine debut that shows off the band’s diversity: there’s a little blues, a little folk, an instrumental, two long acid jams, one by the bass player, and plen- ty of Deeeetroit rock & roll. Despite some
“trippy” stereo panning typical of the era, it stands tall among its peers.
Things went downhill almost immediately. “Ivory,” the next single (another great funky stomper), barely scraped into the charts and Capitol got worried again, pressuring Seger into writing hits, which is what Bob thought he was doing all along. A decision was made to add guitar player Tom Neme to beef up the System’s live show. Neme was a singer/ songwriter as well and, either through his
persistence or Seger’s lassitude, the un- known guitarist was responsible for over half of the 2nd LP.
Noah (released in September 1969) was a dud. It didn’t even chart. The title track flopped as a single. There’s only two more of Bob’s songs on the album: the jailhouse rocker “Death Row” (which had already ap- peared as the flipside of “2+2=?”) and the incredible blazing “Innervenus Eyes,” also a big zilch when released as a single. That left the rest of the Noah LP in the hands of Tom Neme, and the less said the better. Seger an- nounced he was leaving the music business and enrolled in college.
But something brought him back, per- haps the sheer exhilaration of playing music, who knows. He reclaimed his band and fired Tom Neme. Back down to a trio, the System released their third LP in August 1970 and Mongrel was its name. Capitol’s ad for it read
“Mongrel Is A Bitch” and they got that right.
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28 • january 2014 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us