Hardrock69
06-16-2013, 12:09 PM
It is Bonnaroo weekend here in Middle TN.....last night ZZ Top headlined......was streamed live at www.bonnaroo.com (you can go check it out now to see what is happening).
My best friend in Nashville directed the live video shoot.
So....was watching these three cats lay down the law and came to a few further conclusions in my life-long examination (from near and far) of all things Top.....
Of late I have complained that the band no longer tears peoples' heads off the way they did when they wuz youngsters.
And I recognize that is perfectly acceptable in the realms of logic.....
But what occurred to me last night was a realization of what one of the main reasons they are still around, and still popular.....
Like most bands who have been around over 40 years.....most fans wanna hear the big hits that made them famous back in the day, and not so much their current output.
We have seen this, we know it is just part of the human condition.
What sets apart ZZ Top from everyone else is that are just so fucking unique as an entity.
Sure they had their hits, they have been touring a LOT over the years, and are still here.
You cannot say anything other than Billy Gibbons is good as a guitarist. But it is just that he is so much better at being Billy Gibbons than anyone else on the planet. He no be shredmen, he no be stage runner, he no be fire-breathing fire guitar fire fire FIRE FIRE! man....
He be Billy Gibbons.....
Frank Beard.....I wonder....how good he is as a drummer....I mean, I will say this....he has always had good meter, real solid....actually has the drum style favored in Nashville....very minimalist...just the bare essentials.....so.....is a he a virtuoso jazz drummer in his spare time? Or does he spend his days not even thinking about drums, but showing up and playing the gig and then off to the races?
One of their strong points is that they do not play a lot of fast stuff. The way they would put it, just a slow cruise in a 50s Cadillac.....
Though I much prefer fast, fire-breathing ass-kicking fucking METAL music, I like ZZ Top, and always have.
Dusty Hill.....again, does not appear onstage to have any real fire-level chops (more like flambe), but that is not what ZZ Top is all about anyway.....the entire band, all three people, leave enough space in their music to drive a starship through.....Frank provides a framework, Dusty adds his 2 centavos, then Billy adds his, then any vocali-zay-shuns get laid down over the top to provide the songs literary tag lines.
They write good solid radio friendly music, from decades of writing and performing.....they are on a level that is uniquely their own.
The whole visual aspect with the beards.....I mean, they had that by 1980...before MTV even arrived.
But the moniker "Little Ol' Band From Texas" is the best possible description of these three cretins that could be imagined.
As a band they are decidedly unique....even "charming" in some aspects (hey, they are far from "menacing", lol). And therein lies their appeal to the public.
They are great in that a) the music speaks for itself, b)they look unique, c)they do not make the headlines at all for the most part. There is no fucking scandal, no tabloid juicy gossip...about the only thing radical that happened in their entire career OUTSIDE of their career has been when Dusty was messing with a Derringer and accidentally shot himself, lol. d)They are the sole three original members. There have been no replacements (though they have used other drummers on certain albums once in a great while), nobody has died (helping them to achieve non-scandal status), and their have been no public mention of any disputes, squabbles, arguments...no rubbish about "musical differences".
In fact, they have done what every band on earth aspires to do. Make videos with cool guitars, hot rods and hot chicks, sell millions of records and play for billions of adoring people, have a good reputation both within the business and out in the public arena, they are not assholes, and they have stuck together like glue for over 40 years.
Too bad all bands can't do that.
So last night I just had further confirmation that their uniqueness has contributed to their popularity. That's all.
Lastly, you wanna see the show?
It is here, in it's entirety...
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/34425241
My best friend in Nashville directed the live video shoot.
So....was watching these three cats lay down the law and came to a few further conclusions in my life-long examination (from near and far) of all things Top.....
Of late I have complained that the band no longer tears peoples' heads off the way they did when they wuz youngsters.
And I recognize that is perfectly acceptable in the realms of logic.....
But what occurred to me last night was a realization of what one of the main reasons they are still around, and still popular.....
Like most bands who have been around over 40 years.....most fans wanna hear the big hits that made them famous back in the day, and not so much their current output.
We have seen this, we know it is just part of the human condition.
What sets apart ZZ Top from everyone else is that are just so fucking unique as an entity.
Sure they had their hits, they have been touring a LOT over the years, and are still here.
You cannot say anything other than Billy Gibbons is good as a guitarist. But it is just that he is so much better at being Billy Gibbons than anyone else on the planet. He no be shredmen, he no be stage runner, he no be fire-breathing fire guitar fire fire FIRE FIRE! man....
He be Billy Gibbons.....
Frank Beard.....I wonder....how good he is as a drummer....I mean, I will say this....he has always had good meter, real solid....actually has the drum style favored in Nashville....very minimalist...just the bare essentials.....so.....is a he a virtuoso jazz drummer in his spare time? Or does he spend his days not even thinking about drums, but showing up and playing the gig and then off to the races?
One of their strong points is that they do not play a lot of fast stuff. The way they would put it, just a slow cruise in a 50s Cadillac.....
Though I much prefer fast, fire-breathing ass-kicking fucking METAL music, I like ZZ Top, and always have.
Dusty Hill.....again, does not appear onstage to have any real fire-level chops (more like flambe), but that is not what ZZ Top is all about anyway.....the entire band, all three people, leave enough space in their music to drive a starship through.....Frank provides a framework, Dusty adds his 2 centavos, then Billy adds his, then any vocali-zay-shuns get laid down over the top to provide the songs literary tag lines.
They write good solid radio friendly music, from decades of writing and performing.....they are on a level that is uniquely their own.
The whole visual aspect with the beards.....I mean, they had that by 1980...before MTV even arrived.
But the moniker "Little Ol' Band From Texas" is the best possible description of these three cretins that could be imagined.
As a band they are decidedly unique....even "charming" in some aspects (hey, they are far from "menacing", lol). And therein lies their appeal to the public.
They are great in that a) the music speaks for itself, b)they look unique, c)they do not make the headlines at all for the most part. There is no fucking scandal, no tabloid juicy gossip...about the only thing radical that happened in their entire career OUTSIDE of their career has been when Dusty was messing with a Derringer and accidentally shot himself, lol. d)They are the sole three original members. There have been no replacements (though they have used other drummers on certain albums once in a great while), nobody has died (helping them to achieve non-scandal status), and their have been no public mention of any disputes, squabbles, arguments...no rubbish about "musical differences".
In fact, they have done what every band on earth aspires to do. Make videos with cool guitars, hot rods and hot chicks, sell millions of records and play for billions of adoring people, have a good reputation both within the business and out in the public arena, they are not assholes, and they have stuck together like glue for over 40 years.
Too bad all bands can't do that.
So last night I just had further confirmation that their uniqueness has contributed to their popularity. That's all.
Lastly, you wanna see the show?
It is here, in it's entirety...
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/34425241