ZZ Top: C/D

Related, but off topic...

Bubble Puppy. If you haven't, there's a cheap remaster. It's good.

Point Blank. First album, way beyond "brown period" ZZ Top. Shotgun pointed at your head. Completely unacceptable beat-yer-wife-and-the-liberals-too crashing boogie on Arista. Never remastered -- except for my special "Sludge in the Seventies" series. "The Hard Way" is also good. That may still be in stock in various places.

Best Album: Tres Hombres

I been bad, I been good,
Dallas, Texas, Hollywood.
I ain't askin' for much.
I said, Lord, take me downtown,
I'm just lookin' for some tush.

Take me back way back home,
not by myself, not alone.
I ain't askin' for much.
I said, Lord, take me downtown,
I'm just lookin' for some tush.

- Frank Beard, Bill Gibbons & Dusty Hill

Classic.

http://www.cjnetworks.com/~leis/album/zztop/tejas.jpg

this might be the best album ever made

Got to see these guys when they played the Beacon Theatre in NYC a month or so back. They fucking tore the walls down. Tremendous.

It's getting hard to see the white lines rollin by...

What a totally classic band. I'm depressed I missed the Beacon show.

Customizer behind CadZZilla dies

http://www.havill.net/hobby/galaxie/images/cadzilla.jpg

I am itchin' to find out what Rick Rubin does with them. Itchin', I tell ya.

All acoustic covers of new wave acts.

But seriously, I'm into this idea.

I mean, the idea of ZZ Top ELECTRIC with Rick Rubin.

Yeah, I don't think even Rubin would unplug them. That would be Rubin self-parody.

oh man if he wants them to take it back to tres hombres this could be great news indeed....

Arguably the world's greatest living bluesman, Billy Gibbons

arguably, yes.

Why not Billy Gibbons? Fucking Brown Sugar off their first album, what an awesome blues song.

Just Got Paid may be my favorite song of all time.

I fucking love this band.

I'd be surprised if Rubin could jackhandle them into producing an album as interesting as Mescalero. The band was so down-tuned for half the numbers you could almost hear the strings scraping the pickups. Plus they did Lowell Fulson's "Tramp," which makes about half an album worthwhile all by itself.

However, I'm one who has liked ZZ Top's last couple of albums. XXX was a little off but Rhythmeen was singular in its wall-of-guitar tone. Check Vincent Price Blues, as per one sample.

ZZ Top and their 1st-RioGrandeMud-TresHombres period are like the American blue-collar worker and $20 buck/hour wages. The paradigm is gone and not coming back. If Rick Rubin gets people to pay attention to 'em a little more, that's fine.

What's exactly is there -to do- with ZZ Top if you're a producer, anyway?

Everything ZZ Top has done in the last ten years has been R&B as hard rock and blooz as jokey semi-heavy metal and vice versa. It's not been a bad way of writing for them.

The last revolution in tone they went through came with Eliminator when Billy started playing through Rockman equipment, Frank Beard was laced to sequencing and a click track and gated reverb was used on all the drums. Plus Dusty was singing a lot less.

They dumped all that when they went to RCA for Antenna. Rusty still isn't singing as much as he used to, though.

ZZ Top and their 1st-RioGrandeMud-TresHombres period are like the American blue-collar worker and $20 buck/hour wages. The paradigm is gone and not coming back.

What paradigm is that? When was ZZ Top ever defined by the year they were recording in? I know you're talking about sound here -- too narrowly, I think -- but either way, that seems like a blank argument.

What's exactly is there -to do- with ZZ Top if you're a producer, anyway?

I don't know what line of work you're in, but I hope it's not producing records. What exactly can you *do* with 4/4 time and 12 bars? It's just so limited...

I know, maybe my hopes are too high. But there's a lot of ZZ Top to work with. There's some serious raw blues, as was said, and their affinity for pure sonics, which was all-time greatness on a couple albums before it got a little out of hand and cloudy, and there's always that genius/weird sense of humor that produces songs like "Cheap Sunglasses," which is a joke with no punch line, so instead of being funny, it decides to just fuckin' rock. There are a lot of places for ZZ Top to go or go back to, which of course is Rubin's speciality.

And while rationally I know better, I want to believe that there's such a thing as Huge Fuck-Off Beard Magic, and that Rubin and Billy and Dusty all have it in spades.

With all the southern rock haters I've seen on ILX I'm surprised at how positive this thread is.

This is the first band I can remember liking. Ecstatically at that. A tape of Eliminator that I think belonged to my dad.

Kenan, I made the same mistake with the new Stooges album.

:(

I'M BAD

I'M NATIONWIDE

They dumped all that when they went to RCA for Antenna.

There's still silly polish and f/x all over their last few records, including Antenna.

They need to release a for-real live album. I saw them at the Beacon Theater late last year and had my brain yanked out and hurled around the room.

I've heard they can still dominate live. No news on any of the old shit being remastered like fandango and 3 hombres, right? Too bad, I'd love to upgrade the first two.

No, none of the others are on the Rhino remaster list, as far as I know. You're right, they definitely should remaster the first two - hell, I'd like remasters of everything up through Eliminator (which is coming as a 2CD deluxe edition later in the year).

I sprang for the box set which has fabulous sounding remasters of the early records (and the rest too).

I burned the box set from a friend, it only made me hungry for more.

Some of the real early Moving Sidewalks stuff is great. Salt Lick is a fucking jam.

yeah, there are days where I think Tres Hombres is the only record by anyone I'll ever need, so I know what you mean.

that seems like a blank argument

A yawn is a silent shout.

ZZ Top haven't exactly been making bad albums. Other than name value on the marquee and in the press, having Rick Rubin working with you is no guarantee of anything. I would buy their next CD regardless of whether he had anything to do with it.

The reprints, such as they exist, of the first two albums get a bit of bad rap, particularly if one reads about the original ZZ Top box, not the Chrome Smoke and BBQ anthology of a few years ago. There are a number of customer reviews on Amazon of the original 6-LP-on-3-CD thing that are fairly vituperative.

But you can get it cheap now as used merch and if you turn the discs up loud they do sound great. The complaints stem from the replacement of the Seventies ambience in the mixes with something of a Nineties sheen here and there, most noticeably on the remix of Tejas.

However, I went back to it this year after I noticed distortion on my copy of the deluxe reissue of Fandango.

The newest Fandango sounds fine for most buyers but it is pushed a bit and mine has some digital clipping. The old remaster from the box does not and while it's not printed as loud, this is remedied by turning it up. Which is how I always listen to it, anyway.

There's still silly polish and f/x all over their last few records, including Antenna

That's a matter of taste. Mescalero is raw and brutal throughout much of it. Rhythmeen is a wall of guitar. And they definitely aren't doing the Eighties Rockman sound -- which is how most of the people who bought the hit records know them.

After reading reviews of all the RCA albums, I think Rhythmeen is the one I need. And I believe the complaints about the ZZ Top Sixpack (their first six albums, except Degüello, which was the best one post-Tres) stemmed from the replacement of the original 70s drum tracks with programmed rhythms to make 'em palatable to fans of Eliminator and Afterburner.

Mescalero is raw and brutal throughout much of it.

I'm sorry but there is nothing raw and brutal about any ZZ Top record from the last, what, 25-30 years? Which isn't a bad thing. I'm a huge fan of their 12" dance remixes. But those terms, regardless of relativity, don't seem accurate.

RAW sounds startling great - you really do feel like you're in the front row of the Gruene watching them casually kick some serious ass. Put it on and it's impossible not to have a great time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gf7ze6vcS_8

fuck that's awesome - when they land in the pocket at the end it's incredible

Still love that ZZ Top looked like a fucking grindcore band in 1970 pic.twitter.com/b7DpP6rmu2

— Legendarium (@LegendariumBand) August 26, 2022

https://m.facebook.com/Walmart5358/photos/a.549608795091889/5721705584548825

Came in for some cheap sunglasses, no doubt.

I can't think of another band that started out so strong--their run from ZZ Top's First Album through Deguello is just killer--and jumped the shark so hard. Good for them for figuring out the cash-making formula, I suppose.

wow flag post

Yeah, couldn’t disagree more. The Top were open to the sounds of Devo and The B-52s on El Loco, and the way they combined that with Texas blues was a master stroke imo. I think the conception and production of Eliminator is a sonic blast akin to the debut Boston album. It just sounds fucking huge, and deserves all the sales and success it got. xp

Eh. I hated that sound back in the day, and I still hate it. They really became a parody of themselves.

https://www.futuro.cl/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/zz-top-1972-en-vivo-768x432.jpg

Before There Was A Right Reverend Willie G., There Was Youth Pastor William "Bud" Gibbons.

praise be

I'll put Sure Got Cold After The Rain Fell up against any Southern Rock epic. Fuck a Free Bird.

El Loco is such a weird album, kind of mellow, but I love it now.

their love for new wave really starts coming through on this one.

^^^ and totally sets the stage for Eliminator. I didn't really care about ZZ Top in the 70s, but as a new wave loving young adult working in a record store in 1980 it was an eye-opener.

Dusty Hill Estate Auction:

https://www.julienslive.com/auctions/catalog/id/505

https://www.julienslive.com/images/lot/6039/603982_m.jpg?ts=1697570541

https://www.julienslive.com/images/lot/5900/590007_m.jpg?ts=1695181445

https://www.julienslive.com/images/lot/5907/590725_m.jpg?ts=1695188287

https://www.julienslive.com/images/lot/5894/589444_m.jpg?ts=1695176044

Uhh

https://www.julienslive.com/images/lot/5901/590120_m.jpg?ts=1695182525

^^Custom Staircase Spindle

Would buy an Eliminator or Afterburner tape test press for $5

https://www.julienslive.com/images/lot/5901/590120_m.jpg?ts=1695182525

Oops

https://www.julienslive.com/images/lot/6060/606013_m.jpg?ts=1697703974

https://www.julienslive.com/images/lot/5890/589079_m.jpg?ts=1695172561

Well, yeah

https://www.julienslive.com/images/lot/6067/606774_m.jpg?ts=1697848333

If I ever caught her with Stevie P
I'd throw her back in the Penitentiary, now
And if I caught her with my mother's son
I'll call her daddy and get my gun

https://www.julienslive.com/images/lot/5903/590378_m.jpg?ts=1695184932

Hand me another one of them brews from back there.
Oh, this is gonna be so good.

+1

itbelongsinamuseum.gif

Dusty was one broad-shouldered, barrel-chested hombre...

I dont reslly know if these are new new videos or new old videos or what but matt sweeney has the best channel fyi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl5Dy35u1AY

his guitar has such a nasal, brassy quality that when he plays more softly it almost sounds like a muted horn

trombone perhaps

Guitar moves is awesome. High recommend the Deaner, Cass Mccombs and J Mascis episodes too.

Matt acquired all the old Guitar Moves eps from Vice/Noisey which are slowly being re-released but also (!!!) Matt started producing new eps

ah thanks, i wondered what was going on. never saw them the first time round for vice-avoidance reasons, hugely enjoying them now though

however i could definitely have done without kid rock in the billy gibbons one

I could do without Kid Rock on this earth.

kid go find another rock

Kids performance at Woodstock 99 is epic and undeniable

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsrMqnNxy1o

I read that and inferred that ZZ Top played in some sort of kids’ tent at Woodstock.

Okay yeah wow that woodstock 99 show is fantastic