- I don’t know if you’re aware, but ZZ Top is from Texas.
- They could take Willie Nelson in a Texas-Off.
- I don’t know what the individual events in a Texas -Off are, but I assume that trivia and chili-cooking are involved.
- ZZ Top is more Texan than the execution of a feeble-minded minority.
- ZZ Top is more Texan than Roy Head appearing at a honky-tonk owned by Jack Ruby.
- ZZ Top is more Texan than Phil Collins’ basement.
- (Maybe three of you are gonna get the Phil Collins joke, but I don’t care; I won’t explain myself.)
- Remember the Rush doc, Beyond the Lighted Stage?
- The one with Jack Black that ends with Geddy, Alex, and Neil getting drunk at the fancy restaurant?
- This is the same as that, but with fewer changes in time signature, and a sawdust-floored bar instead of a fancy restaurant
- (The Top plays in 4/4, man. Some of the tunes are shuffles and could be interpreted as being in 12/8, if you’re a theory wiener, but no one like a theory wiener.)
- Y’got your tall, skinny guy with a beard; that’s Billy Gibbons.
- Y’got your short, chubby guy with a beard; that’s Dusty Hill.
- Frank Beard is the drummer, and he has no beard.
- Three guys.
- Tres hombres.
- 50 years on the road and they still haven’t succumbed to Late Stage Band Bloat.
- No black-up singers, no Brecker brothers on horns, no utility-infielder on rhythm guitar and piano and tambourine.
- Pretty sure they got a keyboardist hidden behind the amps, though.
- Or maybe under a hat.
- ZZ Top are some hat-wearing motherfuckers.
- Even before the male-pattern baldness struck, the Top dug their chapeaus.
- I don’t need to hear the “how we got our name” story ever again, not from anyone.
- They’re sick of telling the story, and I’m sick of hearing it.
- You found it in a dictionary, it was a character in a book you liked, it was a particularly twattish gym teacher.
- Fascinating.
- The Top do far more dancing than you recall.
- Li’l bit of boot-scootin’.
- Four steps to the right, four steps back, up two three four, back two three four, shake ’em shake ’em shake ’em.
- Then twirl the guitars.
- Crowd goes berserk.
- Simplest tricks are the best kind, as they were the ones performed for you when you were a child, and so when they are replayed, you retreat to innocence.
- AC/DC is antipodean to ZZ Top in both the geographic and alphabetical sense, but their music was mostly the same: Bar Rock.
- The Top is meant to be heard in bars, and loud.
- Clubs play UNTZ UNTZ music, and lounges play ironic jazz, and honky-tonks play country, and juke joints play soul music, and breweries play prog rock, but bars play ZZ fucking Top.
- You walk into a bar that isn’t blasting the Top, you take a shit on the pool table.
- That’s direct action.
- The film does not come right out and say that ZZ Top has been coasting since 1987, but it is implied.
- The film also does not cover the time ZZ Top did an entire tour while pretending to be The Zombies.
- You should click, trust me.
- Great story.
- Best story in the ZZ Top documentary was the time Billy and Frank sold Dusty to that sheikh.
- Comes out of nowhere.
- They’re talking about Texas, and coming up with material for the new album, and then BAM Dusty belongs to a desert prince.
- Dusty doesn’t like to talk about his time in the palace, but Frank still brings it up all the time.
- Frank likes to razz Dusty.
- Dusty takes it, and plays eighth notes.
- It’s difficult to overstate how (deliberately) simple Top songs are, and how strict the rules about playing them are.
- Actually, there’s only one rule: Only Billy is allowed to show off, ever.
- Here, this is fun:
- That’s from the Live From Texas DVD they released in 2008.
- Hawk-eyed Enthusiasts will recognize the stories told around the poker table as the same ones related during the 2020 documentary.
- ZZ Top only has a couple good stories, I guess.
- Unlike the majority of their contemporaries, the Top has not been critically reevaluated by Pitchfork, nor been the subject of a Serious Rock Book, most likely published by Da Capo.
- The Dead had the Wall of Sound.
- Floyd had The Wall.
- ZZ Top had the Worldwide Texas Tour.
- The boys brought varmints with them.
- Not pleasant ones, either: vultures and rattlesnakes and a buffalo.
- That’s committing to the bit.
- When you’re traveling with a buffalo, then you’re all-in on the cowboy routine.
- How all-in?
- If ZZ Top can’t bring their buffalo, then ZZ Top isn’t playing your shitty country.
I love Top. Seen them a few times in recent years. Set’s always a tight 80 minutes.
We been on a Top jag in our house lately. I put the ’70s albums on the car iPod after years of not listening to them before we drove across Texas (twice) a couple of months ago, and holy moly, were they great. Tried the MTV synth era albums again too, but they got old quick. Then I trawled through the Coasting Years albums, and found some gems buried in the Buffalo turds. “Mescalero” is particularly better than it has any reason to be.
Also, good job getting a jump on Thoughts on Philisis.
In 1981 I was a 17 and my rock opinions were skewed in strange ways.
I skipped going to see BB King because I thought two shows a night was an outrage, and we all deserved 2 Sets for one price.
I skipped ZZ Top on 06/17/81 in Cleveland because Loverboy was the opening act.
That is right, I liked ZZ, but so hated Loverboy that I skipped going to the show.
I am looking for the reviews from Cleveland Scene Magazine, but apparently the show was smoking hot, and I was an idiot.
So .. yes I was a teenage idiot, but I think that is a common situation so I will try to live with it.
Watched the doc last night. They are quite the likeable hombres. Ending it (mostly) with “Eliminator” did seem a bit abrupt, though, yeah. I suppose “And then we did that exact thing some more for 30 years, with fewer synths” wouldn’t really translate to the screen very well. Coulda given us a blip on the end of the Bill Ham era, but since he had just died when they made the movie, probably would have been a bit churlish. Good stuff though. I will be increasing my ZZ Top percentage on all playlists for the foreseeable future.
Gonna just say it.
“Pool Hall”
Along with AC/DC, Van Halen, George Thurougood and Led Zeppelin