ZZ Top: C/D

for some reason I was previously unaware of Frank Beard's junkie-dom. I've never been able to understand how someone could be a killer drummer *and* a junkie but there are numerous cases

Art Blakey, for his entire career

which is insane! Energetic junkies wtf

maybe I should start a thread

Energetic junkies wtf

I asked Dave Mustaine (of Megadeth) about this in an interview once - "How could you do the amounts of heroin you were doing, and then play as fast as you were playing?" His answer was that it boiled down to muscle memory, basically. I found that kind of fascinating.

Topper Headon was a junkie too

It is kind of fascinating. There have been plenty of junkies in rock and jazz, but weirdly it doesn't seem to significantly impair performance the way, say, alcohol does.

as long as you practice high, you can play high.

ah so it's about continuity of condition

"You know why so many drunk drivers get in wrecks? Because they don't *learn* to drive drunk!”

the stakes are slightly higher in that situation

forgive the pun

yeah I’ve always wondered about being a functioning junkie at that level, like Frank or Topper. the muscle-memory thing never occurred to me

did they go into how much on Eliminator and Afterburner *is* Frank Beard and how much is drum machines?

I don't think they even say the words "drum machine."

they don't!

hmmm

did they talk about how funny it is that the guy named beard is the one who doesn't have one?

Yes!

they discuss it at some length

It is weird how some people keep functioning so well (musically, anyway) on smack, Bird being one of the most notorious examples, although he did eventually have that studio breakdown, during "The Lover Man" sessions, "The Gypsy" ("I want to believe the gypsy") etc---then he came back, commemorating (though not remaining faithful to) his rehab, in "Relaxin' At Camarilo."

Sturgill's latest has some ZZ appeal---my Rolling Country 2019/Nashville Scene ballot comments:
i'm a sucker for gleaming pop-country, sez a fellow Marenite. Wal now, have you heard Sturgill's Sound and Fury yet? I just did, and right off, seems like this ZZ Rex electro-pop-boogie, sometimes also reminding me of Neil and the Trans Band (more the show tapes than studio album), might suit you too. It's much less soapbox ranty than I feared---and the non-pedantic retro detailing, commercial inclusiveness x righteous fencepost grievances x deserty-hot-cold broodiness, also that voice, keep it all country or countryoid. Also 'ppreciate how he keeps twisting the dial into another track at just the right moment, or close enough. It's another hard candy Christmas alright.

xp i figured they would!

I've always wondered how much (if any) of the switch to drum machines/synths/triggers was driven by Beard's drum problem & if there were any reliability issues, cuz he may have cleaned up but he's clearly not the drummer he was in the 70s by the time the 80s come around, but also something obv happens and it is more like Billy's solo project then a band by then

I saw them this past summer and it was a lot of fun and there were still moments of greatness, Dusty basically holds the whole thing together playing & singing wise, though if you told me there was loads of offstage triggers and synths helping it along I would not have been surprised.

"drug" problem not drum problem

no drum problems here lol

idk drums are still tight as hell on Deguello and Tejas imo

xps

Those are late 70s though!

I saw them in a small club a while back, and even up close I couldn't quite tell how three people were putting out all that sound, so prolly at least a little hamburger helper, if you follow.

right, according to the doc Beard cleaned up in '76, after the worldwide texas tour

xps

I saw them last summer (chris were you at MN State Fair too?) and I'm real sure there were drum triggers and samples.

This is a clip from their DVD Live From Texas, which was recorded in 2007. I saw them at the Beacon Theater in NYC on this same tour. He might be using triggers to give the kit an extra whoomp, but he's definitely playing, and not to a click track. Frank Beard can swing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sxE-jS9LP4

Honestly, I'm more curious how Gibbons gets his sound, since there are no pedals visible onstage. Who's dialing him in, and from where?

I saw them last summer (chris were you at MN State Fair too?) and I'm real sure there were drum triggers and samples.
― A perfect transcript of a routine post (Dan Peterson), Monday, 9 March 2020 21:08 (five minutes ago) link

Yup, and I would have probably assumed that anyway, but it was especially clear after Cheap Trick who were very clearly not using any triggers or samples and whose extra musicians were all out front onstage

As of 2015 (there are some rig rundowns on YT from earlier tours) it looks like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x_kg6pOvGU

So this is coming to my town soon.

https://i.imgur.com/b8Xt0hr.jpg

xpost This might be in there, but I thought Gibbons famously went through some tiny old amp, and the big amps were for show.

I recently watched the doc directed by that credulous Canadian dweeb behind the Metal doc series that was constantly on VH1 Classic re: the lil ole band… and it made me realize that I had never seen footage of the band before Billy and Dusty committed to the look…I could not find any last night…has anybody ever seen footage of the band as such?

it really is quite something that those guys have never wavered w/r/t to the look one bit… like, Dusty was always gonna end up looking like a tree stump no matter what, but Billy was quite strikingly handsome in the Moving Sidewalks era going into the early Top time, all the way up to growing a modest beard and wearing those tailored cowboy outfits… have those guys had any children, like acknowledged children, that anyone knows about?

I been up, I been down.
Take my word, my way around.
I ain't askin' for much.
I said, Lord, take me downtown,
I'm just lookin' for some tush.
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

― Keith Connelly, Saturday, March 6, 2004 11:36 PM (sixteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Keith Connelly 16 years ago tom

when I was a miserable 19 y.o. goth I happened to get a KTEL compilation somehow amongst my record collection and one wasted morning I listened to it and had this huge pop revelation which consisted of how fuckin bomb 1) this song was and 2) robert palmer's "bad case of loving you" was

Dusty Hill's cousin Hank Hill is known.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/kingofthehill/images/a/a2/Koththth.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/340?cb=20101220025650

I don't know if there's any early footage of. Part of Bill Ham's mystique-building was they wouldn't do TV, so there isn't, you know, any clips of them on Midnight Special or Don Kirshner. This was only broken once they finally played Europe during the Deguello tour, when they appeared on The Whistle Test and Beat Club/Musikladen (which is where they great Live Europe release came from).

I also imagine any fan-shot footage is pretty thin on the ground. That Moving Sidewalks footage in the film was dope tho.

"I don't know if there's any early footage of the Hem out there." Even.

Stupid phone.

"We are saddened by the news today that our Compadre, Dusty Hill, has passed away in his sleep at home in Houston, TX. We, along with legions of ZZ Top fans around the world, will miss your steadfast presence, your good nature and enduring commitment to providing that monumental bottom to the ‘Top'. We will forever be connected to that "Blues Shuffle in C.”

You will be missed greatly, amigo.

Frank & Billy

aw man. RIP Dusty <3

Went to Austin for the weekend. Pausing on the way home in La Grange, I took the time to play the song there.

https://societyofrock.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/maxresdefault-8-735x413.jpg

So glad I got to see these guys live. Their catalog is so ridiculously strong; I'm even willing to give the RCA albums another shot at this point.

If anyone would have told punk rock me in 1980 that they'd be one of my favorite bands forty years later I wouldn't have believed it. Something made me feel it was urgent and key to go see them play my state fair in 2019, I'm so glad now that I did. RIP.

(And I love Antenna and Rhythmeen, guitar tones are insane.)

i never saw them live & i’m so sad about it

aw fuck, RIP

RIP Dusty
Saw them in 2019, too. 't Was a proper party

rip, what an amazing band