ZZ Top: C/D

"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

Told this story before, but my parents saw them in '71, as the opening act for Smith (of "Baby It's You" fame), and picked up ZZ Top's First Album on vinyl at the merch stand.

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

never saw 'em either! fuck! I love that they trade off verses on the above, as well as his monstrous, mammoth cave-deep tone…

So now U2 is the major act that has gone the longest with no lineup changes…

said this before upthread, but it is impossible to find footage of them playing before they committed to the look…

there’s some good early stuff in the netflix doc iirc

i just assumed these guys were immortal :(

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

No! i saw them in 2019 too - whole audience was going batshit from start to finish.

also felt they were immortal.

:(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eSKairBKzc

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/zz-top-dusty-hill-stomach-shot/

Hill acquired his bullet wound on Dec. 16, 1984, in an embarrassing mishap that started when his girlfriend went to pull off his boot and his derringer dropped out, discharging in the fall and hitting him in the abdomen.

...

"My first reaction was: ‘Shit!’ And then ‘Ouch.’ I couldn’t believe I’d done something so stupid. To this day, I don’t know how I could do it," he shrugged. "But I didn’t really feel anything at the time. All I knew was that I had to get myself to a hospital straight away, so I got in the car and drove there. It was only when I arrived at the hospital that the seriousness of what I’d done hit me, and I went into shock."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V9m_sEDzJw

that shit is amazing, Steveolende! thank you mucho!

feel like pure shit, got this on repeat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGW4qMUysAQ

Aw man, RIP. I'll admit that it took me a long time to come around on these guys. Being ages 7 and 8 during the omnipresent Eliminator and MTV years meant first exposed to a version that I never really "got" and dismissed as a "flashy video" band. Wasn't until I finally heard Tres Hombres many years later that their particular brand of genius clicked.

I got that box set thing for Xmas about 10 years ago. Pretty great. Wanted to check out the early stuff after hearing them cited by Both Black Flag and Rapeman so took me rather too long to get around to it.
BUt yeah fine band

Chrome Smoke & BBQ box playing loud in my home office right now

sending em up to Dusty

RIP to a great bassist, what a great band, great rhythm section, everything about ZZ Top is an absolute inspiration. Those 70s records are as good as rock music gets.

amen

He was one of those "secondary vocalists" who always provide a lift when they take over the mic.

Adding as well that the fact Billy has publicly raved about Depeche and OMD helping them connect with the 80s and beyond, well there ya go. https://t.co/y8XxgeqXuA

— Ned Raggett (@NedRaggett) July 28, 2021

In addition to being early adopters of label-mates Prince and the B-52's.

I also recall somewhere Gibbons mentioned how OMD introduced them to the Fairlight when they were both booked on a TV show.

Loved Devo, too — they were definitely pretty wide open to a lot of different stuff, which is commendable.

More from OMD

Very sad news. Very different musical genre but we have such fond memories of our first Old Grey Whistle Test with them and they told us that we influenced their guitar moves in the 80’s electro boogie videos.

RIP Dusty https://t.co/RY7yTO1CE8

— Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (@OfficialOMD) July 28, 2021

Oh wow, their first domestic network TV performance on Carson from '86, with
the still-alive Doc Severinsen and Tonight Show horn section sitting in!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eibFiNSZEC8