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Political Beats
Episode 140: Andrew Fink / ZZ Top
04:03:32
Scot and Jeff discuss ZZ Top with Andrew Fink.
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- [00:00]
Scott Bertram
Foreign.
- [00:07]
Jeff Blair
Hello again everybody and welcome into another edition of Political Beats, a presentation of National Review. You can find us on X at PoliticalBeats. We're also over there on Facebook and at NationalReview.com subscribe to our feed for new episodes. Get them through Apple Podcasts or tune in or nationalreview.com, click on podcast. Find all the fine NR audio there. Listen, leave reviews when possible. Help others find this fine program. We also point you toward our Patreon page, which is patreon.com politicalbeats support US help the show stay ad free as it always has been. There is entry level for your generous support and occasional voting privileges. Mid level gets you early access to our shows and at a higher audio quality. Very important. And our upper level best friends get the early access, higher audio quality. Monthly exclusive content shows, remastered episodes, playlists and more. Most recently, the exclusive content, the video version and extra content from our interview with Nick Lowe. What fun that was. That's at patreon.com/political beats. My name is Scott Bertram. Find me on X at Scott Bertram, my tag team partner. Standing by as always, Jeff Blair. Jeff, how are you?
- [01:36]
Andrew Fink
I'm a little bit bummed out, actually, Scott. I'm not gonna lie. You know, one of the things I've discovered over the last month and a half, everybody's beard hair grows in differently, okay? And what they tell you what you see on TV is kind of a lie. I'm just saying it's a lot harder to get a really good long shaggy bob going than you would think. And at least I can wear some cheap sunglasses.
- [02:00]
Jeff Blair
It is around Halloween time. You might find some, you know, beard accessories at the local Halloween shop. Just in case.
- [02:08]
Andrew Fink
Straight in there, my friend. That's what I'm looking for right now. This thing is getting scraggly.
- [02:12]
Jeff Blair
Find Jeff on X at Esoteric cd. Our guest is back for a third time to join us on the program. He lives with his wife Lauren and their five children in Hillsdale, Michigan. That means he's in studio, people. He's an attorney, a marine veteran, current state representative, and also candidate for Michigan Supreme Court. You can find him on X at Andrew Fink MI and his website. We can throw that out too. Fink4Michigan.com Andrew Fink is back with us. Andrew, thanks so much for being there.
- [02:46]
Guest Speaker
I'm very glad to be back. Thanks, Jeff and Scott, for having me. And as I think at least the two of you know, and maybe some of our listeners too, this is an episode I've been Hoping to do for a long time. So I'm very excited about it.
- [02:58]
Jeff Blair
Before we dig into our band today, we give Andrew a chance to talk a bit about his. His. His experience. Attorney, Marine veteran, state representative, and now wanting to be on the Michigan Supreme Court. Andrew, tell us a little bit about yourself.
- [03:12]
Guest Speaker
Well, I grew up here in Michigan. My dad was a sheriff's officer. My mother mostly stayed home with us. Came out here to Hillsdale for school. Met my wife Lauren here. We got married while I was in law school at Michigan. I also joined the Marines while I was in law school. So my first job was as a judge advocate in the Marines. I came back and started practicing law with my family, and I ran for state representative after, like, seven years of private practice, or maybe in my seventh year of private practice. Have been in the state house since 2021. I'm the vice chair of the Judiciary Committee there. I've also done some other things like been a commissioner of the state Bar Board of Commissioners and worked on a congressional campaign and a state legislative staff in the past. So that's kind of the 32nd biography, which probably took longer than 30 seconds because I am a lawyer turned politician.
- [03:58]
Jeff Blair
Yes. ThinkForMichigan.com is his website for more. Andrew's back a third time, as I mentioned, a show he has been asking us to do for quite some time. I was more than happy. It took some convincing on the other side of the microphone. Jeff can explain more about that in a moment. We're here to talk about what is for virtually everyone. If you sort your music in alphabetical order, the band that will come in absolutely last. It's the opposite of all those easiest to find, though. Yeah, it's the opposite of all those people, you know, used to be important. The yellow page used to be first. AAA Towing. AAA Cleaning, Plumbing.
- [04:36]
Guest Speaker
Right.
- [04:37]
Jeff Blair
This is the opposite. It's that little old man from Texas. It's ZZ Top. That's who we talk about today on Political Beats. Andrew, we turn the floor back over to you. Tell us why you love ZZ Top, how you got into the band, and why other people should care about this music.
- [04:57]
Guest Speaker
The first memory I have of ZZ Top, I was. I was born in 1985, which is the same year that Calvin and Hobbes came out. And so when I was about six, I was given a Calvin and Hobbes collection. And there's a strip in which Calvin says to his mother, mom, I think I'm gonna grow a beard. A long one. Like the guys in ZZ Top. And she says, that's okay, Calvin.
- [05:16]
Andrew Fink
Remember this comic? Yes.
- [05:18]
Guest Speaker
And then he goes back to the bathroom, he's looking at himself in the mirror and he says, I would have thought that she'd have pushed back more than that. Something, something like that. So I was aware of this idea of these bearded guys called ZZ Top, but I had no idea what that meant. Of course, as a six year old kid, I guess maybe that couldn't, doesn't have to be, of course. But this wasn't a group like my dad was listening to or something like that. I, I was aware of them without really knowing what was going on. And I mean I remember seeing, you know, and like, I don't know what they were, but like MTV would show old videos and stuff and of course the, the Eliminator era afterburner era videos would, would be played. But in all honesty, that didn't connect with me in the way, you know it. That's not why I got into ZZ Top. I was just, I, I just kept encountering them and you know, lists of blues rock artists and things like that. And eventually I just so felt like I needed to sate my curiosity. So when I was, I think it was when I was a freshman in college, like early on, a buddy of mine and I had gone to the Walmart in Jonesville and saw the best of ZZ Top, which is their first collection, I think that's the name of it, came out in like maybe 77 has songs from the first four albums on it. And we listen to that and it's not the Eliminator of sound at all.
- [06:40]
Scott Bertram
Sa Wan.
- [07:24]
Guest Speaker
It'S Waiting for the Bus and Jesus Just Left Chicago, It's Just Got Paid and Blue Jean Blues. So a completely different experience from what I was sort of expecting. And we also got the greatest hits album around the same time. I'm saying we like, you know, I bought one, he bought the other, something like that. And I'm sure we burned CDs from.
- [07:44]
Andrew Fink
The red, the red background and the car on it and the girl like posing on the hood. That's the one I'm thinking of.
- [07:49]
Jeff Blair
I think the really famous CD1 that's the 92 grid.
- [07:53]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, yeah, like three women. And it's got Viva Las Vegas on it.
- [07:57]
Andrew Fink
Yes, yes, that's the one I'm thinking of.
- [07:59]
Guest Speaker
And so that introduced me to a wider swath and including the Eliminator stuff, which of course made them, you know, really, really huge. I mean they sold. I mean eliminator is like one of the 30 biggest selling records ever or something or 50, whatever. It sold like 12 million copies or something. But it also had songs like Bad, I'm Nationwide and it was listening to that and Cheap Sunglasses where I was kind of like, wait, this is. This is like a creative space that I'm very interested in. So my. My college band my freshman year, which was called Street Fight, we started doing Jesus Just Left Chicago even as an opener, which was really weird for college kids I think at the time. And. And from there I just started collecting these things. You know, I would go into shop and the easiest thing to look for to Scott's earlier point is Easy Top because you just go to the very end of the rock section and there it is. And so I got at least a few of these records on vinyl. Certainly Trey Sombre and Dugo, which I sort of think of as this perfect. It doesn't remind me of Christmas, but the green and the red like kind of this like almost like a stoplight, you know, like an on off where it's like here's this version of Z Top. Here's this version of Z Top. These are both creative peaks I think for that band and. And just kept, you know, getting into it farther and farther from there. Have developed an admiration for Billy Gibbons as a guitar player that very few other players have. I think kind of achieved what he's achieved in terms of being creative within the blues, blues rock genre. Continuing to just find new ways to. To sound co.
- [09:44]
Andrew Fink
If you got the.
- [09:45]
Scott Bertram
Time to get yourself in mind. But no, I might be mistake.
- [10:15]
Guest Speaker
That's really the thing is like, you know, ZZ Top is a band that was pretty much always about sounding cool. And eventually when you turn like 45, that stops working as well. But for a long time they really pulled it off where they just. They sounded cool, they sounded hip and you know, that sort of. That sort of vibe, you know, the I'm Bad on Nationwide vibe really lasted and. And still works to this day.
- [10:45]
Andrew Fink
Yeah, you want to go second because obviously I'm the. The infant here certainly.
- [10:51]
Jeff Blair
So you and I are both a few years older than Andrew and that first MTV wave of Eliminator videos. Yeah, that is the most striking visual element of the band that I was first introduced to. Legs Sharp Dressed Man Gimme all youl Lovin'sleeping Bag all those videos from Eliminator and the ones from Afterburner with the. The car and the Keychain and the sheep skin Sheep Wool guitars and the mysterious appearing in various places to help the nerd who's in trouble and the beautiful women appear. All of this, the image, the carefully cultivated image of ZZ Top around this time, thanks to Bill Ham and others. That's what first strikes or first struck me absolutely.
- [12:06]
Scott Bertram
All of the time.
- [12:32]
Jeff Blair
And I have the greatest Tits album, of course. And that's where you do get to experience a bit more. The back catalog, Tush, lagrange, those early songs that are played into the ground. And to their credit, some of those don't get tiring at all to hear again and again. When I started as a college radio dj, you start to hear a few other songs that are in the playlist, songs that have been requested by listeners. They have good ideas sometimes. And you hear those sounds of the 70s, which is, you know, it's not a different band, right? It's quite literally the same band, the same members. But it's something I'll talk about. It's not a jump to say that the band that made like Just Got Paid is the same band that made Gimme all your Lovin'like. There's a line that you can clearly follow and see how they end up there. And what happens after that is a. Is a bit of a different story. But up until that point it is a band. You know, the discography is a whole. Everything makes sense. I think as you walk through ZZ Topps discography as we'll get into today. And I'm sure there are a number of people like the third person of this crew who didn't know a whole lot of ZZ Top. Pre Eliminator doesn't know about the blues and sort of the southern rock angle, doesn't know about Billy Gibbons like this polymath when it comes to music. And his ability to sort of absorb all these different styles, all these different things that he's heard and listened to and incorporate them with his own playing. It's an amazing game we'll play throughout the show today. You know, what's Billy's influence here? What's he doing here? Who is he listening to? And you can hear all these things just bubble up inside these great ZZ Top songs. Something I didn't know and I'm sure Andrew will talk about as we get going, is how much DC Top, as much as it's known as a power trio, it's kind of a one man band, right? Billy Gibbons is the guy here. Billy Gibbons sings most of the songs. Billy Gibbons plays almost all the guitars. Billy Gibbons writes a ton of the songs. He is the creative force behind ZZ Top, when you make that change into Eliminator Afterburner, he's the guy sitting in the studio with producer and the guy who was bringing some of the synths and the sequencers into the band. He's the guy putting it all together. And he's really an incredible creative force and also really an insanely good guitar player. All that is coming up later on in the show today. But, yeah, it's a really rewarding discography, especially if you haven't heard some of those albums from the 70s and only think about those guys with the car and the keychain in the 80s. It's a whole other side of the band that's ripe for discovery.
- [15:32]
Andrew Fink
I remember when Andrew first, you know, approached us to do the show. This would have been four or five years ago or something like that. It's been a long time. This show has been around forever. Okay. And, yeah, I remember it well. Scott said, like, oh, yeah, so, you know, there's three groups you'd like to do. You mentioned this actually right at the front, actually. He said, yeah, okay. The first of them is Otis Redding and the Allman Brothers. But the one he really wants to do is ZZ Top. And I just sort of, you know, I thought to myself, wow, I would love to do an Otis reading episode. That's what we did. And I was like, okay, yeah, Almond Brothers. I can't wait to do those as well. That's why we had them back. And then I always just sort of politely shoved ZZ Top to the side because I honestly was just like, well, this guy's really got some pretty good taste. If he loves Otis, he likes the almonds. And I. I didn't understand why anybody would be that obsessed with ZZ Top, because who were ZZ Top to me? You have to understand. ZZ Top, to me, was an image. It was a good image in a lot of ways, but still an image. It was just those guys from the Eliminator album with the hot car and the sexy dames who are always around and the big beards and, yeah, like, the fuzzy guitars. And it all felt like. Like novelty music, really. Not that, you know, hey, Weird Al's a great artist. I really enjoy these. These songs. But it didn't feel like it was a band. It was just like it was something that was big for a little bit of time in the 80s and its time is now passed. Like, you know, kind of the way you think of, like, a pop video where they talk about how, hey, WILD the early 80s were, and hey, look it, here's the proof of it. It's ZZ Top. And that, that vintage car driving around with models stepping out of the back door, you know, and that's all it meant to me. And I, you know, I became a music snob and things like that. I moved on. The one thing that always lingered for me was the memory of watching those videos. I've talked about this quite a bit, actually on Political Beats, watching that stuff on, you know, my dad's copies of Friday night music videos. So it was always unfolded with the good memories of watching other similarly schlocky stuff like We Built the City by Starship or even Man Eater by Hollow. It's all the pop hits in the charts from the early 80s. And that was where I filed it. I just assumed ZZ Top amounted to three songs. Give me Some Loving Legs and, you know, the ones that, you know. And it was only from that era. And I moved on. I got into art rock, I got into Prague rock, I got into blues and I got into blues rock. I got into the Allman Brothers, I got into Otis Redding, I got into Leonard Skynyrd. And I left ZZ Top behind because I never bothered to find out that there were so much more than just that. In fact, the only factoid I knew about them was that a guy who I'm a huge fan of, a guy Frank Zappa, was a big fan of Billy Gibbons, who's the lead guitarist of ZZ Top. And I thought, well, that's an interesting factoid, but it could be a joke. After all, Frank Zappa really liked Grand Funk Railroad, you know, And I've tried, I've tried Frank and nothing doing, you know. But what Zappa actually specifically praised him for is what has become immediately evident, evident to me upon leaving, listening to this band's discography is that, yeah, it is pretty much a one man band. But, you know, first of all, instrumentally the band has a great groove. But Billy Gibbons is, in his own way, a singular guitar genius. He has his own style, he has his own vision, his own sound. It's quirky and it is deeply authentic. And that is what Zappa likes. Zappa was an autocrat himself. And so he liked guys who really had their own vision of how they wanted their music to sound. He said he very familiar with this milieu. It's the same kind of music he grew up with in the 60s, the authentic southwestern blues, Text Mex stuff. That was his jam. As well as anybody who knows Zappa can attest he listened to Billy Gibbons style and said he plays from a place that's real. And he has a feeling that just can't be faked. You can just see it in the way he moves his fingers. He has a way he wants his guitar to sound. He has a way he wants his music to be presented. And that is what comes through on these wonderful, undiscovered gems from ZZ Top 70s. For me, I am now, in fact, willing to admit them, I'm saying, on the basis of this last month's discovery alone into what I consider to be now a triumvirate of the great Southern rock bands. Right. Who are they? Well, used to be to be the Almonds and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Well, now actually it's the Almond Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd and it's ZZ Top. And it's a shame that a lot of those 80s memories that made them megastars and probably made the millions and millions of dollars had completely obscured that. To me, you're going to have a little hilarious journey as we go through their albums here, where you're going to find out that even some of their hits from in the 70s I didn't know were ZZ Top because they just didn't even cl that this could be the same band as the Eliminator Band. And so this has been a wonderful discovery for me on political beats. And it's basically the reason I do this show. Everything old is new again.
- [21:29]
Jeff Blair
All right. It's always fun and relaxing when I can hand off the next portion of the show to the guest himself, herself. So ZZ Top fanatic Andrew Fink is going to give us a bit of the history of the band and lead us up to ZCTOP's first album, titled ZZ Top's First Album in 1971. Andrew, tell us how ZZ Top came to be.
- [21:55]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, not their most creative moment. All right, so it's interesting, Jeff, that you. You put him into this Southern rock constellation because that similar to Greg Allman, that's, I think, a label that Billy and maybe the rest of the band have. In fact, I think Dusty maybe most explicitly a pushback on. And the reason is because Dusty only wants to be associated with Texas. Even so, an interview where somebody's asking about his politics and he's like, I'm not a Democrat, I'm not a Republican. I'm a Tex Texan.
- [22:20]
Jeff Blair
So.
- [22:22]
Guest Speaker
And this is, of course, look, I'm married to a Texan, which might come up again in reference to Some of the lyrics in these songs, the towns that are relevant and, and whatnot. And that's of course very Texan attitude. So these guys are from Texas. Frank and Dusty had been playing together in a group called the American Blues with Dusty's brother in the Dallas area. And I've listened to that record and there's a reason that, that I don't even think it's available on the streaming services. I found it on YouTube. It's not terribly remarkable. It's got a little bit of the kind of 60s psych stuff going on. It's probably from 1969, something like that.
- [22:59]
Andrew Fink
A couple of tracks on the box set. And they're adequate.
- [23:02]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, there are. They are what they are. There's again, there's a reason that that's not the band, right, that. That made it. Meanwhile, Billy, all these guys, by the way, are born in 1949. So we're. We're talking about 20 year olds at this time. Billy grew up in Houston. His dad was like a band. The way I sort of think of him is as like the Desi Arnez of, of Houston. He's like doing like, I think like kind of traditional nightclub kind of stuff, you know, like an orchestra leader. So when we say a band leader, I don't know. I don't remember what his instrument was, if he had one, but I think it was probably like trombone or something. You know, he's like a. A big band guy. And I think Billy has an uncle who scored like some famous movies, although I don't remember what they were. So he grows up in this family that's sort of musical but in. In a little more of maybe like classical or a trained way. And Billy is playing with a group called the Moving Sidewalks, which is. They're sort of proteges of the 13th floor elevators, which was. Which was the. The big psych band from Houston at the time. And this is music, by the way, that I've never quite been able to get into, even though I'm trying to chase these threads of, of Billy Gibbons. But it's, it's very contemporary and it's.
- [24:12]
Andrew Fink
This is the group I was thinking of. Yeah, this is the one that has a few psychedelic tracks on the box set. And it's, as I said, it's weird, but it doesn't really quite work. And that's not the band.
- [24:23]
Guest Speaker
And it's. It's actually reminiscent, although I think not as good of those early. Those. Those pre Almond Brothers tracks that we talked about on that episode of the Hourglass and stuff, including even a cover of the Shapes of Things. So this is like their. I mean, Jeff Beck is a huge influence on Billy. And. And so they're. They're picking up on threads from the Yard Birds and then mixing it with the kind of contemporary psych stuff again, happening even in Houston. But that. That project gets shelved. Billy starts a new band, I think probably already with Bill Ham. Maybe Bill Ham comes in right after ZZ Top has started. But there's sort of this. This interesting fact that ZZ Top existed before Dusty and Frank and Billy had met. I don't remember the names of the other. You can, of course, look this stuff up. But there's. There's actually four people, I think, including still in Oregon in the. In the very first incarnation of ZZ Top. And there's a couple of tracks that are. Are a little more influenced by that kind of psych. Psych blues movement. But it's within a few months, maybe six months, that those three guys move out. A bass player, drummer, and an organist all move out. And Billy brings Frank and Dusty in. And if I understand the story correctly, Frank saw Billy play and was sort of like, I want to be in that guy's band. And that's how they kind of got hooked up. Is, you know, Frank sort of saying Billy like, hey, I want to be in your band, fan. So they start. They. They start playing as Easy top in probably 69, maybe, you know, right at the beginning, like 70. And Bill Ham becomes their manager right then. And I don't know when you guys kind of want to talk about this Bill Ham phenomenon, but it's a.
- [25:57]
Jeff Blair
We should talk now. Only because I've mentioned him. You're. You've mentioned him. We don't have to go deep into it, but 30 seconds, whatever. 60 seconds. Bill Ham. Who is he? Why is he important here?
- [26:06]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, he's like. I mean, Houston. Yeah, he's an impresario, I think that's fair to say.
- [26:11]
Andrew Fink
But the Andrew Lou Goldham of ZZ Top, basically. Yeah.
- [26:15]
Guest Speaker
But he's the. So he's. He's this music impresario in Houston, Texas, at a time when Houston was not the fourth biggest city in the country. Like, it was actually a little weird.
- [26:24]
Andrew Fink
Tiny town in the 70s. Yeah, it was hot.
- [26:26]
Guest Speaker
I mean, certainly comparatively, it is a backwater compared to New York, Louisiana, and of course, even Nashville at the time. He had done some. And probably Dallas, by the way. He had. He had done some recording himself like in the 50s, but he was trying to Become like a producer, manager again. Impresario is probably the best term. So he finds Billy and again, I think it was probably right before Dusty and Frank got there, but around the same time. And he says to Billy, I'm gonna make you a star. And so he becomes this major. He's like. I think he's like 12 years older than these guys. He's born in, like, 37, something like that. So he's, you know, 30, while these guys are 22 or 20. And he becomes. They refer to him as like their older brother, things like that. That I sort of think that the legend of how much control he exercised over them is maybe a little exaggerated. And there's even a story right from the recording of this first album that gets to that, which is. Bill had told him he didn't want them to do overdubs. And so Billy and their engineer, whose name was Robin Hood something, but his studio is in Tyler, Texas, is called Robin Hood Studios. They sort of tricked Bill into leaving for a while and then do an overdub. And Bill comes back. He's like, that sounds perfect. So I don't actually think that his hand was quite as heavy as maybe it sometimes gets characterized as. And in fact, I think the heavy hand probably was Billy himself. But they did. They really do attribute a lot of their success to him, including. He managed their personalities well. And that's something that Frank, Dusty and. And Billy, I think all. All observed when Bill Ham died was, you know, without him. I think Billy said, without him, we wouldn't have lasted three years. And of course, they wound up lasting 50 years as a. As a group together, the three of those guys. So that's kind of who Bill Ham is, and he probably was very important to them. But 1971 comes around and they are ready to record their first record. They go up to Tyler, Texas, which is in Smith county, closer to Dallas than Houston, maybe three and a half hours north of Houston, two hours east of Dallas, happens to be where I got married. Lauren and I were married in a little town there called Bullard, Texas, and had our wedding reception at the Tyler Woman's Building, which is like maybe six or seven blocks from where Robin Hood Studios is in Tyler. And one of the features of Tyler, Texas and Smith county is that it' dry county. And so it was a good place to go and work. And so they. They went up there and recorded this first album, which, you know, kind of kicks things off and really does set the tone that. That you're going to hear throughout the Rest of this decade.
- [29:06]
Scott Bertram
Of get a ride on you where you been? Where you been? But I'm having trouble putting a fine on you I'm wearing thin. We thin. Somebody else been shaking your tree. Supposed to be saving all that stuff on me.
- [29:39]
Jeff Blair
Yeah. So I'll set the table a bit for this first album, 1971, Andrew had said not. Not very creative. But I, I read Billy said there was a specific reason they, they said this is ZZ Top's first album because they wanted people to know there was going to be a second album. Like this is not the only thing they were going to do. They were going to have a career, they're going to be successful. This is just the first album, which is why it's named this way.
- [30:02]
Guest Speaker
Boring but brash.
- [30:04]
Andrew Fink
And not just ZZ Top. Right. Because they didn't want to think, well, the first, last, final statement of a flash in the pan band. I like it. It was auspicious. So this is an auspiciously named album and we're going to come to one much later. That's an inauspiciously named album in much the same way.
- [30:21]
Jeff Blair
So the understanding, sort of the environment that ZZ Top finds itself in, you have of these British blues bands that clearly they've listened to Peter Green, Fleetwood Mac and Cream, the Power trios coming from the other side of the pond. And here in the us as much as they don't want to be perhaps described as Southern rock, it's clear on their first album that you can put them in that box if you wanted to. Allman's had albums in 69 and 70, so they were already underway.
- [30:52]
Guest Speaker
Billy actually, by the way, I should say, even though they pushed back on the label Southern rock.
- [30:55]
Andrew Fink
Wrong.
- [30:55]
Guest Speaker
Billy wrote when Rolling Stone started doing these horrible lists they do of 100 greatest, this and 50 greatest, that's the Allman Brothers entry. They had Billy write it and he said something like, these guys gave us permission to be ourselves about the Allman Brothers. So, yes, absolutely, there's a debt there.
- [31:10]
Jeff Blair
No doubt in Skynyrd. Their first album is 73, but they were touring for years before that and very big in the South. So it's not as if Ztop probably wasn't aware, weren't aware of what Skynyrd was doing, doing. And you sort of take all those ingredients and I think you hear them all on ZZ Top's first album. I think that the main difference between this album and the very next album is this is not. This is a blues based sort of southern album. It's not a ZZ Top centered album. They haven't quite figured out or they. They're not quite playing the way they would on the very next album. And so these influences are stronger here. I think it's the least distinctive thing they did particularly early in the career. A lot of songs here like that's nice, that's good. You could hear a half dozen bands play the same way and probably play it pretty much as well. What sets them apart early from their blues background is you'll notice there are no covers. There are no covers on virtually any CZ top albums up until 79, 79, 79.
- [32:17]
Andrew Fink
And when there are, those are covers with a very real purpose. They're not just because they couldn't think of anything else to do.
- [32:22]
Jeff Blair
So these are not the. The standard blues covers that you might have heard some of those British blues bands do or Zeppelin do early on in their career. These are songs they've written. Gibbons writes everything with some help from Beard and Hill, with some help from Bill Ham particularly early on. But this bluesy boogie southern rock is what comes through on this very first album.
- [32:59]
Scott Bertram
When it came out turned he said to me have I seen your face before? I said up no, you must be wrong I'm from a distant sh so if you don't mind I'll just move along but it looks like I'm singing the same old song.
- [33:27]
Jeff Blair
Again I don't want to spend an inordinate amount of time because I think the jump happens very quickly on the next album to a much higher quality cut of music. But there are a few things here to note. I think the very middle of this album you have back to back songs Going down to Mexico and Old man and to me those maybe Bedroom Thang from later on form the core of it. Going down to Mexico is this deep hard blues and this sort of road story song which they do a lot of early in their career and do it very well. Dusty has lead vocals on Going down to Mexico. He'd do one, two pretty much per album. Sometimes sharing vocals with Gibbons on a few tracks. And that is that. That's to me an almond bass track. The very next one, Old man is the. Is kind of the Skinner esque track. Has this very slow Skynyrd sound. Has a very Rossington feel to some of the guitars. This lament of old age. The old man who's sleeping the day away Dreaming about yesterday.
- [34:33]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, sort of half simple man, half Curtis Lowe.
- [34:35]
Jeff Blair
Yeah, yeah.
- [34:43]
Scott Bertram
Doesn't matter. What is your husband to get back on, but it provides no consolation.
- [35:24]
Jeff Blair
And so those two songs back to back, right at the center of the album, I think, sort of form the core of it. And there are, like I said, other songs you'd listen, say, that's good, that's a good song. But they're not distinctive enough to sort of jump up and say, this one deserves to be listened to forever. I know there are some that are still played like Brown Sugar, they played on Raw, the most recent live album. So there are things that keep popping up as they would play later in their careers. But it's a fine debut. You can still see the seams, I guess, so to speak. And those would be erased very quickly.
- [35:54]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, I mean, yeah. So I would say I don't disagree with much of that. The other thing that's worth mentioning kind of as a general comment on this record is that the production is not there yet.
- [36:04]
Andrew Fink
The production that's noticeable.
- [36:06]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, the production. I think this band must be the best produced band of the 1970s. The, the. The albums sound unbelievably good after this one, but this one is not quite ready for prime time. There are some, some weird and interesting things here. Back has a steel guitar that's really prominent, which, which does come back on. On a number of ZZ Top songs, but not that many. So it's almost like a little bit of a head fake in terms of kind of what's this band going to sound like. But that first track, Somebody else been shaking your tree, That's a good example of how. Yeah, it's basically a 12 bar blues song. And there are millions of these things in the ZZ Top discography, but they're pretty much never just a 12 bar blues song. There's almost always some nuances, some variations, a bridge, a riff that doesn't quite fit the normal 12 bar pattern. There's almost always something including on this first record when they are like 21, 22 years old and figuring this out, there's almost always something that kind of makes it a little bit different. In this case it's the, it's the, the riffs that are in there, but also the steel guitar and, and, and it kind of goes from there. Songs like Brown Sugar, Certified Blues, Backdoor Love Affair, these do remain. Uh, probably just got back from Babies Got Played some uh, which I about for a second, but. But those all kind of last. And in fact I think maybe three or four of these songs are on that Raw recording, which is interesting, including Certified Blues, which is probably my favorite from this.
- [37:48]
Scott Bertram
To the way there's one thing for sure Going to take my time if I could shake loose I would feel so fine.
- [38:21]
Guest Speaker
But yeah, I mean, everything that Scott said about this trajectory is. Is true. 1. One quick note on Brown Sugar. It is not as direct a copy of the Rolling Stones as you might think. It's about heroin.
- [38:31]
Andrew Fink
Actually. It has nothing to do with it musically. Not at all. Yeah, same basic idea, but not as. Not nearly as offensively expressed. I give him this credit because I've actually always found the Stones Brown Sugar to be like a needlessly like, pointless stab at controversy. Just sort of like, take a look at me. Brown Sugar buys top. I mean, it's not a. It's not a popular tune, but I think I like it a bit more because it is an insult my intelligence.
- [38:56]
Guest Speaker
And actually I'll just. It turns out to be a heroin song. So that's the other difference.
- [39:00]
Andrew Fink
Yeah, right. Right. Well, I'll be doing Brown Sugar. Everybody thought that was about heroin too. And not just what it's unfortunately on the surface about. Probably about Keith's addictions as well. Speak. And the Stones, incidentally, are a band that is going to be mentioned a lot here, especially when you locate ZZ Top and Time. I'm coming to this in a way that's different than you guys. I'm assum student. It's all new to me, I think. January 1971. Sticky Fingers hasn't even come out yet, but Brown Sugar has as a single. It's been a single for about half a year at this point, I think. And I think of this record as sort of a really kind of charming demo by talented amateurs. And so when I first put it on, it was the first thing I put on as I started this project a month ago. And I was like, yeah, it's all right, you know, first song, the one you say. It's uncharacteristic. You were correct. It is very uncharacteristic. It was easy to upgrade. I don't like it. Brown Sugar is nice. And then what noticed. What jumped out to me most is it is the production. And it was really, you know, a production of several songs that probably would sound nice, but I still think be generic. Even on later CZ Top albums. Even if it was, you know, produced with more assurance. He's not writing yet. Gibbons, or the group for that matter, are not writing structurally yet. On a way that makes it as interesting as it could be. I think Bedroom thing, which is the one that Scott just sort of mentioned, that was Actually, I noted that as well. Of my two favorites.
- [40:49]
Scott Bertram
I Live for.
- [41:08]
Andrew Fink
The other one that I thought was great is Just Got Back from Babies, which, you know. You know, I don't want to steal your spotlight. Andrew, you said you wanted to say something about it. You see, you should do it now.
- [41:18]
Guest Speaker
Well, just that it is. It's an early demonstration of how when these guys are doing something like a straight blues, it's just as good as any other blues rock artist ever. I mean, it's. And this one, I would say the. The one drawback of this compared with a couple of later ones, which there are. They're pretty. Pretty similar songs in the discography. Billy's guitar playing is a little less disciplined on this one than it will be later. I would say the same thing with like Old Man. Like, why is that different from the other early ballads? Well, some of it is that the guitar is just kind of rambling through, through. And there's not a lot of point to it, but it is a. I would say of these. Of these tracks, like, you know, Backdoor Love Affair and Certified Blues, kind of suggest where you're gonna. You're gonna see a lot of the creative energy on the next couple of records. But so does Just Got Back from.
- [42:04]
Jeff Blair
Babies.
- [42:20]
Scott Bertram
And sometimes the baby come see me I got my funny, funny feeling I'm not the only man she see.
- [42:58]
Andrew Fink
And so, like, as I said, this is the one I started with. And I thought, well, they better improve after this because I wasn't too terribly impressed. So guess what happens next on Rio Grande Mud, their 1972 follow up to this. They improve a lot. In fact, they suddenly sound sonically. I mean, if nothing else, they sound like a. Frankly, a different band. They are much more assured and the music is better written. I'm not going to say that this is already their early peak because they had. They had a ways to go. This is not a perfect album, but this is just a cut above the first record. And it made me realize, okay, this is a group that was going to be improving really rapidly. Scott, I know you think this is pretty impressive.
- [43:42]
Scott Bertram
You do me good. I know you good. If you only want.
- [44:25]
Jeff Blair
I think it's extremely impressive. I. There are so many really high points of ZZ Top's career. I'm not sure this will be able to crack those two albums we talk about at the end of the show. But it's real tempting, especially on the first side of Rio Grande Med. I don't think the second half holds up to the first, which is why it might not make those two albums. There's one song in particular in the back half I want to talk about. But that first half of the album, ZZ Top announces themself as a total force. This is a heavier band than they were were on the first album. This was a more powerful band than they were on the first album. And it's the first time I think you sort of hear Billy understand and learn how to use that guitar as a. As a total. As a weapon. Like something to just push and push and push this band forward. I think the songwriting takes it. And this is one year like the songwriting takes a huge leap. Just Jeff had mentioned, you know, they're not quite writing in a structured way. I think that changes immediately on Rio Grande Mud, where you have more changes in structure inside these tunes to make them more interesting, more hooky in various places. So yes, huge jump here. And at first side Just Got Paid, that's the first real ZZ Top song. That huge riff married to that dirty dirty boogie. And the low end bass attack from Dusty. A great slide solo that Billy pulls out. Mentioned Fleetwood Mac and Peter Green. Billy says this, this riff that just fantastic Just Got Paid riff that opens the song happened because he was trying to figure out how to play oh well, the way Peter Green played it with Fleetwood Mack. And he couldn't. He couldn't figure it out. And what he ended up coming up with was the riff that became the beginning of Just Got Paid. So immediate dividends from loving something like. Like Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac Just got Paid as one of those epic ZZ Top songs. And I think the first truly trademarked ZZ Top sound.
- [47:05]
Scott Bertram
Just not. Hey today Got me a packet full of change Said I just got paid today Got me a pocket full of train if you believe like working holidays y'all Step on my shoes and take my pay.
- [47:33]
Jeff Blair
Later on in that first side. Coco Blue is that twist on the blues to template that Andrew talked about. Everything comes together on Coco Blue where bass, that thumping drum of Frank and those powerhouse riffs. Great vocals. You know, I don't know if you'd call Billy a fantastic vocalist, but he is a. A limber vocalist. He can. He can adjust his timbre to sort of meet the needs of a song even from the beginning. Beginning less so now. He's so gravely in these past 15, 20 years. But early on I want to call him supple, but he could. He could adjust his delivery to fit the song. He does that on Coco Blue.
- [48:30]
Scott Bertram
I. If I could get to see him, you know, I try to please her oh, my don't try to ask me why she set my soul on fire My cocoa.
- [49:02]
Jeff Blair
And then one of the songs that I cannot get out of my brain since I started listening and just comes back and comes back and comes back. Chevrolet.
- [49:11]
Guest Speaker
Oh, 100 Chevrolet.
- [49:13]
Jeff Blair
At the end of this first side, Dusty takes the vocals here. This one just keeps coming back and keeps coming back.
- [49:19]
Guest Speaker
Oh, no, that's Billy.
- [49:20]
Jeff Blair
Is it?
- [49:21]
Guest Speaker
Yep.
- [49:21]
Jeff Blair
Yeah.
- [49:21]
Guest Speaker
Chevrolet's Billy.
- [49:22]
Andrew Fink
Yeah.
- [49:22]
Jeff Blair
Okay. It has this just wonderful sound to it. I love that part around a minute 20 in, where that. That stop, start riff is just repeated, repeated, repeated before it jumps back into it. And that hallelujah, hallelujah chorus just is so sticky, sticky, sticky. They're beginning to learn how to write little parts that will really linger with the listener. And they did it better than anywhere else on this album with Chevrolet, A real highlight.
- [49:49]
Scott Bertram
I was a. There was all my work While trying to flag me in he asked if I would stay a while and if I needed gas I said no, thanks anyhow I don't drive too fast Hallelujah, hallelujah Right. Ride my hallelujah Hallelujah.
- [50:43]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. Oh, man, Spot on. Okay. A couple of other influences that we did mention. Hendrix. Billy knew Hendrix, played with Hendrix. Open for Hendrix, evidently, including one where he was. I guess it would have been the Moving Sidewalks. They were told they need to play like, 45 minutes. He's like, well, the only way we can do that is if we play Purple Haze and Foxy Lady. So they did. And evidently Hendrix told him afterwards something like, you know, well, a compliment on his. On his masculinity, I think some. Some version of that. But. But another big influence here, another Houstonian blues player, is Johnny Winter. After this record comes out, Johnny evidently asked them to come over and. And he said he heard Just Got Paid and wondered if they were trying to sound just like him. And. And Billy said something like, well, of course, you know, he was kind of right. But I'll say that this record demonstrates a discipline that Johnny Winter never did. And I'm a huge Johnny Winter fan. But a song like Just Got Paid, how do you write a song that is that heavy, that bluesy, and that funky all in the same song? There's not. I don't think.
- [51:49]
Andrew Fink
Okay, Andrew, here's the funny thing, because I made a similar analogy. I mean, almost the exact analogy that you did on Just Got Paid was the. It's not, you know, Winter, but more disciplined. But that's why it Reminded me for. Of all groups of Leonard Skynyrd, which is that incredible groove, that hard cutting guitar. Rift. But the discipline, you know what it reminds me of, reminds me of working for mca. Something like that. And of course, they were in the future. That's the thing. So you almost think Skinner now? I'm thinking Skinner might have been taking their cues from ZZ Top.
- [52:53]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. These bands, by the way, the current Virgins, are out on tour together right now. But. But yeah. I mean, the one thing, though, and I love working for mca.
- [53:00]
Jeff Blair
Great.
- [53:00]
Guest Speaker
I. I think that is a great connection to make. Except that Skynyrd never, never could do funk the way ZZ Top could. Right. This is a great example of Billy's. You know, the most famous epithet for these guys is a little old band from Texas. But another one Billy used was three funky guys playing three funky chords. And that's definitely what's happening in this song. The other thing he said, which this. This record also speaks to, is he said something like. I don't know. I think it was when they maybe got into the Rock and Roll hall of Fame. He said, I don't know how you get in the Rock Room hall of Fame if you're just copying the Rolling Stones. And the Rolling Stones are just copying bodies diddly. But a song like Francine is kind of a good example of them kind of sounding like the Stones, which. That'll come back. Is it? Yeah. Yeah. So that's.
- [53:41]
Andrew Fink
I describe this thing as Exile on Main street, side five. You know, the first side of this.
- [53:46]
Guest Speaker
Right.
- [53:47]
Jeff Blair
Exactly.
- [53:47]
Andrew Fink
Which I think sounds almost exactly. And of course, contemporaneous. They. Exile comes out after this record is released. You cannot. There's a song on the next record that is clearly indebted to Exile on Main Street. This record is not. They just happen to be doing the same thing at the same time. You cannot accuse them of taking cues from one another. That's what makes this a really interesting piece of music.
- [55:01]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. Though I do. I. And I do think that the Stones are. I mean, they're an explicit influence. In fact, Keith Richards did the Rock and Roll hall of Fame intro for ZZ Top. ZZ Top did Creams, by the way. So all of these. You know, this is.
- [55:15]
Jeff Blair
All.
- [55:15]
Guest Speaker
This is all working. It's not. We're not just hearing things when we say that. We think there's our connections here. Just one. I'm sorry. Two quick final notes here. Sure. Got cold after the rain fell.
- [55:25]
Jeff Blair
That's the one I wanted to mention from side two.
- [55:27]
Andrew Fink
Oh, okay.
- [55:28]
Jeff Blair
No, but I mean, go ahead.
- [55:29]
Guest Speaker
Well, so this is really the first great bat. I mean, this is not like a band you think of as doing like ballads. Like, you know, Axl Rose is not singing in this band. But that's a great track. It's a. It's really like those 12, 8 ballads we talk so much about. Talking about Otis Redding in terms of the format of the. Of the song.
- [55:48]
Jeff Blair
Soulful. And one of the few times they let their guard down, especially before you get. This image is created in people's eyes. This is a soulful song. Sure got cold after the rain fell the rain not from the sky but from my eye. One of the few times that guard.
- [56:03]
Guest Speaker
Is let down, like taking eyesight.
- [56:05]
Andrew Fink
Scott, by the way, this actually makes. This is the time to mention it. I actually went a little, did a little research. I went and found a picture of Billy Gibbons in 1972. He was a handsome, young, clean shaven man wearing a cowboy hat. He looked like your neighbor. He looked like he could be the guy who was in college, you know, and it's hilarious.
- [56:22]
Guest Speaker
Hilarious, yeah.
- [56:23]
Andrew Fink
When the Persona happens, that happens somewhere around Fandango, I think. But like at this time, he's. He's got a clean, clean shaven face. It's different than.
- [56:45]
Scott Bertram
Lightning. The wind begins to call. Your world is superficial cause I slept on through the night. But storm and weather keep you wondering. The feral thing.
- [57:27]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, at this point, if you saw ZZ Top, they'd be in like Frank was the one who looked maybe the most like, you know, sort of. He had long hair and was maybe wearing like say a baseball T shirt or something. If you went and saw these guys at this time though, you'd have seen the kind of the CO front men, you know, mainly Billy, but Dusty, as we mentioned are, you know, saying. And they always kind of acted these things out together, even back then. They'd have been like flannel shirts, cowboy boots that they owned before they were in a rock band and cowboy hats that were not necessarily matching, you know, and. And yeah, Billy might have been clean shaven or have a scraggly beard. He might have been wearing like fairly thick glasses. Definitely not the same image that they cultivated later. But it absolutely fits the vibe of this record. But yeah, I agree that. That sure got cold after the rain. Fel can hear the youth still in Billy's voice then, which he by the next record is kind of done displaying. And I mean, some of that is just, you know, his actual maturation, I'm sure. But the development of this kind of Persona. Absolutely a part of it as well. The last one I want to mention, you. You mentioned Chevrolet. Awesome song, great vibe. It refers to having Billy sings having a Strat by the door. And in fact in. In a live version I found, he says my guitar by the door. There's also a song on this track, on this record called Apologies to Pearly. And so this gets into the gearhead nature of ZZ Top, especially Billy, but I think all three of them really. But Billy is. Is there's like an authorized biography type maybe like a coffee table book that came out a few years ago called Rock and Roll Gearhead. That's of course referring to his interest in cars, which was extreme or is extreme, but also guitars, amps, equipment of all kinds. And he's fundamentally a Gibson player, especially his classic 19 Les Paul, which he called Pearly Gates. And there's an interesting story about that. But we don't have to get. We don't have to stop for it. But so he's. He almost always live. If you see pictures from this era, he's almost always playing this 1959 Les Paul. But he recorded with a bunch of different things including a lot of Fender Stratocasters or played a Stratocaster on a lot of tracks including both Chevrolet, which where you can hear it and he refers to it. And then the next song, Apologies to Pearly, that's a Strat. You can tell it's a Stratocaster that he's playing. And it's sort of a funny. I mean that's an instrumental. There's no lyrics. Lyrics. And it's. It's kind of a funny tongue in cheek thing about his, you know, being. Being. Being a little unfaithful to his favorite guitar. But it, it does tip off that he's a gear obsessed guy from day one.
- [60:40]
Andrew Fink
As I've already said, said so much about this album. I don't even have that much to add other than that it's huge improvement upon the first one. Although it's not nearly as good as they're going to get. I'll say one track you didn't mention that stands out to me and it's going to be a strange one is Mushmouth shouting I love. And this actually comes to the point of like other influences on ZZ Top. One that we haven't mentioned yet. We should, we owe it to them is Texas and specifically country. Texas Blue is a real part of the ZZ Top sound. And I mean in this early phase. But Even all the way through some of those tricks and some of those. Those tropes are going to come up again and again. And you hear it here on this very, very countrified thing that could have just come from, like, you know, rural Houston. It's very black. And it. That's the other thing. I think I was reading, like, early reviews, like, you know, like, one of the things about this band is that they, quote, sound black, which is another way of saying that ZZ Top sounds authentically like. Like deep fried Southern blues. And it's not an affectation. It doesn't sound like Mick Jagger, you know, sometimes putting on voices with the Stones. And again, we're gonna get to this on the next album. He sounds very real. And. And the thing. The thing about Gibbons that, that you only. I'm only realizing now as I research the music is that he sings in Persona. He's a little cleverer than you realize. He's actually doing like, all these different, like, vocal things. He can sing in a normal voice. He has a bluesy, gruff voice. Then he has these various to, of course, in the late 70s, where to get. He gets to doing central scrutinizer, like voiceovers and things like that. He's very obsessed with that aspect of, like, sort of like covering the waterfront when it comes to how ZZ Top approaches their music. And you almost might not even notice it this early part of their career.
- [62:40]
Scott Bertram
You know I'm wild about you, baby Been keeping me from my sleep at night. You know I'm hung up on your little doll. You just don't see your daddy right? You know you crazy when you get drunks talking all out your head.
- [63:17]
Andrew Fink
But, you know, I guess that brings us to Trace Hombres, 1973. And, Scott, you want to maybe set this one up? This is the big breakthrough.
- [63:26]
Jeff Blair
I want to set it up and then hand it off for a reason. I'll mention it in a second. So this is again, just a year later. This is how things worked in the 70s. By the time Rio Grande Mud is released, the band is touring and are successful touring. And so Bill Ham's able to get them a little nicer recording accommodations for Trace Hombres. And they record this one at Ardent Studios in Memphis. And if you're a longtime political beat solicitor, you know, Ardent, because that's the place where Big Star did work in Memphis. A great, great studio. And so it brings added heft and I want to say more professionalism. But you get a different sound when you record in a studio like this. And the results are evident in the sales. This is ZCTOP's first top ten record. It reaches number eight on the charts. It's a record that includes the first song we'll talk about that virtually everyone on Earth knows in La Grange. It sold well. I will say this. I believe you guys both love this record. I like it an awful lot. But this is not my favorite iteration of the band. I'll say something and hand it off. This is such a heavy, heavy record when it comes to riffage. The band that I hear most often on Tres Hombres is one I would never, ever have expected at entering this show. It's Sabbath that. That Tony Iommi riff heavy stuff is all over Trace Hombres. And I like it, but it's not my favorite iteration of the band. So someone who does love it should probably begin our discussion of this album.
- [65:07]
Andrew Fink
Oh, I dig it plenty.
- [65:49]
Guest Speaker
Is it my favorite? I mean, I. I will just. I'll tip my hand now and say. I can't say any album, but DEO is my favorite. So when we get there, you'll hear me kind of explain all that. But I don't really see a flaw in this record. I think this is basically a perfect rock album. And maybe that. That's worth mentioning. And this relates to your point about you hearing Sabbath, is that although these guys are playing sometimes more or less just blues songs, it's a rock band the entire time. I mean, it's a rock band all the way down. And this is an album where the term blues rock has probably never fit an album better than this one. It is very heavy. It's still funky. Waiting for the Bus, which kicks it off. Basically a funk song that is also heavy and also really throaty and, by the way, also created creative. And then it does this transition. It's not. Not the same, but a little reminiscent of that transition we talked about about on the Allman Brothers. First record from Don't Want you no More into Not My Cross to Bear, where these two tracks just blend into one another. This one was probably accidental. At least that's the official story. But Jesus just left Chicago, a great kind of slow, deep blues song. Also heavy, though. I mean, especially the guitar solo. But. But it's.
- [67:13]
Scott Bertram
Jesus just left Chicago. And is that for New AR well, now Jesus left Chicago and if I find you, I leave. Working from one end to the other and all points in between, man.
- [68:05]
Guest Speaker
So those are the first two tracks. And the third track, Beer Drinkers and Hellraisers, is. Is a Track. Like, it is difficult to record a track with more energy in it than that one has. And they. They match this a few other times in their career, but just.
- [68:20]
Andrew Fink
It's all Dusty, man. I mean, you kind of wonder. I listened to that song and. And I list for the first time I heard it, doing this. And I thought to myself, wait, wait, why is Billy Gibbons the lead vocalist of this?
- [68:32]
Scott Bertram
Yeah.
- [68:32]
Guest Speaker
And I.
- [68:32]
Andrew Fink
Dusty can sing his head off.
- [68:35]
Guest Speaker
He can. I think that it's the best. A lot of my favorite tracks are the ones where they're trading the lyrics off.
- [68:42]
Jeff Blair
Yep.
- [68:42]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, it works.
- [68:43]
Andrew Fink
It.
- [68:43]
Guest Speaker
It's great. And they were like, such good. Like they were buddies and, you know, like they liked playing together. You can, like, if you watch any of this stuff from the 70s and 80s especially, you can just see these guys are having an absolute ball playing together. And it. It. This is Beer Drinkers and Hellraisers. I think it's the first one where they trade the lyrics back and forth. And yeah, Dusty, I think, doesn't sing any of the songs on Rio Grande Mud, but. But yeah, that's. That's. And then into a song like Master of Sparks, which is dark. Jeff, you've got the reference on it that.
- [70:00]
Andrew Fink
Oh, it's the Green Mona Lishi by Fleetwood Mac. I mean, this is the first thing I noticed the. That comes straight from the middle section of Grand Moni by Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac. That came out in 1970. We discussed it. Oh. On our Fleetwood Mac episode. Whoever knows how many years ago it was, but it's just an obvious tribute. And of course, Peter Green has forever been, actually, I'd say my single favorite blues guitarist in the white boy blues genre, which is to say the British guy is trying. It means far better than Clapton. He's far better than John Mayo or any of those guys. And it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that ZZ Top would be huge fans of theirs.
- [70:39]
Guest Speaker
Well, and I'm glad you were able to hear it because. Because as I think we maybe talked in our emails, our show notes, or maybe Scott and I were just talking about it. Billy keeps a lot of these influences beneath the surface. And so what you see on the surface is this Texas power trio doing all of this heavy blues stuff, but you were able to hear this kind of psych blues influence.
- [71:02]
Andrew Fink
Well, we'll play the clips, I'm sure, just to show you it's. It's incontrovertible when you hear them back to back.
- [72:08]
Guest Speaker
And I didn't happen to know that one. But it's such a great example of. Of Billy. And by the way, like, he would bury these things in unexpected places. Like Albert Collins, a Texas guitar player who was never a huge star. He had these. He had successful records on Alligator in like the 70s and 80s. And he had been, you know, like, played locally in. In Texas on the radio in like the 50s and 60s. Not a huge famous guitar player. But there are a couple of places where I am listening to ZZ Top and I'm listening to Billy, you know, Plague it guitar and Brown Sugar is one of them. Where Billy bends the tonic note. This is an uncommon thing for blues players to do. Bends everywhere, seldom on the tonic. Albert King or Albert Collins did it all the time. That's what Billy does on that one. And then later on after Burner on. I think it's on Can't Stop Rocking, kind of a throwaway song. There is an Albert Collins quote in the guitar riff. It's just. It is the freeze from like 1956 by Albert Collins. So Billy is burying this stuff in unexpected places all the time. Time master of Sparks, a great example of it also, by the way, like, the anxiety that that song, like that they fit into that recording is. Is unbelievable.
- [73:10]
Andrew Fink
But you know what, Speaking of which, I'm going to interrupt you just for. And then hand it back to you to talk about something as a similar tribute. But this one to me is much more obvious where you see an influence coming to the fore. And it's on a song that we hadn't mentioned yet. But I have to say something about. And that is Lagrange. You would not believe how long it took for me, folks, to realize this song was by ZZ Top. I think I first heard it on the radio sometime in about 16, 17 years old, by the time I got my first driver's license. And I thought, oh, that's some nice blues band. I wonder who the heck they are. I went through college, had no idea what that song was. Oh, that's. Keep hearing that song again. What's it even called? I think it's called. That's the name of that thing, as far as I can tell. And it was only somewhere in about 2000, 2008, when some DJ finally said, yeah, that's Lagrange by ZZ Top. And I was like, what? ZZ Top. That's Easy Top. I mean, that's Give me all your love. And ZZ Top. I couldn't believe it. They didn't sound anything like the singer didn't sound anything Like, I thought it was an old black dude is what I thought it was. I thought it was like, you know, maybe B.B. king or, you know, something like that. Like some electrified Chicago bluesman maybe. And no, it was easy top. And it stunned me. It was, first of all, one of the most impressive acts of, like, blues rock badassery I had ever heard. It sounded so authentic. It sounded like I was being played in a juke joint where it was like roadhouse, Patrick Strayzee's roadhouse, where people are fighting with each other in the middle of this because they're going down to some really disreputable cat house down outside city limits. Oh, it's such a great mood and it's such a great tone. And then I discovered Exile on Main street. And then I heard rather shake your hips, which. And I realized where all of these songs come from. Lagrange and Shake your Hips are both tributes to Slim Harpo. And it's the old sort of, you know, again, south, Southern, you know, Texas, Louisiana style of blues. The.
- [75:42]
Scott Bertram
Yeah, don't move your hand don't move your lips Just shake your hair do.
- [75:52]
Guest Speaker
The shank.
- [75:57]
Scott Bertram
Shake your hair.
- [76:05]
Andrew Fink
The Rolling Stones did a cover ZZ Top clearly listened to Exile on Main street and they decided we're gonna write an original song with the same beat, the same feel, and we're gonna turn it into basically. I still think this is one of the greatest anthems that they've ever recorded.
- [76:36]
Scott Bertram
About to check outside again. You know what I'm talking about. Just let me know if you want to go to that whole mile on the range, pick up a lot of nice girls.
- [77:13]
Andrew Fink
And so you talk about the influences that come into this band. It's just so funny how I'm piecing these, you know, piecing it all together now. Only now this is really my biggest comment to say about Tres Hombres, which is why I'm going to hand it back to you, Andrew.
- [77:25]
Guest Speaker
Well, and it's. You're right to focus. I mean, this. So this is a song that, like, if you go czz top tomorrow, I guarantee you, you will hear this song almost certainly either as. Either as either the closer or one of the encores because they know this is what people want to hear from them. I hear the. The Slim Haro, the shake your hips for sure. But that's, of course, he's not the only person doing that. And in fact, the artist that they were sued by because of this song was John Lee Hooker, who was the.
- [77:55]
Andrew Fink
John Lee Hooker as well.
- [77:56]
Guest Speaker
Chicago Blues Yeah, yeah. In fact. In fact, I think John Le Hooker was recording in Detroit. He broke through. He was one of the. One of the few. Detroit was essentially a jazz city when Chicago was the, you know, the. The heart of urban blues. But John Lee Hooker was there. And so his song, Boogie Chilling is. Is more or less exactly what this is.
- [78:15]
Andrew Fink
Yeah.
- [78:16]
Guest Speaker
Really, really close. Not close enough to win the lawsuit, but close. And it's so explosive. Yes, it is. One interesting thing about. I mean, look, this is a track, and I think, Scott, maybe you. You have something to say about this in relation to Tush, which is the. The other song that while Dusty was alive, they would close with or do as an encore. And also a pretty, you know, descriptively simple song. But this one, which has that driving riff that goes through almost the whole thing. One interesting thing about it is it starts with this kind of clean version of this riff. Then Billy starts singing in this extremely low, almost comically low tone about cat House outside LaGrange, Texas, which is a real place that closed, I think, only within a few, like, years of this. Of this recording.
- [79:07]
Andrew Fink
The melody is intentionally outside of his range, so when he tries to go down to the low notes, he sounds like. I do. Like it's almost a joke. He can't hit it on purpose. It makes him sound really normal, which is what gives it that authenticity, that. That sense of the real. It's a.
- [79:25]
Jeff Blair
It's just. It's. It's just a guy who knows about this place, and he's telling.
- [79:29]
Andrew Fink
He's a guy on the porch, a beer. And he's sitting on the porch, he's like, I heard a Pl. Boy, buddy, it'll blow your mind. And it sounds so real.
- [79:37]
Jeff Blair
And that's the fun thing, too, is that it's the first line of the rumor spreading around. And then later on he says, yeah, well, I might be mistaken.
- [79:44]
Guest Speaker
That's right. Who.
- [79:45]
Jeff Blair
Who really knows?
- [79:46]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, that's right. I mean, he's. Again, he's. They're 24 for this one. And, like, that's so clever, the way they're writing this. That's. That's a. That's a. That's amazing. But the one interesting thing about this song, musically is this is still a big hit. I don't remember where this one got. I don't. I don't think they originally released it as a single, but it wound up, of course, getting radio play back then.
- [80:05]
Andrew Fink
Radio play song. Yeah.
- [80:06]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Including to today. I mean, you could turn on, you know, your rock station in Town. Probably not even just your classic rock stations, but probably whatever the mainstream rock station is, will play this song from time to time still.
- [80:16]
Andrew Fink
But this week on xrt.
- [80:18]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, there you go. So. But yeah, XRT Chicago, there are only two verses to this song. They're short.
- [80:24]
Jeff Blair
It's a minute. It's a minute, a minute of singing and then.
- [80:26]
Guest Speaker
Then it's like four minutes or three and a half minutes of guitar playing on the way out. But you never notice that this has happened to you. Like you never notice that you're now trapped in a three minute blues jam. And so it's. It's a very impressive piece of music. It is one where even though I'm a little. I'm a little over it, like I've heard it 10 million times, I still don't like Reach to Skip just because this one comes on and I've heard it 10 million times, I still sometimes just like sit there and enjoy it. One thing that's sort of funny about it is that the song right before it, Precious and Grace, it's this great heavy blue.
- [81:43]
Andrew Fink
I love that one too.
- [81:44]
Guest Speaker
Oh, it's this great heavy blues song. Really interesting one about prostitutes. And then the next song is lagrange, which you could also describe as a really heavy blues song about prostitutes. And that's just. That sort of speaks to the somewhat repetitive nature. In fact, I even. I scored the lyrics to these easy top songs keeping track of. Of the references to Texas, Mexico, alcohol, guitars, cars, and of course prostitutes. And. And this album of course has a. A bunch of those. Including. Including those two great tracks.
- [82:14]
Andrew Fink
All of it very illegal, very sinful, disreputable in the utmost. And it's still. I enjoy it. I really enjoy hearing these guys sing these songs. The point I was actually gonna think of before I think you give it to Scott is that this is also a well sequenced album, which is I think the reason I really appreciate it as one of. It'll probably make my top two at the end of the show. I think this is a really well sequenced album. And the way that Rio Ground at Med wasn't more. The second half, I think is a bit weaker than the first half. Yeah, this one just keeps going all the way through. You know, this is song no one ever talks about on this one that I deeply enjoy called Move Me on down the Line.
- [82:52]
Jeff Blair
I know why.
- [82:52]
Andrew Fink
It sounds like.
- [82:53]
Jeff Blair
I know why.
- [82:54]
Andrew Fink
You know why? Because it sounds like it's a poppy new wave song. Scott, is that the reason?
- [82:58]
Jeff Blair
I think it's the most who thing they ever did. I think it's the most Townsend influence thing they ever did. It's really one of a kind in their whole catalog. And it sounds just like Townsend wrote it.
- [83:09]
Andrew Fink
I love that song. It's not on the box set. It's not on any of their greatest hits. It open side too. And to me, again, you talk about. There's actually a lot of these moments in the ZZ Top discography that are sort of like uncharacteristic for their traditional sound. And this to me is the first of them. But I love it. And, and, and the funniest thing about it is that, you know, when people start Made in later on in their career in the late 70s, they're going to take an interesting sort of new wave synthete based turn. And I'm like, well, you know this. The nuts and bolts of it were there all along to go. A guy who wrote a song like this had it in them all along. Because I. I think this with yes, that who like poppiness, that thrumming baseline boy. It's. It's a left turn that gets forgotten. And I'm sure because I've never hear it mentioned by the fans in any of the things I've read, but I enjoy the heck out of it.
- [84:30]
Scott Bertram
Just moving on down the line Just moving on down the line Then I.
- [84:38]
Andrew Fink
Heard now, sky, you have anything you wanted to add about this one or even though I don't know you don't like the heaviness?
- [84:44]
Jeff Blair
Pretty much took care of everything.
- [84:47]
Andrew Fink
All right.
- [84:48]
Jeff Blair
I was going to mention Move me on down the line. You took care of that. Yeah, I mean just. I mentioned Sabbath at the beginning, but you know, the first 10 seconds of Master of Sparks, the first 10 seconds of beer drinkers and Hellraisers, the first 10 seconds of precious and. And Grace. Close your eyes. That's a Tony.
- [85:04]
Guest Speaker
Oh, that one.
- [85:06]
Jeff Blair
I was going to come and sing in just a couple seconds.
- [85:08]
Guest Speaker
That one is so hard. Yeah, that's.
- [85:09]
Jeff Blair
That's just what it sounds like. So the one, the last song. So that's not so heavy chic. Chic is not heavy chic is this slinky Sheik is misspelled funky problem for me.
- [85:21]
Guest Speaker
I noticed that looking at my notes, by the way. I was like, why does this look like this?
- [85:24]
Andrew Fink
Yeah, this funky bugs me, man.
- [85:27]
Jeff Blair
Kind of foreign sounding thing. I like it called Cheek, but I. I like it. Yeah, I like it. I like it a lot. So the end movie on down the line Legroom range chic right at the end Trace Hombres. That's. That keeps me interested as it goes. Again, I don't want to say a thing bad about this album, but it's just not my favorite iteration. It's not my favorite way this. This band plays.
- [86:04]
Scott Bertram
A Friday night the landscapes of. Find a natural sight Just cruising slow through the dark of night with precious and breeze Everything's all right Good God Almighty we was going. Going down.
- [86:33]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. Have you heard by the Way, the only other song that's kind of reminiscent of that Chevrolet, like, gospel thing, which is.
- [86:39]
Jeff Blair
Yes.
- [86:39]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. It's kind of fun. Well, the movie on down the Line. Yeah, it's. Those two are. Are maybe sort of connected here. The one thing I want to say about Chic is that it is the weirdest. They. They've had it. They've. They've been a little weird so far. Squank is kind of weird on the first record. I don't really think there's unreal grand Mud. I don't think there's a by.
- [86:58]
Jeff Blair
By the way, is. Is. Is Squank the same thing as Squonk from Genesis, Jeff. And not the same song, of course, but the same thing.
- [87:04]
Andrew Fink
You know what? I didn't look at the lyrics of that one closely. It talks about a little. Is it about a little mythical creature that you capture that melts itself away in its tears?
- [87:12]
Jeff Blair
Well, it's close enough. I can't. You know, it's.
- [87:14]
Guest Speaker
It does sound like a chupacabra or.
- [87:16]
Jeff Blair
A Sasquatch creature that people talk about.
- [87:19]
Andrew Fink
The word gets applied to all sorts of different kind of mythical creatures all across the United States. There's a squank or a squawk for every region.
- [87:26]
Guest Speaker
So that. That one is. Yeah, I don't think there's really a weird one on. On Rio Grande Mud. Maybe that's what keeps it from reaching the great heights. But Trey Sombre has Chic, which is almost as weird as the weird songs that we're going to talk about and, like, the late 70s, early 80s records. But it's. It's a. It's probably, again, like, the sense of humor that these guys had. Yeah. They largely applied it in double entendres and making you feel like you shouldn't listen to the song with your middle school and high school kids in the car, which is a lesson I learned in the last couple of weeks as I. I was given a. A sort of a scolding look by my daughter. But it's. It's kind of this weird, funny thing that does come back Up a few times later on.
- [88:09]
Andrew Fink
All right, Scott, do we want to talk about the. The next album, which is the weirdest sort of thing that shouldn't at all work, but actually kind of does.
- [88:18]
Jeff Blair
The half live, half studio record, Fandango. Before they were selling movie tickets, it was the name of a ZZ Top album at 19 and 70. 75. Yes.
- [88:29]
Andrew Fink
Were selling movie tickets. I don't think they're doing it anymore.
- [88:32]
Jeff Blair
Yeah, it's true. Half live, half studio. Yeah. First side of Fandango is three songs. One's a long medley of blues tracks, and second side is a studio side with. What is it? Six. I think it's six original songs, and some of those are some of the best. You know how I feel about live albums, Jeff. And there is a ZZ Top live album that I'm very partial to the. That we'll get to later on in the conversation. So to me, a full album of originals with the second side included may have put Fandango right near the top of the list. But as is, there are a couple of big highlights for me. But I don't need that live version on the front end of the studio side. That is so good. That's just the way I think about things.
- [89:19]
Andrew Fink
You tell me you don't like Thunderbird.
- [89:21]
Jeff Blair
It's fun.
- [89:21]
Andrew Fink
Okay, listen. There's an entire tradition of. Again, this is Southern California Southwest Western text, Max. Songs written about alcohol, about cheap liquor. What's the word Thunderbird? What's the price? 40. Twice. Which is to say it's like 80 cents, or I think maybe 30. 30. Twice. 60 cents. This is like the cheap booze. There were other songs, like, Frank Zappa was fond of these songs. He did a song called. He Covered, a song called White Port Lemon Juice. It's basically like their. Their version of Steel Reserve or something like that back in the day. And. And they have a credit, a songwriter credit, but they didn't really write it. It was, like, from some earlier band. And, like, yeah, it's the word Thunderbird. It's a pean to cheap liquor. And by the way, this is a tradition that would all go all the way to Sonic Youth on the song Silver Rocket from Daydream nation in the 80s. So I'm just saying this is a subculture in rock that I've cultivated. My favorite songs about cheap booze that people throw at you when you're on stage, and they don't like your songs. What's the word? Thunderbird is pretty fun to me, and I'm surprised that you didn't have even any time for that one.
- [90:25]
Scott Bertram
Feel so bad. Really goes down so smooth. Have you heard what the.
- [91:12]
Andrew Fink
I know you probably don't need to hear ZZ Top cover Jailhouse Rock, but I like that too.
- [91:17]
Jeff Blair
I just realized this is an album full of tributes. This is what this album is all about. Tribute to cheap liquor. Cheap, cheap, cheap alcohol.
- [91:25]
Guest Speaker
Tush.
- [91:25]
Jeff Blair
Tribute to. Well, what, what it says. Hurdle on the X. A tribute to these Mexican radio stations right on the border pumping this music.
- [91:33]
Andrew Fink
Tribute to Mexican hookers.
- [91:35]
Jeff Blair
Tribute to Mexican hookers right beforehand. I mean, this is. This is where ZZ Top pays tribute to all the things they love in life.
- [91:41]
Andrew Fink
Tribute to Balinese heroine. Okay. Yes.
- [91:44]
Guest Speaker
You know, I'm assuming that's. Well, that's. Okay. So this is actually a good point because I and Jeff, I think you already said that this is kind of when it. So they're out promoting this record when the worldwide Texas tour starts, and then they release the next record during that tour. This is kind of like when Z Top becomes a Persona that is, you know, the sum is greater than the parts kind of thing where. Where they. They are kind of developing that. That mystique that winds up being, you know, characteristic of this band. So that's a good point. I. Thunderbird, by the way, Towns Van Zant, another Texan, also has a song, a different one called Thunderbird. Ripple is the song that I think of most frequently when I think about this. And this is by. This is like the. The first of, like, six references to Thunderbird in the ZZ Top L library. Yeah. And, uh, it's. Yeah. So I like the live stuff. I actually think the Backdoor medley is awesome because it's like if you could plug Sweat into an amplifier, that's what it would sound like. And, uh. And so I. I enjoy that this is available.
- [92:46]
Andrew Fink
I don't want to hear the whole concert from that show.
- [93:17]
Scott Bertram
Baby, baby, baby, baby. Don't you.
- [93:36]
Andrew Fink
I mean, I. I think that. I mean, this is before the synths. This is before, like, you. The Click tracks. Yeah, they sound really hot.
- [93:42]
Jeff Blair
Oh, by the way. So Jeff probably doesn't know, but the live tracks are how they would begin and end the shows on this tour. So you hear. What you hear on the first side is the beginning of a live ZZ Top show in 75 and the end of a live ZZ top show in 1975.
- [93:58]
Guest Speaker
And I'm with you, but I mean, Jeff, this does. I mean, you and Scott and I have now talked about this in a couple of places. I mean live records are. They're for what they're for. And I would, I would love it if they had had done. There are other live recordings from this era, like on the expanded edition of Trace Sombre you can get like a live. I don't know, maybe heard it on the X's on that or. Or Beer Drinkers or something. But the, the recording quality is not as high as these three tracks. But this does kind of help you understand how they filled the sound. And I think this has to do with there's kind of a little distortion and maybe a little extra treble on Dusty's bass. And then Billy's guitar is really Basie. I mean some of that said he's playing this chunky Les Paul probably at this point more or less straight into Marshalls, which is the same, you know, it's the same setup that a lot of Gibson bands. You know, ACDC is basically Gibbs. Well, NSG and a Marshall for Angus. And this reminds me again of the.
- [95:01]
Andrew Fink
Debts they kind of owe to Black Sabbath. The power trio format there with Tony Iommi with those really deep low ends to get that sort of presence. And of course they're much more nimble and they groove. They're not sludgy like Sabbath. Yeah, they still have that commanding thickness of sound, which is why it's, you know, it's actually pretty impressive show.
- [95:19]
Guest Speaker
And it's how at this point they're not using any of the sequencers and stuff, but it's how they could sound full playing these songs that on the recordings I saw you were in a little bit of a Twitter back and forth where I think that that guy on Twitter Yesterday said that 75 of their stuff is playback. That's a pretty severe exaggeration. Even in the 80s.
- [95:36]
Andrew Fink
It's not that bad.
- [95:37]
Guest Speaker
Okay, good. But it was not true at all at this point. I mean it's just. It. It was just raw. I mean the Raw label that they put on record absolutely could have been applied to this one, but they filled up the sound incredibly well for just a three piece act with a couple of singers, which does probably help as well. Just to talk about the. The studio version, I agree. Jeff or Scott rather. You said it that this. If. If they just had three more songs on this, it would have been one of their best studio records for sure. The Nasty Dogs and Funky King's riff is maybe my favorite lead riff on any of these things. Just like I said about Lagrange, it's like two verses and then just A guitar out for. But it gets really heavy. A strange riff.
- [97:06]
Scott Bertram
It could happen to you. You could be a fool too.
- [97:10]
Jeff Blair
That song. I think this goes to how well they were recorded and produced at that time. If, like the Black Keys put that out today, everyone would be falling all over themselves to say what an amazing song. New song this is from someone. Like the Black Rock is back. I mean, it could pop up today and it sound just as fresh.
- [97:29]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. And to be honest, I'm sort of surprised this one doesn't get radio play today because it's. It absolutely fits it. And it's not like a overly long song or anything. It's only two and a half minutes. You. You mentioned heard on the X. That's one where they inject the same energy as Beer Drinkers and Hellraisers or Master of Sparks. Where it's like, how do you record with this much, like anxiety built into a track? That's, I think, a perfect track.
- [97:51]
Andrew Fink
That's the best song on the album by far for me, easily.
- [97:53]
Guest Speaker
It's so good. It's got the. The multiple guitars, including, like a clean Stratocaster sound, which for a song that is kind of heavy, really edgy, you. You might not expect. And live. It's like this really brash loud thing where. Where the guitar is very distorted and it's. And it. And it sounds dark and heavy and. And actually for a kind of a fast blues song, sort of Sabbath, like to your point, Scott. But the. The studio recording is really disciplined. It's really cool.
- [98:27]
Scott Bertram
Do you Remember back in 1966, Country Jesus help me in the blues? That's where I learned my living from coast to coast and line to line to every county there I'm talking about that Outlaw X is cutting through the air Anywhere y'all Everywhere y'all I heard it, I heard it. I heard it all on the eggs.
- [98:59]
Guest Speaker
I should have mentioned on Trace Ombres, by the way, if you open up the record, there's this great picture of a Mexican food meal and it's like totally over the top. It's like a plate just overflowing with Tex Mex. Like there's like rice and beans falling off the thing and enchiladas and. And tacos and stuff on it. And a beer that's like brimming over. There's a picture of a radio on the. The radio is on the. The table and it is tuned to the X. I can't remember the call letters, but this like El Paso or Juarez radio station, rather that they would listen to. And by the way, Frank says in an interview I listened to that they ate that food after they took the picture. But that, that, that X thing. And, and you know how. How does Dusty say it? Country. Jesus. Hillbilly blues. Those are all the genres of music they would hear. And then they. They say that you'd also hear somebody selling like a box of 200 chicks for $5 or something. And so it was kind of lyric.
- [99:53]
Andrew Fink
That's what I love about it. The. The lyric on. You really haven't even talked a lot about Billy Gibbons lyrics. I mean, they're very, very witty. He tells some very crafty stories. And of course, you know, we. We did reference that unfortunate number of them do seem to relate to prostitutes. It's the Texas thing, you know, what can you say? But this is just. This feels like like you're there. You could. You want to hear that radio station too, don't you? I mean, I know I do when I hear that song.
- [100:19]
Jeff Blair
Well, you could have back in the 60s at thousand watts.
- [100:23]
Andrew Fink
Unfortunately, I found out about this in 2024, so what can I do?
- [100:27]
Jeff Blair
This is one of the songs where they trade vocals.
- [100:30]
Guest Speaker
Yeah.
- [100:31]
Jeff Blair
Dusty and. And Billy and they have to. I mean, it sounds like they have to. It sounds like one person couldn't possibly sing that fast with that much passion. They like they need to trade off those vocals. It's a necessity to get the song done. But I agree with. I agree with Jeff. That's the best song on Fandango. It's one of my favorite ZZ Top tracks.
- [101:37]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, I would say my favorite song is Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings. I couldn't do without it. But the other. Well, the other one dimension as a. A great piece of. Of their. Again, their sort of blues discipline is Blue jean blues.
- [101:50]
Jeff Blair
Yes.
- [101:51]
Guest Speaker
You know. Yeah. This. Dark, heavy. Well, heavy. Heavy emotionally, but not sonically compared with some of their other tracks.
- [102:02]
Andrew Fink
What I love about it is it's a risk in some ways. They're stepping out. It's not commercial. They're not playing for an audience. It's just an authentic blue blues song. And it is played with the right feeling and the right production. It just is gripping. They, again, this is a tribute. This is much more difficult to do than it sounds. They can make what you might dismiss as a generic blues or a blue song. I'm not interested in the blues. You'll be riveted by that song. It's just a great performance. And it's actually a lot of it is in Billy Gibbon's. Voice.
- [102:34]
Jeff Blair
It's a risk, Jeff, because the point of that song. Song is to prove that Billy Gibbons can play the blues as good as anybody else. You can name you whoever you want to put out there. The point of this song is that Billy can do it. Billy's as good as all those guys. And it's a risk in that. That's the stated goal, but it succeeds. That song proves to anyone who takes the time to listen that Billy Gibbons can play the blues better or as good as. As good as anybody else. You can name any other blues man you got. Billy can play that. That good.
- [103:07]
Scott Bertram
If I ever get back my blue jeans Lord, how happy could one man be? If I never get back my blue jeans Lord, how happy could one man be? Cause if I get back those blue jeans, you know, my baby be bringing them home to me.
- [104:18]
Andrew Fink
So now do we want to talk about the fact that the most famous song from this album is the one that. That is, I think we all agree, maybe the most generic one on the album. I want to tell you guys a story about the song Tush. Up until one month ago, I had no idea this song was a ZZ Top song. And you know what else? I didn't know I'd heard that on the radio since I was like, I don't know, five years old. Never have I been able to hum it. In fact, right now, I can't even tell you how the song goes, even though I've heard it about a hundred times. You know, the only way I can do it is by looking down at my notes and seeing the words I Ain't Asking For Much, which I think is what I thought the title was.
- [105:03]
Scott Bertram
I Ain't Asking For Much.
- [105:05]
Andrew Fink
It's incredibly just. It's almost like it was AI Simulated, an AI generated blues rock song that I can't hate. It's a good tune. I still like it. This is why it's if it was made by AI that AI has gotten stronger and more dangerous than ever. Because Tush is just a really kind of a catchy song while it's on. And yet it's the least memorable thing on the entire record as far as I'm concerned. I know it sounds like I'm hating on a tune that a lot of people, especially ZZ Top fans, might think is one of their great tracks. But it's just amazing how I can never even form a solid memory of it. Even now as I speak to you.
- [105:46]
Jeff Blair
I don't love it because it's sounds like it was recorded Differently than everything else on the record. And a lot of does sound a lot more corporate doesn't drums. The drums are big and echoey. Drums sound different than other ZZ Top songs from the era. It hits differently than a lot of stuff they recorded in this mid-70s period and sounds like Foreigner.
- [106:08]
Andrew Fink
Oh, no. Hot Blooded or something like that. That's what I'm reminded of.
- [106:12]
Jeff Blair
I don't know if I go that far, but. But it is. It is one of the few ZC Top hits I could take and leave or Take your leave.
- [106:43]
Scott Bertram
I said, lord, take me downtown I'm just looking for some touch I've been bad, I've been good In Dallas, Texas, Hollywood I ain't asking for much I said, lord, take me downtown I'm just looking for some time much.
- [107:14]
Guest Speaker
I think that. Yeah, look, I. I actually say so.
- [107:17]
Andrew Fink
I don't even hate it. It's so weird that I can't form a memory of it.
- [107:21]
Guest Speaker
I can't hate it either. But it. It's actually a little like that jailhouse rock cover where I think maybe partially in order to keep himself fully interested, Billy plays a slide solo instead of a straight lead solo. And I. I sort of.
- [107:34]
Andrew Fink
That's the best part of the song.
- [107:35]
Guest Speaker
It is. And. But. And it's also, by the way, the thing that makes it like a little more nuanced and a little more like. It does keep it from being a Molly Hatchet song, which obviously is not the highest compliment you can play a Southern rock band. But that's. I think I. That's. The genericness of it is that it is hard to kind of. I mean, the riff is literally just done to. Dun dun dun dun dun dun.
- [107:58]
Jeff Blair
That's it.
- [107:59]
Guest Speaker
That's the red. So it's. Yeah. It's not their most creative moment. I don't. I don't hate it. And I like Dusty singing and everything. And it's fun. But even the. The story of them writing it is that they were sound checking and just kind of did it. And so then. And then it was done. And so that. That's. That's why. I mean, you get why everybody listens to it and likes it and why people wanted to hear Dusty sing it before the end of a concert. But it's also. It's hard to. It's hard to put it. And it's different from like lagrange, which is just as, you know, played just as heavily and yet keeps your attention. This one doesn't quite work the same way. I'm glad, though, that you mentioned Frank's drumming because we haven't talked about that very much. I think the guy is an awesome drummer, really funky. Maybe his best record actually might be the next one. But going back even to like Just Got Paid, he's got these like flanges that he does. You know, somewhat similar what I was saying about how Billy always has these nuances. There's always something going on with Frank's drumming that keeps it from being staid or boring until like 1994 for. And it gets, it, it gets a little state at that point. But really all throughout the rest of their career, Frank is working pretty hard to keep things really interesting on this record. A song like Balinese, he's got a snare drum that is like, he might have even taken the snares, you know, pop the snares down or something. It's a totally different sound from what you hear in other places. And, and he's just a creative force that I think is probably a little bit under appreciated in listening to this record. Look, the last one I want to talk about is Mexican Black Blackbird. I do not want to talk about the words. I never want to talk about the words. But the vibe on that song is awesome. It's got that affected style of singing that you were talking about before Jeff, where, where Billy is doing a character singing. This one. This one definitely counts, I think as the weird song on this record. Uh, but it also has this great, this great vibe. Uh, the, the kind of talky part where Billy says let's drive that old Chrysler Mexico. For me, this song almost sounds like you're actually sitting on a pontoon boat, you know, maybe with a line in the water, but you don't really care if you get a bite. You're just sort of hanging out and, and it's only a three minute song. Which again speaks to their discipline.
- [110:14]
Andrew Fink
But it's so, so funny by the way, because when you talk about singing in character again, I'm listening to all this stuff for the first time. When I, and I heard Billy singing in that voice, I thought to myself, did they just give the drummer a lead vocal or something? I mean like, like who is this guy for the first time? And it's him again, I think it's really, really under underrated or I think not commented upon how often he like sings in totally different voices to get his songs across. And maybe because it's not like Peter Gabriel wearing costumes and dancing around on stage or something like that, but there's, there's a lot of there's a lot of theatricality in a sly and subtle way involved in these ZZ Top songs. And that's what I like about them.
- [110:55]
Scott Bertram
They all call her food because no one really knows her name she works a cantina dancing and all lovings her trade her mama was meskin and her daddy was a ace of spades all in drive that old Chrysler to Mexico Boy said keep your hands on the wheeler.
- [111:41]
Jeff Blair
I want to take Andrew's comment to bring us forward a year to the next album that that Tejas might be Frank Beard's best record. I would go farther than that. This is. I'm interested to see what both you guys think of this. I know a little bit more what Jeff does or what what Andrew does. Actually it's a. I think it's an underrated record. I think it's a great listen. I don't know if it's their best, but it's a great listen. When I think about Tejas is this is probably the most cohesive band album they ever did. This is the album where everybody has great parts and probably brought some good ideas and maybe for one of the last times, right, because as we start to get into El Loco and Eliminator, it becomes far more of Billy's band. It always was. But definitely by that point. Tejas to me is such a great listen because you do hear each member making significant contracts contributions. If it's Frank's best album, it might be Dusty's best album too.
- [112:59]
Scott Bertram
Just one look at SC make it clear she wouldn't jump in and I ran enjoy getting it all.
- [113:29]
Andrew Fink
But if you really want to know my first impressions of Tejas, the first thing I would, I will tell you my first impression was, God, this album sounds terrible. It sounds like garbage. I hate the way the drums are recorded, I hate the way the guitars are sounding and even the vocals are weirdly echoed. What the hell is wrong with this? Because folks, let me explain to you a problem with getting into ZZ Top on YouTube. The original mix of this album is still unavailable there and the only thing that's available, it's informally uploaded, is the remix version from a little thing called Sixpack, which we'll only address now, which is something later on in the band's query where they remixed all of these early albums for quote 80s standards and made them sound basically like Eliminator. And I thought, wow, these are really good songs and they're totally sabotaged by this God awful production. And it was only the third time around very recently that I Heard this as it was originally intended to be heard. And it's close to one of their best albums. So I feel real regret, first of all, that I made that mistake. But why the hell did they ever remix these things in the first place? They were fine as they are.
- [114:43]
Guest Speaker
Not only fine, but they were actually like trend setting. Right. They sounded great for the time as they were. And then those six up to 80 standards might come.
- [114:52]
Andrew Fink
But were we on?
- [114:53]
Guest Speaker
Absolutely terrible. And they even, as I mentioned in our show notes, they even rewrote some of the lyrics in weird ways that were not helpful from anybody's perspective. But yes, the. And what's especially funny is that sonically, this album is awesome.
- [115:06]
Andrew Fink
It sounds so intimate when you hear it the way it was originally recorded. It's like the album you wouldn't want to mess with. Why? Whatever.
- [115:13]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, this great, like, musical bass kick drum from on the beginning of this album on. On its only love. There's also there. There's also a few. There are a few examples of this going back even to first album, like Going down to Mexico. There is this musical interlude that's kind of different from the lyrical parts of the song, but there's a bunch of that here. And then on deo, which is the. The album after that. So this is, I think, kind of approaching their creative peak. And it starts out with. With a track that does exactly that. It's got the steel guitar that's back. It's in and out on this record, I think, but. And also back and forth, singing between Dusty and Billy, a great lead off to what I think winds up being absolutely one of their best. I don't know. I don't know if it's two, probably not for me, but three or four records.
- [116:03]
Jeff Blair
Can we make the point together that we both came to independently and are upset that we both realized it?
- [116:08]
Guest Speaker
Yes.
- [116:09]
Jeff Blair
So it's Only Love. Andrew and I both love this track and I texted him and I said, man, such a good track and extreme Steve Cropper vibes on It's Only Love. And Andrew says, I had that exact point. And of course, the very first song on the next album is a cover of a song Steve Cropper played on originally. Thank you. The Sam and Dave version. But It's Only Love, man, it just struck me. I'm like, oh, my goodness, this is such Steve Cropper song. And I'm such a Steve Cropper fan. It's so fantastic.
- [116:44]
Scott Bertram
Fantastic. You ain't the only one that it's happened to. It's Only Love. It just Drives me crazy it's only love baby baby.
- [117:29]
Guest Speaker
It yeah. There's also a lot of Keith Richards here. And of course, of course Keith Richards himself looked at Steve Cropper as a major influence. So there's a ton of this Cropperesque rhythm playing. That's something worth mentioning mentioning too. In addition to Frank's drumming and even Dusty's bass playing by the way, being underrated. Billy's ability to do the rhythm parts on these records is really exceptional. He. He absolutely finds the pocket. I mean, you know, going back to Waiting for the Bus where he's got. They're tracked separately, you know, in stereo. Slightly different. Really great rhythm parts there. This record has a lot of examples of that and, and like these great, you know, fuzzy tones coming in to play the solos while he's got these clean tones. Jones playing these. You know, this record is. Has a. More of a country.
- [118:12]
Andrew Fink
It's all about El Diablo in that respect. You're talking about those wonderful instrumental moments.
- [118:17]
Guest Speaker
Yes.
- [118:18]
Andrew Fink
And you listen to the play out of that song. That's to me the peak, the standout on this record.
- [118:23]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, it's got. That's a very deguello esque track by the way, with this palm muting and kind of haunting musical interlude in it.
- [118:36]
Scott Bertram
He was tried, he was found and ready for the news but the brain he would make it didn't turn out so well. And the hombre on Diablo did it laugh that.
- [118:49]
Jeff Blair
Well.
- [119:16]
Guest Speaker
That'S, that's really the consistent thing here. Overall this record I think does sound a little more country than any of the rest of their records. I think I even read that they got some kind of complaints on that from some of their fans.
- [119:26]
Jeff Blair
Yeah, yeah.
- [119:27]
Guest Speaker
I don't get that at all. I think it. I think this record totally owns. So I'm, I'm, I'm. I'm out on really any criticism of this record conceptually. A lot of fr. A lot of Dusty on this record as you mentioned Scott and. And a lot of variety too. So yeah, there are these country songs. It's Only Love has a pretty strong country influence. The steel guitar, uh, uh. Uh. Avalon Hideaway though is this really funky song uh, that uh. Could have fit. Maybe it's not as heavy but it could have fit onto Trace Ombres. So it. A lot of their different influences I think are here. Just a couple others that I want to mention as, as standouts. Pan Am Highway Blues, a great kind of driving track. Literally it's a driving tracks. It's about driving the Pan Am Highway.
- [120:13]
Jeff Blair
Yeah. I love the pedal steel part in there. And then those. Those chunky, punchy chords that Billy sort of interrupts the pedal steel with in those. I think two different times during that track. It's just fun.
- [120:26]
Scott Bertram
Eyes don't do it. Like, I realized I just couldn't find Smile. I'll keep trying on that.
- [121:05]
Guest Speaker
Yep. Absolutely. And then She's a Heartbreaker is sort of a Dead Flowers vibe. Also has Billy kind of singing in a Persona all. It's really good.
- [121:18]
Jeff Blair
Andrew's taking all my tracks. So on. On She's. She's A Heartbreaker influences. And it's the perfect influence for this album for what it is. Jeff, do you know Doug Sah?
- [121:29]
Andrew Fink
Of course.
- [121:30]
Jeff Blair
Okay.
- [121:30]
Andrew Fink
So, yeah, Doug S. I actually knew him first through Sir Douglas Quintet and also his collaborations with Bob Dylan.
- [121:36]
Jeff Blair
Yes. But so there I got to the end of the album and heard She's A Heartbreaker. And then it clicked. Like, there's so much Doug Sahm and those guys had to know each other. So I was big at 60, 70 Sir Douglas and. And from 60 Antonio they had to have been. And, man, there's so much of that Tex Mex Doug Sahm sound that weaves its way through Tejas. That's one of the reasons I love it so much. And you get to the. Just about the very end. She's a heartbreaker and that's the most, I think, Doug Sam thing on the album that the fiddle, the country picked solo and wonderful dusty fills on that song. That's so good.
- [122:11]
Scott Bertram
She's a lover fighter She's a wild ride rider and I'm wondering why she left me such a long time ago She's a heartbreaker She's a love taker but she can break a heart and take all the love she needs well, I heard she got down in Beaumont as she wound up in El Paso she was tough as a boo and then as a rail she could step to the car.
- [123:04]
Andrew Fink
You stole my songs. God darn you. You guys are just thieves. Your pickpocket.
- [123:10]
Guest Speaker
There's only 10 tracks on these records, so it's hard not to talk about the things, you know.
- [123:14]
Andrew Fink
Okay, okay, but here. But here's the funny thing. So again, you know, remember how I'm coming to this band. It's basically a strict chronological jaunt. This is the moment where I realized I was kind of gonna love ZZ Top. And it's before we get to even greater stuff, but this is like their kind of great mid period sort of settled in and something they Take a lot of time off between now and the next record, which I hope you guys can expect explained. And in a way, I guess it does feel a bit like the end of the road because when they come back they're a little bit different. But yeah. Scott, you mentioned the collaborative feel of this album. I get that it sounds right. This is a great potpourri of all the various styles Easy Top had done successfully and none of the big singles. And I guess that's one of the reasons why you can't find it on YouTube. Right. But that's not. That's no reason for its obscurity. Every. Every one of these songs has got something to recommend it. I mean, I think I mentioned earlier El Diablo. It's just a wonderful moody, drift, angry kind of ominous little feel.
- [124:09]
Jeff Blair
Makes you feel so uncomfortable both in terms of the music and the lyrics. Which is. Which begins with. Did you ever hear the story? Which is a great way to begin.
- [124:17]
Andrew Fink
Midnight Rambler. Basically kind of like a text mix. Midnight Rambler.
- [124:21]
Jeff Blair
Right. You know, El Diablo of Mexico who eventually was caught and hanged at the end of the track.
- [124:25]
Guest Speaker
It's just.
- [124:26]
Jeff Blair
Nothing is quite steady.
- [124:29]
Andrew Fink
But you guys didn't even mention Ten Dollar Man. That's just a massive blues rocker. I mean that one. It's kind of them in their old classic mode. And I guess it didn't. I don't know if it a single or whatever, but boy, I. I think that one is impressive as heck. I even like that ending instrumental. That little Asleep in the desert. It's just a nice way to round out the album. Quiet way of. Of. Of sort of rounding things up after. She's a Heartbreaker and. And boy, I. I just love the point you made about Doug song. I didn't make the connection until you mentioned it. And now it's all I can hear. This is a great record. And. And I. You know, even though obviously there's none of these songs are like famous, you know, in terms of like the ZZ Top hits. It's not because this isn't one of their best records.
- [125:29]
Scott Bertram
Sa.
- [125:54]
Andrew Fink
I guess I'm curious. Curious as to why this was the end for three years now. Do either you guys know what happened?
- [126:00]
Guest Speaker
Yes. But I also want to say at the beginning that the three year hiatus is an exaggeration that the band themselves perpetuated. So. So they go out.
- [126:10]
Andrew Fink
So there's a real. There's a myth behind the myth.
- [126:12]
Guest Speaker
Exactly. Yes. So.
- [126:14]
Andrew Fink
Right.
- [126:14]
Guest Speaker
The first thing is like these guys weren't putting records right on top of one Another. Yes, they were consistent, but they weren't like doing like a record every 12 months. I mean it may, it may have been that time time or two. I guess. The first three do come out in 71, 72, 73. Fandango though is 75 and then this one is 76. So yes, they're working consistently, but it's not like they're at like some kind of a furious pace where they're putting out two records in a year like Credence or something. Right. So that's just the first Beach Boys.
- [126:42]
Andrew Fink
Or something like that.
- [126:43]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, right, right. They're, they're at more of a kind of professional pace. And then they go out on the, the worldwide Texas tour, sort of in support, support of Fandango and that. And then Tejas comes out during that tour. And so they basically tour non stop from like the spring of 76 until New Year's Day of 78. So they're on like this 20 month long tour. And the worldwide Texas tour is worth just mentioning for a minute. They're bringing around this huge Texas shaped stage. A live longhorn steer, a live buffalo, vultures.
- [127:15]
Andrew Fink
They're bringing out livestock, like actual live creatures.
- [127:18]
Guest Speaker
100% serious. They had like 15 semi trailers for this tour. They, they got a lot.
- [127:23]
Andrew Fink
They bring a cow out on stage. I can't even believe I'm hearing this. This is something I did not know.
- [127:29]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, like that's amazing.
- [127:30]
Andrew Fink
There's like, imagine that bemused cow listening.
- [127:33]
Guest Speaker
Off for, for, by the way, a year and a half. Right? Like this cow went to like 300.
- [127:38]
Andrew Fink
He, I'm sure he ate well at the very least. Okay.
- [127:41]
Jeff Blair
Wow.
- [127:42]
Guest Speaker
Yes. Yeah. Although judging by Frank's comment on the Mexican food in Tres Hom, they probably ate him too. But they, they. There's a vulture, there's an armadillo. There is a J. They are trying. There's cat.
- [127:53]
Andrew Fink
They're hamming it up.
- [127:54]
Guest Speaker
Right, Absolutely. And, and, and to your point about like the vibe that they're developing, they're wearing like nudie suits and you know, ma match again. It's, it's, it's Billy and Dusty looking like this. Frank is still kind of Frank in the background to some degree, but they're absolutely hamming it up. You know, even like the lyrics to Thunderbird, which, yeah, they didn't write. Although by the way, another unsuccessful lawsuit against Easy Don't Sue Z Top. But all you kids in Texas, you grow so big and tall. That's the message they're trying to carry with the worldwide Texas tour and then supporting an album called Tejas, which is of course just a ancient way of spelling and pronouncing Texas. So that's kind of the. That's where they're up to, I think they played a New Year's, a New Year's Eve show and then actually like a New Year's Eve night show in 78. And then they take a break. And so it's often referred to as a three year break, but it's not really because they're. They're back in the studio for deo in early 79. So it's really like a 15 month break.
- [128:57]
Andrew Fink
Well, it's when they come back, they come back with a record that I think it's fair to say all of us love. And again, this is. This is the recurring theme of political beats today. There are not one, but two classic hit singles on this album that I immediately recognized when I put it on. And I said to myself, huh, so that was a ZZ Top song.
- [129:30]
Scott Bertram
When you wake up in the morning and the light has hurt your head the first thing you do when you get up out of bed is hit that street surrounding and try to meet the masses. Go get yourself some cheap sunglasses.
- [129:59]
Andrew Fink
Of course, the two of them are. I thank you. In cheap sunglasses. This is the point where I'm starting to realize this is a great group. They have ideas and they are getting really pleasantly weird with them as well. This between Tres Hombre and Dick Whale. I don't know. I think I may, maybe I go with Dick Whale as the greatest achievement in ZZ Top's career. I know that you certainly love it as well. Andrew, why don't we give you the first bite?
- [130:25]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. This is the record that I can't. I. I knew from the minute that we started talking about putting this together that this would be one of the two records that I named. So this is my favorite ZZ Top record. I think it's for a number of different reasons, but it's. It. I do think that this is essentially the creative peak. This is easy Top doing things that no one else else ever did, no one else really could do. And not very many people would ever have even attempted some of the things that are that. That this record does.
- [130:53]
Andrew Fink
I also love the fact that it looks like. Like an early Metallica album or maybe like Pantera or Anthrax. It looks like a death metal album cover.
- [131:01]
Guest Speaker
It does.
- [131:02]
Andrew Fink
It's really not at all.
- [131:03]
Guest Speaker
But to Guello, the. The. The word means it's. It's that it's that song that you hear like at the end of a. Of a Western where the. The hero has.
- [131:11]
Andrew Fink
Tragically, that's what Santa Ana famously played when he marched on the Alamo. Bas be no quarter given. We're going to cut all your throats. Which is again, what happens. Big Texas lore there.
- [131:21]
Guest Speaker
So. Right. So the, The. The meaning of dugo is no quarter. The literal translation is something like the slitting of the throat. So it's this. Yeah, this hardcore Texas kind of thing. But it's not that heavy of an album. It's a very funky album. It also has these funny, I think, tongue in cheek straight blues tracks like these. These shuffles that are almost like lighter than a song like Tush or Lagrange and I far better for it.
- [131:50]
Andrew Fink
She Loves My Automobile. Yeah, right.
- [131:52]
Guest Speaker
A song like that or hi Fi Mama. There are these tracks that I think are just kind of. They're. They're sort of an acknowledgement that these days are over. And so if you're doing this song, you got to kind of be self aware about it, you know, if you're doing these, like, straight blues songs, like, people are no longer having hits with these. There's no, you know, Crossroads by Cream is. Is more than 10 years old at this point. So if they're going to do a song that's sort of in a similar vibe, they have to be aware that, like, the world has moved on. And just because they haven't doesn't mean that, you know, they can just have it their.
- [132:37]
Scott Bertram
She don't love me she left my automobile but she would do anything just to slide behind the wheel she said, what's it gonna take for you to lay your top on down? She said, what's it gonna take for you, you lay down?
- [133:05]
Guest Speaker
So they're sort of aware.
- [133:06]
Andrew Fink
The way I think of it is like the almonds. The almonds have broken up or basically are decrepit at this time. The Skynyrd plane crash happened in 78. I mean, the great. Other people, whether they wanted to be lumped in with them or not, I mean, they're the last people standing in that genre. I mean, certainly at that creative level.
- [133:24]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. And the world is kind of an.
- [133:26]
Andrew Fink
Interesting response to that.
- [133:27]
Jeff Blair
Right.
- [133:28]
Guest Speaker
Well, that's. I think that's exactly it, though, is that they are aware of kind of where things are at musically. And so there are examples on this record of meeting that moment of understanding that things are changing while again, being also very aware of where they're coming from. And still, I Think being very true to themselves. So the very start, I thank you is a cover of a 10 or 15 year old SAM and Dave song at that point. But it's like it. If. If Billy had just written different words, it would have been a different song. None of us would have thought like, this is. This is. I thank you. I mean, I suppose the chorus come coming back around, but the. The arrangement is this very slick, very cool, really, really well recorded version that doesn't sound like they're doing a Stax song until you kind of wake up to what's happening and realize that that's what this is.
- [134:27]
Scott Bertram
And I thank you. You didn't have to make it like you did, but you didn't. But you did. And I thank you. All my life I've been short chain without your love baby It's a crying shame and now I know other fellows talking about when they say that they didn't turn out. I wanna thank you. I wanna thank you.
- [135:04]
Guest Speaker
And that's the kind of tone I think that they really set with this record.
- [135:09]
Jeff Blair
It's fantastic. It's fantastic. It's a great record. I was semi surprised that I was trying to figure out which two songs Jeff was going to say or the ones he knew and didn't realize were a ZZ Top. And he left off the best one, the one that most people know. I thank you. Great. Cheap sunglasses, great. But Deguyo's a peak because it has for me the most ZZ Top song imaginable in I'm Bad, I'm nationwide.
- [135:36]
Guest Speaker
My favorite song.
- [135:37]
Jeff Blair
It's my favorite ZZ Top song.
- [135:39]
Andrew Fink
I'm way more pathetic than that. I didn't even know this song existed prior to we booking this episode. So there you go. It's. It's even sadder than that.
- [135:46]
Guest Speaker
Have you read Huckleberry?
- [135:47]
Andrew Fink
Never heard it before. Yeah. Yes, I have. Have. Why?
- [135:52]
Guest Speaker
Because in terms of ZZ Top fandom, like not not knowing and loving this song is like somebody who is lucky enough to not yet have read Huckleberry Finn. You know, it's like, hey. Oh, you haven't.
- [136:00]
Andrew Fink
I. I have. I have many notes, my friend. So we. We have things to discuss. Okay.
- [136:08]
Jeff Blair
But.
- [136:08]
Andrew Fink
Yes. God, continue.
- [136:09]
Jeff Blair
It's. Yeah, it's. I think it's both the most ZZ Top song and my favorite ZZ Top song. If you know best is kind of a qualitative. I mean, but I love it from. From the beginning to the end. Those turnarounds with those kind of backwards sounding.
- [136:29]
Guest Speaker
That's it.
- [136:29]
Andrew Fink
That's the killer hook, that little guitar right at the end of every verse. Yes.
- [136:34]
Jeff Blair
It's such a heavy boogie track. It's got an unusual rhythm from Frank too. He's playing something weird. Those vocals are warped a little bit. Gibbons had. Had been in Europe and had seen some things being done with pitch shifters. And so you begin to hear that on this album and then in subsequent albums too. But the way they pitch shift that vocal just a little, just to warp it just a little bit. I love the end. Billy's trading licks with himself and the left channel and the right channel, bouncing, bouncing back and forth. And those lyrics that set that image, that ZZ Top thing, you know, three different verses. He's rolling down the road in his cold blue steel or his new Cadillac or his V8 Ford forward he's got.
- [137:17]
Guest Speaker
He's got a fine fox, fine fox.
- [137:21]
Jeff Blair
Three more in the back. Short dresses high heeled shoes like all of that. The vivid picture that he paints. And Jeff's right, you know, we don't talk a ton about Billy Gibbon's lyrics, but when he gets it, boy, does he get it right. And the marriage of the track and the lyrics and delivery and the hooks. Everything about On Bad on Nationwide works that it serves as both a mission statement and an anchor for what very well could be their very best recording.
- [138:04]
Scott Bertram
Short Dresses wearing Spiky or.
- [138:38]
Andrew Fink
Hey, Scott, I'm just gonna. I'm gonna say just to. Just to follow on from that, I'll get my thought out about the other famous song, one of those two I mentioned, which is Cheap Sunglasses. Because that absolutely clicks with what you said about when Billy Gibbons nails a lyric, he nails a lyric. That girl with her cheap sunglasses and she looks a little trashy. She looks really fiery. She looks a little dangerous. That is one of those songs again, as I told you, I'd it on the radio and I always liked it. And I think that's a good song. Who does that? I never knew until last month. And then I knew that was a ZZ Top song. And it was so fun because it was like, I already like this group. I'm liking them more. I'm liking them more. Holy crap, they wrote that? And now it makes all the sense in the world to me. I feel like a fool for not having put two and two together. But yes, that is a song, by the way, that works not just because of the lyrics, but because that music is so left field. There's a part on Cheap Sunglasses that. Where it goes into the instrumental section where it has that little slinky panther strut with the keyboards. Keyboards not normally being a part of the ZZ Top sound. But it's that keyboard section that, that, that, I don't know, you suddenly see that girl with a cheap dress and cheap sunglasses and big spray sprayed up hair. It's giant hair because it's the early 80s or late 70s. And yeah boy, you, you get it. And, and again, it's not like it's not Nobel prize winning literature, but boy, is.
- [141:00]
Guest Speaker
Works totally. Yeah. These are the two titans of this record. Those two songs, they both have this. Oh again like kind of this being true to, you know, where ZZ Top is coming from while pushing the envelope. Both really funky at different, different times. The Cheap Sunglasses riff has this really characteristic aspect of it which is Billy's playing probably with one of his fingers, an open string, while playing the riff on other strings on the guitar which gives it this droning and, and again kind of dark quality. That's really the, the only, the only heavy moment on this record is either that outro section with that kind of octave guitar thing going on on, on Bam Nationwide or probably even more so the solo section on Cheap Sunglasses which has like some pinch harmonics and, and it's a little bit of a dirtier guitar tone. It's not a very heavy record, like I said. But that's, that's probably the heaviest moment. But fundamentally these, this album is funky. That's really, I think the, the thing that sets this one apart from.
- [142:05]
Andrew Fink
Except when it's weird, except when it's completely metrically, metrically irregular. Because of course here's the other thing. Like before Political Beats began, you know, both Scott and Andrew asked me whether I would be able to spot the Zappa tribute, the Frank Zappa tribute on this record. And of course now that they pointed out, obviously it is. But I just thought it was another example of ZZ Top going off in the left field because Billy Gibbons like secretly likes Prague Rock or something like that. And it's Manic Mechanic. This is not a single, this is not a hit, certainly ain't the Blues. But it's one of my favorite ZZ Top songs of all time. Now it's totally different from everything they've done before, but it actually, you know, these, these sort of like stop start, metrically irregular signatures. And of course even the song itself, you know, it begins and then there's like a tape splice and then boom, it begins again. You already know what it's going to be about. It's Some sort of technological thing. And it's about his obsession with cars, I'd imagine. But musically, what is hilarious is because they said it was a Zappa thing. I thought they were trying to say, oh, this sounds like Joe's Garage, which everybody knows. Joe's Garage Knows. Knows about the Central Scrutinizer. Who's the. The voiceover that Zappa does in this husky. Like, I am the Central Scrutinizer. Well, that's how Billy Gibbons sings this song. He doesn't sing it. He just makes announcements, basically. And I don't know what his direct inspiration was, because it couldn't have been Zappa. Those things actually turned out to be exactly contemporaneous. 1979. So, I mean, I don't know if there was a specific tribute involved there, but what I do know is that it's the weirdest ZZ Top track in their entire design discography. And also. And this is maybe a tribute to them as a band, one of their best.
- [144:06]
Scott Bertram
Insist at that price I can't resist. That's right. That's right. That's right.
- [144:31]
Jeff Blair
I want to talk about two other tracks. Something about Billy Gibbons that I noticed as you intake all these songs that I love is he's not afraid to just do something, do it once, give it a try, and do it the best he can. Right? Like that. Like the. The. The. The. The who track. Like nothing. Like nothing. Like that elsewhere. It just did. Let's do this, do it once. Okay. So loading down the street to me is Billy's attempt to write a Bruce Springsteen song lyrically, from the title of the song down to the way he introduces us to Lola and Jimmy and JoJo and Ms. Ivy in the leopard skirt. And some nights are lonely Some nights are lazy and he paints this scene, you know, the scene this. This. This landscape in the way that Springsteen would in the late 70s. And it's just like, all right, I'm gonna try to do this song this way and we'll try it once, and I'm probably not gonna do it again, but we're gonna do it. And I think it's great. I mean, I really like that. But to me, it's so. I don't say obvious, but it is. It's just like, this is clearly Billy trying to write in a Springsteen way and give it a shot and put it on the record, and it's great.
- [145:41]
Scott Bertram
There's Jimmy and Georgia. There's Kim and Keith Mean and there's little GB Everybody wants to be their fool It's a Screen scene and a la every week Walk over some red and blue your head and get low down in the streets.
- [146:20]
Jeff Blair
The last or the other song I wanted to mention. And by the way, deguelo is another data point. Call it people's evidence BB that 1979 is the greatest year in music history. We don't even mention this record on the 1979 episode we did on the exclusive.
- [146:39]
Andrew Fink
I'll be thinking I. Well, I have my. Yeah, that was an ignoramus. But what are yours?
- [146:43]
Jeff Blair
But again, 79. This is 79. It's great, great, great. And the very last track on this record is special because I think it. It sort of. It tries to capture the zeitgeist of. Of the year. Like it's a very different sounding ZZ Top track. But it fits in with the sound of. Of. Of pop and rock at that time. Esther Be the One I really love this. It jumped out at me the first time I remember listening back to Deguayo. Very mysterious feel. A different sound, but a sound that fits in with other things. It has these little bass breaks of like Motown. Motown bass breaks that Dusty plays in various turnarounds of the song. Wonderful hooks, you know. Esther Be the One it is just really this funky. Andrew pointed out before. Mysterious minor key difference.
- [147:39]
Guest Speaker
The guitar is kind of crying through it. Right, Those descending parts.
- [147:43]
Jeff Blair
Yes. And. And I love it. And I mean it's not my favorite track. That's. I'm Bad, I'm nationwide but I love looking. These little experiments. They'd be more experimental in the future. But I think these little things really work. All over Deguello.
- [148:08]
Scott Bertram
Ain't real if she gets you in her corner don't let her mess you around and don't let her blow you away if you can't dig on Esther you turn and leave town Cuz if you think she's bad you ought to see her sister Esther's only one but she's not the only one one she'll get you with a gun at the moon.
- [148:53]
Guest Speaker
I wanted to mention before we go that there are these blues tracks. I. I guess I did mention this before including A cover of Dust My Broom which if I didn't actually. I like it A. I mean obviously if anybody's earned the right to do an Elmore James cover, it's ZZ Toppin Billy Gibbons.
- [149:09]
Andrew Fink
Interesting job of it than. You know, Jeremy Spencer and Fleetwood Mac. I can tell you that. We talked about that on our episode back in the day.
- [149:15]
Guest Speaker
But they had to, right? Because again it's 1979. Like the Fleetwood Mac is doing this at the same time. Like that. That again, like that exact track. Dust My Room.
- [149:23]
Andrew Fink
Clearly, when Mac is on Cocaine Pop Store, they're doing Tusk in 1979. They're totally different now. And it's been 10 years on from that era. It's so long.
- [149:32]
Guest Speaker
And even this era of the Allman Brothers wouldn't have done that song. Although they would have in 16. Nine. Right. Or cream would have done it. Except they, I think, were broken up in 68. But, you know, like, this song doesn't make sense on a record that went platinum in 1979. But I do think that there's an awareness of that in all of these blues recordings like she Loves My Automobile and hi Fi Mama. It has these horns that are played by these guys like Billy, Frank and Dusty play the saxophones. And it does not sound like a virtuoso performance to me. But again, I think that's. They're aware of that. Like, they could have had the tower power horns come in and do these tracks.
- [150:08]
Andrew Fink
They could have booked anybody they wanted to, but they didn't want to.
- [150:11]
Jeff Blair
Right?
- [150:11]
Guest Speaker
That wasn't the point. Right, exactly. And I think they're also like, they're having fun. They're. They have made it as rock stars long. You know, they've taken this big break during which, by the way, Dusty worked at an airport as a baggage handler. And. And I think Billy spent most of it like in Europe, which is, you know, it's. Again, it's kind of this like Billy's public Persona and his actual interest. I. I've been working on this theory. I told Scott Jeff that Billy probably has an IQ of like 155. And he's been sort of covering that up that his entire career. And yet you look like what he.
- [150:46]
Andrew Fink
Does in his spare time is he like reads histories of the ancient Hapsburgs or something like that.
- [150:51]
Guest Speaker
I mean, he has Europe and explores Wittenberg or something. Evidently he now has like a world class collection of. Of. Of like African art. And he spends a lot of his time in Europe and things like that. So, yes, I do think that there's sort of the intelligence.
- [151:04]
Andrew Fink
The intelligence of the band is just. It's one of those things like a lot of other Southern bands. Same thing with Skynyrd. You play stupid. But boy, there's so much craft behind this stuff. And that's again, you know, they don't care about. If you underestimate them at the work, you know, the proof shows over time.
- [151:23]
Guest Speaker
Final point here. A fool for your stocking. I guess it's the last. It's the last, like great slow blues, at least for a long time from this band. It's sort of like the perfect version of Just Got Back from Babies. Like the perfected version of it. It's dark, it's haunting, it's got amazing guitar tone. It sounds to me like Billy's playing this on a hollow body, electric. I don't know if that's true, but it's got this different tone from a lot of his other stuff. It's really good. You know the lyrics. I'm a fool for your stockings. It's about a. A guy who's. It says, you know, you say you had enough now you're coming back for more. He's singing to this woman. So it seems like it's sort of an on again, off again. There are some slightly like, confusing lyrics. And I found one of those websites where people try to explain the lyrics of songs and this guy kind of tries to walk through it. Like there's this part where you sort of get the vibe. Like he. Billy's saying that his girlfriend. He says, I don't mind when you send money and bring your girlfriends home with you. How could one be so thoughtless to try and handle less than 2? I think you kind of get the vibe, but the lyrics don't totally, like make sense, you know, word by word. So the first guy I see on this record, on this lyrics website, he's kind of trying to walk you through this and try to make sense of it. And then the second comments from a guy who just says, sounds like a fetish. I think that guy probably added a little more closely, which I guess we'll see when we get to the Eliminator music videos too, by the way. But. But a great blues track, regardless of the slightly goofy lyrics.
- [152:57]
Scott Bertram
Now I'm telling everybody this seems too good to be true Sweet things can always get sweeter I don't mind it how about you? Yes, it's all I said yes, yes, yes, it is. That's all right I may not want to admit it I'm just a fool for your stockings I believe.
- [153:38]
Guest Speaker
I think we've said we said it needs said here, which is that creatively this is just as good as they ever got, really. About as good as anybody ever got. I do think this is their first platinum selling record despite not having like a truly massive individual radio hit. And really neither I.
- [153:54]
Andrew Fink
Neither I thank you nor Chief Sunglasses were like big singles. I Just assumed they were because I've heard them on the radio since I was a child.
- [154:00]
Guest Speaker
I don't have the. The numbers in front of me. I don't think either of them made it to the top 40, maybe, but.
- [154:05]
Jeff Blair
I think he was 34.
- [154:06]
Guest Speaker
Okay.
- [154:07]
Jeff Blair
There you go. Really?
- [154:08]
Scott Bertram
They didn't.
- [154:08]
Andrew Fink
They didn't get that? Oh, wow.
- [154:10]
Guest Speaker
Y. Yeah. But, you know, again, even that song, like the Outro, has this clean slide playing, I think also on a Stratocaster. That's just. It's. It's a little different. It's really cool. And. And from start to end, this is my favorite record.
- [154:24]
Andrew Fink
Okay, so with all that said, what do we think of ZZ Top's Beach Party album? I. I know it's not the beach on the COVID of El Loco. It's actually the desert. But it. I do inevitably think of it as their sort of lighter beach album. It's the weird one that comes in between.
- [154:42]
Guest Speaker
Scott's got the best.
- [154:43]
Jeff Blair
Pretty tall stools.
- [154:44]
Andrew Fink
Scott. Okay, well, you know what? You start then.
- [154:46]
Jeff Blair
Well, first of all, it's a beach album. It begins with those 60s surf rock drums from Frank.
- [155:26]
Scott Bertram
She's the one that really get down when she boogie she do the Tuesday boogie.
- [155:42]
Jeff Blair
But look, here is El Loco. El Loco is Spanish for the crazy. That is the best way to understand El Loco. It is ZZ Topps party album. It is the album where all the weird ideas are just thrown against the wall. It's the one with the.
- [156:04]
Andrew Fink
Scott, you're gonna laugh. You know what it is? This is their TOR motto by. Yes.
- [156:08]
Jeff Blair
I like that way you praise that.
- [156:10]
Andrew Fink
As a fun album.
- [156:12]
Jeff Blair
It's the album with the most. Not profane lyrics, but the least disguised sexual.
- [156:19]
Guest Speaker
Right.
- [156:20]
Jeff Blair
It's the album with the strangest ideas to date. It's the album that has a song and clearly insp. Inspired by Devo. It's the album that has a song where the verses are completely unintelligible. It's the album that has. It's the album that has very clear tributes to, like, 50s doo wop and then, like, 60s rockabilly standing right next to each other. And I would say, like, a song that reminds me of Jackson Brown, even the very next one. It's just the weirdest stuff thrown into the crazy. It's all thrown together. It has two songs that virtually everyone knows, and Tube Snake Boogie and Pearl Necklace, which, by the way, are those songs that are the least.
- [157:04]
Andrew Fink
Yeah, we don't need to explain what they're about. I think you figured it out.
- [157:07]
Guest Speaker
They're the. They're the third and fourth most raunchy lyrics on this record.
- [157:11]
Jeff Blair
Yeah. Yeah, but it all works. And you know, Jeff, you're kind of right. Like tomato. I convinced you and Brad to kind of take. It's just that they're having fun. They're smiling, they're laughing. Laughing along with you. ZZ Top. And this actually, I think, helps bridge that gap between the band's image in the 70s and what the band's image would be with Eliminator, in which it is kind of fun and loose and winking and a smile. El Loco is that transitionary period that includes some great music, but also includes their wackiest, strangest ideas.
- [157:52]
Scott Bertram
I'm gonna find me a groovy little hippie pet I'm gonna find me a groovy little hippie bear I work a hundred beds now From a bottom town Whoa, I'll be feeling blessed yeah I'm want to find me a blind mama In a jeep with a German shepherd by the side I'm going to find me a blinder mama this is a.
- [158:30]
Guest Speaker
Record that I thought I disliked. I. I always liked Tube Snake Boogie. I thought it was. That's a great track. Could have, you know, a. Yes, the recording. The. The. It is sonically different, but the song itself could have been on, like any previous ZZ Top record. There's nothing. There's nothing terribly weird about it from a ZZ Top perspective. It does have that. Yes, I agree. The surf drum tones. I think it also has kind of a retro sounding guitar tone. I told Scott. It reminds me of the tone that Brian May uses on Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Not that the songs are. Are terribly similar, but just the vibe that I kind of.
- [159:03]
Andrew Fink
Oh, absolutely. And again, all goes back to my idea of it as a beach party album, right?
- [159:08]
Guest Speaker
Yes. Or Party on the Patio, maybe, but. But I now love this record and I think of it as. As closer to those 70s records than I thought of it as like the beginning of the 80s era. And obviously for the reasons that. That Scott mentioned, the Devo influence, this is pro. I don't know for sure. I. I think this is a digital. No, actually I think this is an analog recording, but very high quality and. And obviously taking advantage of the abilities to. To record things differently that you had 1981 versus 71. Or at least certainly different abilities to do those things at those times. I sort of think that the band. Look, I don't have like a great quote or anything on this. I kind of think that this Band was maybe coming to what would have been an end point if they hadn't just started doing different and weird stuff. In other words, they had sort of exhausted the blues rock. I mean, what else are they going to do? They weren't going to do Trace Hombres again. So you have to do something if you're going to stick together and keep doing these things. I sort of wonder if they were sort of at a point where Billy was going to be doing some version of these things no matter what, and, and the band sticking with it and, and putting these things out made it probably better. Probably injected some of the discipline that every artist needs in order to kind of reach their, their. Their greatest potential, you know, the external constraints and whatnot. But I wound up actually lo.
- [160:40]
Scott Bertram
She carried a load I love a loom Something about the way she makes it feel. Maybe please, maybe please I want to drive you home.
- [161:19]
Guest Speaker
Jeff. I want to give you the opportunity to sort of elaborate, especially since, by the way, both Scott and Jeff know this era of music better than I do. I mean, you guys, you guys are only being like born around this time. So it's not one. Yeah. It's not because you grew up with it, but you guys.
- [161:34]
Andrew Fink
Year negative one for. Oh, yeah. Year one, yes.
- [161:37]
Guest Speaker
But you've developed more opinions about this era of music than I have. So you, you probably can frame kind of where these things are coming from or what other things you're hearing better than I can.
- [161:47]
Andrew Fink
Well, I'll say this. El Loco is like a little treasure, a miniature gem for me to have discovered in Political Beats history. It's like kind of the equivalent experience of going to the record store and pulling some dusty old used vinyl out of the racks and saying, ah, to hell with it. I'm going to try this famous radio Radio bands earlier stuff, see what they come up with. It is not the best ZZ Top record. It certainly wasn't the biggest selling one. You can understand why Deguello is a much better record and Eliminator conquered the world. However, it's just one of those wonderful, weird pit stops you find in a truly good band's discography where they're like, you know, in between, like, you know, two peaks and they're doing something crazy and experimental that doesn't quite work, but it shows you where they were and where, where they're going. I really like this sort of light fade out and I like the way that you summarize it as sort of like their transitional record moving on from the blues rock stop to Find something else. There are songs on this record that are. Their debts to New Wave are so transparently obvious that they make me laugh. Now, Pearl Necklace is of course, a song I'd never heard. You guys knew it. I don't know if it gets. It certainly doesn't get played on the radio around here. And I wonder why. The lyrics are not subtle. I mean. I mean, I gotta tell you, they really.
- [163:05]
Jeff Blair
It's a pretty staple song on classic rock formats. Pearl. Pearl Necklace.
- [163:10]
Andrew Fink
I don't hear it on xrt. It's banned from their playlists. Apparently. We're blue noses around here. But you know what? The thing that makes me laugh. I am convinced Talking Heads stole the groove from that song for Wild, Wild Life, which is like the only good song on true stories about six years later in 1986. It's the same kind of groove. And that just tells you that it was in tune with the New Wave sympathies of the time.
- [163:56]
Scott Bertram
I don't know what to tell, know what to say. Everything got funky last night she was really bombed and I was really blown away. Until I asked you what she wanted. This is what she had to say. A pearl necklace she want a pearl necklace she want a pearl necklace Here on this mountaintop I got some wild wildlife I got some news to tell wow.
- [164:57]
Andrew Fink
In fact, even ones that would develop later on. And then there's weird. Like Leela is just this crazy surfy ballad that is, again, not very ZZ Toppy. It's nothing to do with lagrange or Tush, but I love it. And the funniest, strangest one is Heaven, Hell or Houston, which again, brings back more of that Central Scrutinizer style voiceover stuff. Even though it's basically an instrumental, it's a fascinating instrumental. And I guess it's the bizarrest travelogue of that region you could ever hope for. I really like this record, even though you would never defend it as like one of their greatest. It's just like a really fascinating little corner. A little like, you know, an eddy in the pool where you can see, you know, whether we're piecing things together for what was about to happen next. And I'm really glad it exists.
- [165:46]
Scott Bertram
So farewell, my darling. Perhaps we'll meet again on some sin.
- [165:53]
Jeff Blair
Infested street corner in Houston, Texas. Couple tracks to talk about. 10 foot pole. All right, so this is the one I mentioned. Lyrics are completely unintelligible eligible. No idea what anyone's saying. I don't even know if they know if there's a standard set of lyrics each time they play it. The one thing I say about 10 foot pole and I think I want to drive you home, which is the very song beforehand Andrew and I were texting. These guys, especially Billy, are really obsessed with tone. And that comes to the forefront on El Loco and will be even more important of course, on. On Eliminator. But like ten Foot Pole, the way the drums hit and the snare sound, this is where they start to really pay attention to how those songs are structured tonally. And that comes through to me most obvious on like 10 foot pole.
- [166:55]
Guest Speaker
Certainly.
- [167:23]
Scott Bertram
I wouldn't tattoo with a damn.
- [167:43]
Jeff Blair
And then the two songs I alluded to earlier, I think are really interesting are right after each other. Don't tease me and it's so hard don't tease me Andrea texted and said, is this as close to Huey Lewis as ZZ Top got? I'm like, it's not really Huey, but I think it's a friend to Huey. This, this sounds to me.
- [168:01]
Andrew Fink
I like it a lot. By the way I noted it myself.
- [168:03]
Jeff Blair
It sounds to me like a Dave Edmonds like 60s Rockabilly Field. Especially with the very sharp tone that Gibbons has on the solo. It's very Edmonds like solo. But by the end, you know what they're playing. What he's playing is I know that they're friends with Fabulous Thunderbirds. End of the song sounds like he's playing Jimmy Vaughn style. Jimmy Vaughn style solo on the outro of Don't Tease Me. That's exactly the way he's playing. And I'm a huge, huge Jimmy Vaughn fan, so I love that. And then the very next song, it's so Hard. Very unusual in their canon. Again, these sort of just sui generis songs. Nothing else is like it's so hard it's another time where the. Where the wall comes down. It's a sincere song about a breakup and sort of finding your way through life. You work so long every day and night Trying everything that seems so right When When a love falls a heart must break and I think either look back or look forward or maybe both. You look back. This is the Jack like I feel a little Jackson Brown in the style and lyrically and you point forward and this is the sort of thing that like John John Mayer is doing. This very blues based guitar married to this very almost soft rock bass, soft rock tones. And then leaving the heart, leaving his heart on stage lyrically and at the same time ripping off these amazing solos. There's so many weird so Many disparate elements that come together to make a loco. It's a fun album to try to analyze, I think, for that reason.
- [170:39]
Scott Bertram
Oh, I had a cry My heartbreak will cool this time Won't die so hard, baby it's so hard to take it's so hard baby it's so hard to take.
- [171:27]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. Really thoughtful guitar playing, that one. I told you. Reminds me me of Bobby Womack.
- [171:31]
Jeff Blair
Yes.
- [171:31]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Different influences, for sure, coming to the. To the four on this record. Many of the songs you mentioned are the ones that I would mention as well, for much the same reason. So I don't need to. To repeat it or. Or belabor it. Don't tease me. That. That Jimmy Vaugh thing you're talking about. If you. If Billy were here right now and you asked him to name like five guitar players, almost certainly he would name Jimmy Vaugh down in the street. He's namechecking these guys. There's Jimmy and Jojo. I don't know who JoJo is. I couldn't figure that out. But there's Kim and Keith.
- [172:00]
Andrew Fink
So maybe Joe, maybe Jojo was the man who thought he was a woman, but he was another man. Get back.
- [172:07]
Guest Speaker
Maybe, maybe. But Jimmy is definitely Jimmy Vaughn. Kim is Kim Wilson. Keith is. Is the guitar player in Fabulous Thunderbirds. So there's no. No doubt there's a connection there. I want to drive you home. I absolutely love that song. Do not read the lyrics. They. They sound and are illegal. Don't. Don't do that. But. And then Heaven, Hell or Houston. It's the funniest song. It's.
- [172:33]
Andrew Fink
Yeah, it's so fun.
- [172:34]
Guest Speaker
The narrator is like this faux sophisticated wino living on. He's handing out. He says he's taking a job as a public relations man. Handing out handbills.
- [172:47]
Andrew Fink
Houston's version of Tom Waits. Tom Waits did this famously in la. For all the musicians hanging around, he'd be at the Travel Motel that they all stayed in. He'd be like, oh, let me show you a dark la.
- [172:58]
Guest Speaker
You know. Yeah.
- [172:58]
Andrew Fink
And this is how. In Hell or Houston.
- [173:00]
Guest Speaker
The. The last thing to mention, I think, is that the lot. You can find good, high quality video of this band at around this time. 1980. 1981. 1982. There are a couple recorded. There's one, I think, from Rock Pa in 1980 that's really good. I think there's like a Paris recording in 81 or 82. And there's one from Dortmund in 82. And they've got the beards by the way that that happened during that hiatus. The long beards are grown during the hiatus. A. Although Frank Beard doesn't wear a beard, there is a picture of him on the inside of Deguello with a scraggly ish beard.
- [173:34]
Andrew Fink
Yes, scraggly beard. And then he cut it off. And that's just one of these things. Like is the image really, are they thinking hard about this, like, okay, your name's Beard, so you're the guy who goes clean shaven. Like, it's just funny.
- [173:45]
Guest Speaker
He also, I think he said he got this from Muhammad Ali, but he said he's too, too pretty to wear a beard. But of course his name is Beard. And so this is mentioned time after time after time. And they were, by the way, always aware. And Bill Ham was a big part of this, like the image, the marketing, these things were always relevant to them.
- [174:03]
Andrew Fink
And become ever more so soon.
- [174:05]
Guest Speaker
Absolutely right. They become victims of their own success maybe at this in the near future. But. But that stuff is not accidental. The, the coolness and. And like on this new wave thing like these, these recordings from this time, they're not in cowboy boots. They might be in a cowboy hat, although Billy's wearing like a bowler hat a lot for these recordings. And Frank has a beret on, or not Frank Dusty, which I'm glad that that didn't last very long for him because he looks goofy. But this new wave thing, like, you can even see them working through this a little bit. And Billy is wearing like saucony shoes or something. He's not in. In lucchese cowboy boots. And. And so these things are. Are definitely. It's not. Again, it's like when you think you are hearing something, you probably are because although it is often kind of under the surface, Billy is. And the band. But again, Billy is the. Is the driving force here, I think I said. To say that he's the straw that stirs the drink is probably an understatement. He's absolutely the bartender here putting the whole thing together. But if you think you're hearing it, you probably are because he's got an encyclopedia comedic knowledge of music. There was an interview from maybe a little earlier than this, but the late 70s where some. Some British rock journalists, I don't remember who it was, was interviewing him. And he started asking about influences and he names a few of them and then he says. And then Billy started listing blues musicians that I had never heard of. And it was too long of a list to keep track of, but it's there, you know, and. And that's what he's like, is he just knows everything and he tries to work pieces of it in, throughout the career, but really acutely on this, in this time frame.
- [175:45]
Andrew Fink
So I guess that brings us to the big question is that how did they square the circle? How do they learn to coexist both as a blues based band with all these. These guitarists that Billy Gibbons is indebted to, and also make it in the 1980s, the slick, programmed, corporate, soulless 1980s. Because that I think, really kind of rather unexpectedly, despite how much we all really enjoyed these records prior up until this point and even have been surprised, I was certainly at least surprised by the way they started evolving with Deguello into sort of new wave places. What happens in 1983 with Eliminator is basically what puts them in the same kind of company for a fair bit of time in the mid-80s with Bruce Springsteen and Prince and Madonna and all of the world conquering stars. This brings us to Eliminator and. And this is the one that I can still admit I have a lot of childhood fondness for, because as I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, it's like injecting heroin. Memories, sweet, sweet memories into my veins of sitting around with my dad. My dad was talking about how cool the guys in ZZ Top were. Look at them, Jeff. They're coming in to save that nerd. They're bailing him out. And I was thinking, yeah, that could be me one day. And of course I'm not thinking I'm the guitarist, I'm the nerd. Saved, right? But that's the funny thing is they became a brand, a meme. A meme. Before memes were known as things. And I guess I dismissed the music coming back to it. I find there's just so much to love. I still have a weird kind of grudge against Eliminator for the simple reason that I now realize it completely threw me off course about the nature of this group. That's an irrational reason to dislike it. I forgot it's formal merits. There's just a ton of fantastic music here. Yeah, 80s style contoured for the 80s. But it's never going to be my favorite. And I know you guys both want to make some fierce defenses of it.
- [178:44]
Scott Bertram
She's my baby. She's my baby. Yeah.
- [179:02]
Jeff Blair
I do, I think so. Eliminator is the album in which there's almost nothing to say because everyone has heard half the album 800 times. And yet I think there's a lot to say about Eliminator, especially upon. Upon reflection. Where do we want to start? Yeah, set things up a little bit, I guess. So they come and do an Eliminator, and by this point, Billy is working alone on a lot of this stuff. Frank had gone through rehab and was, I think, was surfing or something to sort of. To sort of help them through the rehab process. Dusty would kind of come, I believe.
- [179:39]
Andrew Fink
Is what it was.
- [179:39]
Guest Speaker
A lot of golf. Yeah.
- [179:40]
Jeff Blair
Yeah. And. And this guy named Lyndon Hudson comes into the fold. And Lyndon Hudson has some of this equipment, the sequencers, the drum machines. And Lyndon Hudson's a guy who talks to Billy and says, how about we try this? How about you try that? Lyndon Hudson tells Billy, hey, you know, hit songs, they're like 124 beats per minute. You guys are too slow. Pick up the pace. And if you notice, every song on Eliminator that became a hit is 120, 125, 127 beats, perhaps per minute. It's fast, fast, fast. Tempo is faster. Clearly more. Since clearly more drum machines. I'm going to lay out a theory, an argument, maybe. Let Andrew begin. The problem with Eliminator is that it is too perfect. They took this idea or this sort of approach of blending blues guitar with this new wave sound of sequencers and drum machines, and on this very first album in which it's implemented, took it to. Not the extreme, but took it to the apex. I mean, you listen back to how these songs come together, the marriage between the fake drums and the sequencers and. And the synths married to these songs and the way that Billy plays and solos, it's perfect.
- [181:12]
Andrew Fink
You can't push it kind of reminds me of the problem that Boston had with the first album. Once you've done Boston, how do you redo Boston?
- [181:19]
Jeff Blair
You can't push it further. And so we'll get to this in a minute. But they spend the rest of the decade and part of the next decade really straining against what this box they've sort of built themselves by. By Eliminator being so good and taking that approach to music to its logical end, to the apex point. This is. I mean, everyone say it's a perfect album. I think the last two songs don't quite measure up to the rest of the album, but I could say something good about virtually everything here. And there are little bits and pieces that pop in that really make things special. I'll say a few things after Andrew, but I think. Think that it's too. You know, upon review and listening back and hearing where it Fits in. I don't think it's quite the departure that people would say, oh, it's nothing like what they did previously. You could see them moving in this direction. Billy was always interested in new technology and trying new things at least once, so it's not that big of a surprise. The surprise to me is it doesn't sound dated. Afterburner sounds dated. Afterburner sounds like, oh, this is 1985. This just sounds like.
- [182:21]
Andrew Fink
I'm shocked at how current this sounded to me. Just coming back to it now, I.
- [182:25]
Jeff Blair
Don'T think it sounds dated at all. I think it sounds like, again, the apex point of if you're trying to do something this way, they did it the best you possibly could.
- [183:21]
Guest Speaker
I think that you guys probably deserve some credit in my. For me. In helping me to appreciate music that is recorded with the 80s gated snare drum. Because I hate that sound so much, and I resent.
- [183:38]
Andrew Fink
I like it. Peter Gabriel. You got to get into Peter Gabriel, my friend.
- [183:40]
Guest Speaker
Well, I. I do think it's probably. I. I could probably. If I look back through your. Your episodes, you probably find the one where I was sort of like, all right, I can get over it because this. Rest of this is so good. And so I always held it against them that they did this. And. And, yeah, we're going to talk about After Burner. Like, I was so offended when I heard Stages for the first time. None of this, though, is like that. It. It is not offensive to an Azizy Top fan of the 80s. Yes, it's different. Some of that is this. This, as you said, the technological stuff, the gear is different. Unfortunately, from this point forward, I don't think you ever hear another clean guitar tone on Aziz Easy Top record.
- [184:15]
Jeff Blair
Yeah. So, I mean, like, they're even on the most recent, like, Elfritura, which everyone says comeback. And yes, it's big. It's like a yes, but. Yes, but you're still not getting. And I wrote that down exactly. As long as you're making this point. Yeah, I'm listening to all those, you know, Triple X and those albums. I listen to them again to make sure I wasn't missing anything. You miss that clean guitar completely. Everything is mechanized and dirty and grungy and like that. That riff that you can hear in your mind immediately from I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide, that cuts through everything. Super clean. You never hear that again.
- [184:51]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. One of the few appearances of an acoustic even then, which I'm sure there's not another example of in the later discography so there are ways in which like this is the beginning of the end. But it's a great first chapter to the, you know, the. I was gonna say the second half to the second 80% or whatever this, you know, the 75%. The band's history that started in 1983. But the music is awesome. The. Although you get tired of it maybe by the third record of it. The guitar tones are actually great. And so the things that there are to kind of criticize about this era of ZZ Top are not really because of Eliminator. They're because of things that happen because of Eliminator. And we mentioned at the beginning, this is one of those records that sold a jibb jillion. I mean, I don't know, the number is like 11 million.
- [185:40]
Jeff Blair
11 million. Yeah.
- [185:41]
Guest Speaker
Obviously people don't buy records in the same way now, so who knows where they'd be if. If they were, but. So it's not quite Back in Black, but it is, it's in that kind of stratosphere of like people don't. You can't predict when something like this is going to happen. The music videos are part of it. And what's funny about that is I guess the. I'm blanking on the name of the guy who directed them, whatever, whoever he was. I think it's. Isn't it Randy Newman's brother or cousin. Cousin, I think directed these things. And, and the, the way he put it is he was going to put pretty women in the videos because they were such ugly guys.
- [186:17]
Jeff Blair
So it's this Tim Newman.
- [186:19]
Guest Speaker
There you go. I think it's. I think it's Random's cousin. And they look, they've got these beards and they're dusty and surrounded by at this point 50 year old cars that are not 90 years old. And they look like they are in their 50s.
- [186:36]
Jeff Blair
Ancient. 34. 34 years old.
- [186:39]
Guest Speaker
Billy didn't even turn 34 till December of 83. He's 33, probably 32. When he's like beginning to work these things out. So just not because they're old, that it was so different, you know, I mean it kind of seems like that, that they were. But they were actually, you know, more or less still within, well within the range in which you can write successful pop rock music.
- [186:58]
Scott Bertram
Hey baby, what you wanna do now that I love you and I said we're through all along you've been running round but you ain't the only game in town I love you but you're fine I left you tilly in your body but you left me on another kind you hit me and this is why you just a dog I'm sc Hey, baby when we got it on you made me feel like there another just don't bury me like you're so naive I'm cring up I'm going to take my leave I know you love when you.
- [187:49]
Guest Speaker
Which I guess is something that they demonstrated. But. But he did it in a way that. That, again, was kind of truer to their origins than I think people now sometimes give them credit for. On this record. It begins with I. I do think that give me all your love and is the best track on this record. The. The drums and then this incredible punch from the guitar that kick it off. It's such a good vibe. And yes, it's got these. It's. It's the way it is because of this idea. We want to write these songs at this everything. But that one comes across as an. As a great song. I do think it's. I think it's maybe a little more uneven than you do, Scott. I, I. There are songs before the last couple that I, I don't dig. I, I can't listen to. I got the six. It's.
- [188:36]
Jeff Blair
It's. It's an ACDC rip shot down in flames. You stole it.
- [188:43]
Guest Speaker
Dang it.
- [188:44]
Andrew Fink
Yes.
- [188:44]
Guest Speaker
Sorry. Well, I'll. I'll turn it over to you here then, Jeff. But, but I do. I love the hits. I don't like Got me under pressure very much.
- [188:51]
Jeff Blair
You're wrong. That's the best. That's the best.
- [188:53]
Guest Speaker
You're wrong.
- [188:53]
Andrew Fink
You're very wrong. I was about to tell you that.
- [188:56]
Guest Speaker
I will say I. You might remember when we talk about the almonds, like I said, like, it's not that I think Rambling man is bad. I just, I don't. I just don't dig it the same way. That's kind of how I am with got me under Pressure. I've never, I've never dug that song, but that is one that's. There's a very famous story about that, which is. That song was recorded before Frank and Dusty ever heard it.
- [189:17]
Jeff Blair
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
- [189:18]
Guest Speaker
And now I've heard some people say that, like, oh, and they. And then they had, like, work. I've never actually seen, like, Frank complaining about this. I do think that he said something like, who. That, you know, who the hell is this drummer? When he heard it. And of course, there wasn't a drummer. It was a drum machine. So it was L. Hudson, I suppose, or Billy.
- [189:56]
Scott Bertram
It'S got me under pressure it's got me under pressure it's got me under pressure.
- [190:19]
Jeff Blair
But.
- [190:19]
Guest Speaker
But as I said about El Loco, like, I kind of think that just creatively like Billy was gonna go here and the question was whether the band was going to come with.
- [190:26]
Andrew Fink
Else would go along. Yeah.
- [190:27]
Guest Speaker
And I. I've never gotten the impression that Frank and Dusty really cared like that. They had a big problem album with this era and I'm sure they didn't after they sold 11 million records and became worth probably 50 to 100 million dollars thanks to the. The, you know, records that they sold and tours that they had in the 80s.
- [190:43]
Andrew Fink
And I think a nice kidney shaped pool in the backyard savs a lot of ego. I'm just telling you.
- [190:49]
Jeff Blair
If I'm not mistaken, and this might have been a way to soothe some feelings. I believe all the songs on Eliminator are credited to all three band members and not just Billy, as had been on previous records. I think they're all credited to Hill, Gibbons and Beard, which means they all share in those songwriting royalties, which would make anyone feel a lot better about only playing cymbals on I Got the Six or something.
- [191:15]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, I think that's true. Yeah.
- [191:17]
Andrew Fink
And of course, this is why Eliminator does inevitably stand apart and everything after this. It almost feels like a bit of a coda to ZZ Top just because it becomes a bit more mechanized. And again, the way I relate to this record is primarily through my childhood memories. And so I still remember Legs. I still remember Sharp Dressed Ma'am where my dad was ooing and eyeing at that awesome car. We called the car the quote, the Eliminator. I have no idea.
- [191:47]
Jeff Blair
Yeah.
- [191:47]
Andrew Fink
Is that okay? It's called Good. I'm glad to know it because that's what I called it. So, like, when that car rolls up and all the guys with the beard step out, they've got the sunglasses, they've got the hats. They look like the Blues Brothers bas Tex Mex style. Except. And that. You know, it's funny, I just made that connection right now on the fly. It is. They're basically Blues Brothers. But the Tex Max version playing this is sort of like, you know, corporate rock thing. I loved it. I. My problem with, you know, Give Me All My Loving is that it sounds just like Sharp Dressed Man. It's that one with 150bpm or whatever the ticker time is. You could just medley those songs. They basically have the same feel to them, the same riff. And it's all about being at that same pace and meter and basically structure as well.
- [192:31]
Scott Bertram
Give me all your loving all your hugs and kisses too Give me all your loving don't let up.
- [193:13]
Andrew Fink
But every one of them individually that comes on, I don't mind it. It's just that it doesn't have quite the character that it once did. And that's by the reason, by the way, is why I like got me under Pressure. Because that one has a lot of character. Maybe because it was recorded just basically by Billy himself, but I really do dig that one. I don't hate the album. I just don't think it's one of their greatest records, though. I mean, might have had all the hits, but it just. Now that I know what else they were up to prior to this, it doesn't quite rank. Scott.
- [193:44]
Jeff Blair
The. The two songs that I think are most similar actually are Got me under Pressure and Dirty Dog from the. From the second side of the record. Those have very similar driving beats, quite growling riffs. I love them both, but I think that those are the. Those are the most similar two songs on the record. But yet, you know, to Jeff's point about the 125 beats per minute, I think the slower things actually work to counteract that. So I need you tonight, that's a key song on this record. That's the third or fourth. Fourth song on the record. And you need that to sort of come down from again, that frenzy of opening activity. And it's six plus minutes. It's dark, it's slow, it sets the tone. It's unusual for ZC Toppin that the vocal, the vocals really carry the melody. There's nothing behind it. You know, the, the. Even the. The bass and drum just sort of exists to sort of. I don't want to say plot along, but they're just carrying it along. And it's Billy's voice that carries a melody through I need you tonight and just has this sort of chugging rhythm behind it. But I love that sort of dark, slow, mysterious feel to I need you tonight.
- [195:02]
Scott Bertram
But that just doesn't do me. If I can't get you soon I'm calling for someone like you I just want to do love too Baby babe I need you tonight.
- [195:38]
Jeff Blair
And the other song that I think there are probably very mixed opinions on, I came around to really love TV dinners. I like TV dinners. So I hear TV dinners. And what I. What I told Andrew is if you speed this up maybe 30%, it's a B52s track in terms of theme, like the weird thing of just talking about eating TV dinners and he likes the enchiladas and the teriyaki 2 and the chicken at the sauce is not too blue. But the way the song is structured with this very constant, insistent little keyboard chords.
- [196:10]
Guest Speaker
Yeah.
- [196:11]
Jeff Blair
That are just laying behind everything else. It's slow, but if you speed that up about 30% and have Fred Schneider sing instead, that's pretty.
- [196:19]
Andrew Fink
Where's Fred?
- [196:20]
Jeff Blair
That's what you need pretty much a B52 song. And I really like that they sort of. That Billy went in that direction with one of the songs on this record.
- [196:28]
Guest Speaker
So it achieves the weirdness that you. You need to have to have a really complete.
- [196:33]
Andrew Fink
That I occupies.
- [196:34]
Jeff Blair
Yeah.
- [196:34]
Andrew Fink
The weird track slot.
- [196:37]
Jeff Blair
It pulls out Loco.
- [196:49]
Scott Bertram
TV dinners they really can't be be I like them frozen don't you understand? I throw them in and wave them and I'm a friend oh, yeah.
- [197:26]
Guest Speaker
My note is. Is that you, Weird Al? That's the. The note.
- [197:30]
Andrew Fink
There you go.
- [197:30]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, you.
- [197:32]
Jeff Blair
Did you write a lot about food?
- [197:34]
Guest Speaker
Yes, That's a good point.
- [197:35]
Andrew Fink
Right?
- [197:36]
Guest Speaker
Yes.
- [197:36]
Jeff Blair
But, yeah, I mean, Thug is a song that eventually they had to admit that Hudson wrote alone.
- [197:43]
Andrew Fink
Finally lost a lawsuit.
- [197:44]
Jeff Blair
Finally lost a lot.
- [197:45]
Guest Speaker
Oh, that's true.
- [197:45]
Jeff Blair
Yeah. But that's just the synth bass kind of. You could tell was. It was. Was a studio creation. But you guys have talked about the rest of this. I mean, legs, give me all your loving Sharp Dressed man. I love them all. But, yeah, for me, the track here has got me under pressure.
- [198:01]
Guest Speaker
Very quick minor defense of. I could if I could Only Flag her down because it's the most traditional blues track on this one.
- [198:08]
Jeff Blair
Yes.
- [198:08]
Guest Speaker
And so it's the one that you could kind of see on pretty much any previous, you know, version of that on pretty much any ZZ Top record. But I do want to say, although I've emphasized the. The. The connection to the past on this one, which I think is sometimes. Sometimes underestimated, it is absolutely still a total vibe shift in a number of ways. We mentioned, like, the guitar tones never come back. The album titles are different now. The. The. The image is different now. The fuzzy guitars, though, that's when all this. That stuff starts. Even the changing guitars, like I mentioned before, you know, most of the previous live footage you can find of these guys. Billy's playing the same guitar the entire 12, 13 years. That is never true. Again. He. He's really out of the pocket on that from here on out. And so the. The change is kind of complete from this point forward in in all of these different ways, which, again, to. To a degree, they become sort of the victims of their own success on some of these things. You know, they're not necessarily better for some of these changes. But. But I also do maintain that you might not have even had a ZZ Top if you hadn't experienced this. You know, what was happening in the blues at this time? Well, there's traditional blues being recorded at Alligator in Chicago.
- [199:22]
Andrew Fink
Stevie Ray Von making his name at this time.
- [199:25]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, Yep, that stuff is happening. But it's not like you. You just. You weren't going to get that.
- [199:32]
Andrew Fink
I wasn't making money.
- [199:33]
Guest Speaker
No. Right. I mean, yeah, like, Stevie is notable, but Stevie is like, maybe playing his biggest events, like at Radio City, not at the Astrodome. So if you're facing that choice, and I think if you're Billy, you are this. This was always going to be the direction that he wanted to take this group.
- [199:52]
Andrew Fink
And then he stepped on the afterburners. So we now get to the Boston phase of ZZ Top's career. And. And, and in many, many ways, both in repetition and in terms of album covering, this is the first one that I actually really had a poor reaction to. I'll admit it. The follow up to eliminators came in 85. And this one, again, Sleeping Bag, apparently was a big hit. I never heard it. It went and it faded and I. I don't even hear it on the radio now. So you guys are both very familiar with it. But, yeah, this is going back to the. Well, a second time. Doubling down on what Mr. Made you a big hit. And I will not lie, I'm not a fan at all of this music. Maybe you guys have something nice you can say about it.
- [200:54]
Scott Bertram
I can't stop rocking no, I can't stop rocking no matter what.
- [201:13]
Jeff Blair
I think it's the logical thing to do.
- [201:17]
Guest Speaker
Yeah.
- [201:18]
Andrew Fink
Sense in the world.
- [201:19]
Jeff Blair
You can't go back. You're not going back. Play 12 Bar Blues. And again, I think Eliminator is just the. The top point you can possibly have with this method. But you're not gonna stop. So after Burner becomes this exercise in leaning even more heavily into the synths, drum tracks, the splash, you know, synth spl.
- [201:52]
Scott Bertram
Right there up by the wood. I was lying down thinking my best.
- [202:18]
Jeff Blair
And unfortunately recycling, which would be the next album, but recycling these ideas and riffs. There's a lot of stuff on Afterburner that comes through and like, they did that already. There's a. There's a.
- [202:30]
Andrew Fink
Hate it. It just seems the first Time they disappointed me. There's nothing new.
- [202:33]
Jeff Blair
There's a guitar move on. On Planet of Women which comes right from Pearl Necklace Digging.
- [202:40]
Guest Speaker
Also got me under pressure on that one.
- [202:42]
Jeff Blair
Yeah, the exact dipping low in the lap of luxury is a blatant give me all your love and rewrite. I mean it's the same thing. And I think it's Woke up with wood where the outro is quoting from Give me all your loving. Those moves that Gibbons is doing, the outro of that track. So you hear them already repeating themselves and trying to replicate success from Eliminator with songs that are not as strong. Jeff mentioned Boston and I eventually made that comparison in our text thread. I'm trying to figure out, trying to figure out, trying to figure out. And a. The COVID with them blasting off into the heavens with the afterburner, but just the sound completely. There's a stretch here. Can't stop rock, can't stop rocking is Boston. Can't stop rocking is completely the way Boston sounded third stage. And afterwards in my notes with a.
- [203:30]
Guest Speaker
Random Albert Collins quote again in the guitar playing.
- [203:33]
Jeff Blair
Yeah, it's the. It's the most generic thing you come up with. I got the message the first 20 seconds. I. Rush Limbaugh used it as a. As a bed. And I always assumed that it was some 80s third rate Mr. Mr. Sort of band. Turns out it's easy, tough. Now the thing is, the rest of the song is not terrible, but you got to get past that first 20 seconds to get to the rest of the song. And there's a lot of. A lot of tracks like that on here. It starts out, look, Sleeping bag slaps. I love Sleeping bag. I love it. I love the first 20 seconds. The first 20 seconds I listen to over and over and over where you have a drum machine start which is then replaced by a second drum machine on top of the drum machine. Ellie's synth hits and splashes the song the first 20 seconds reminds me of most is actually Rocket from Herbie Hancock from just a couple of years previously with the drums and the synths and the splash the. In the. And I think the song itself is actually very good too. The way that begins too, where he hits the riff and nothing happens, continues. The second time he hits the riff everything jumps in place. I just love that first 20 seconds of that's that.
- [204:41]
Andrew Fink
That to me. I actually. My note is that that's a trick that he stole from Manic Mechanic where the song starts and then it stops and then it restarts again. But I'd like it on this one too.
- [205:19]
Scott Bertram
It on around. While it's on the ground. Spread out, lay it on down. Super sleeping back. Super sleeping back. You're fighting up the dark, baby. Don't be shy.
- [205:47]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, man. Mechanic. They use that car starting or failing to start noise. And in this one, it's like that, that like clanky synth sound. For some reason I'm. I'm relating that to the like menu music on some 90s version of NBA Jam. Yeah. Or maybe some other game of that era. But I agree that I think Sleeping Bag is like the only really good song on this album. I don't. I can't really defend most of the rest of it and honestly, a lot of it is difficult to distinguish from one another. And that becomes unfortunately a characteristic these late albums is that they pretty much from the start to the end of the. The albums, they might have one or two variations, but for the most part, like six or seven of the songs are kind of the same song. Now, one thing that I think is worth saying is that they did not get what Jeff, I think you've referred to in the past as CDITIs until at least the mid-90s. I think maybe not even until Rhythm mean. I think Antenna might not be that bad.
- [206:42]
Jeff Blair
Rhythm's not bad either. I think it's mescalero. That's like 65.
- [206:46]
Guest Speaker
Super bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But those albums are like at least say maybe 45 minutes long. These are still like under 40 minutes. So at least you have that going for it. I. I'll say this Stages, if it.
- [206:56]
Andrew Fink
You'd be shocked. You'd be shocked at how valuable that is. I have a note here just saying at least they still keep it brief. Yes, I really appreciate that they're still.
- [207:04]
Guest Speaker
Trying to fit in. And by the way they do this album, which we're all saying, like, we don't really like very much, sold 5 million copies. So.
- [207:10]
Andrew Fink
Yeah, it was huge.
- [207:11]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, this. This would have been the biggest record for almost any band in the world ever, except that they happen to do Eliminator. So there's a huge, A huge selling record and, and a lot of people, like, if you, you know, if you just kind of like look around the Internet, lots of people say this is one of their favorites. I will say, I think Stages is I hated, hated, hated that song the first time I heard it. And I think the video of it like has them playing live. But also maybe with some of the spaceman stuff going on, I don't really remember, but I was so annoyed and offended that this was supposed to be a ZZ Top song when it just doesn't sound like a ZZ Top song, like hardly at all. Now, head mean the context that I, I have now about where Billy was at creatively and everything, I don't think it's as disassociated as I did. And I don't hate it as much as I do. It's just if it was somebody else's song, I might even like it. But it, it just stands out so, so strangely. And then Rough Boy was also a pretty big hit. I actually think that's kind of a good song. I like that one. So I suppose Sleeping Bag and Rough Boy and then pretty much moving on from, from this album for me.
- [208:53]
Andrew Fink
I mean, and so this is, I, I don't know. Do you have any final thoughts, Scott.
- [208:57]
Jeff Blair
On it on after Burer? No.
- [208:59]
Andrew Fink
Yeah, no, I would, I would imagine not. We're going to leave it behind. Okay, so like, this is again, you talk about the Bostonish stuff, the album covers. This one looks like one. And then they do the six pack remix thing. I already mentioned how misbegotten that was. And then again, right at the beginning of the show, we talked about how ZZ Top's first album was a very auspiciously named album, said, hey, we're here to stay. We got things, things to say. Well, what do you do when the band that said that we're here to stay and we've got more to add, comes up with an album called Recycler? I, I, I cannot emphasize enough. And boy, you guys, you guys are the serious fans. But to me, this is just a record I've gone through three times. And boy, it lives up to the content of the title. There's nothing terrible about it, nothing offensive. Double back is kind of fun. But this is to me where I find them just out of gas. But again, I'm new to all of this.
- [209:54]
Jeff Blair
You're not wrong. The thing about Recycler, they're all five years, it's 1990. 1985 was afterburner. And for a band that is so obsessed with tone, had been so obsessed with tone, Recycler is so flat, so flat, they can't kick anything loose. But the thing about recycler is 40% of this album went on to be huge rock radio hits. Now you don't hear them now, they're totally forgotten. But at the time, 1990, ZZ Top was still a big thing and you had double back from Back to the Future. Three Concrete and Steel, Give it up, which is a double back rewrite, and then My Head's in Mississippi. Three of those tracks were number one on the album Rock Radio Tracks, Billboard album Rock Radio Tracks. The fourth was played a ton. I remember hearing all those songs on the radio. That's 40% of the album that were big hits at the time. And yet, except for Double Back, which people remember from Back to the Future 3, no one could hum those songs these days. They have completely disappeared. And there was an appetite for the songs then, but I think they did not hold up well at all. You know, they try to do TV dinners with a song called Burger man, right. It's just. It just comes off as stupid and silly. There's one called Decision or Collision, which is another redone. Got me under pressure. It just got me under pressure a different way. I think there's an album track called Tell it, which is decent, but I mean, yes, the weird way of naming this album after the method with which they put it together. So it's too on the nose.
- [211:50]
Scott Bertram
So. Well, it wasn't the same. Now it goes to show Sometimes you never can tell I'm looking high and low don't know where to go I got to double back, my friend the only way to find what I left behind Got some double back again Double back again.
- [212:21]
Guest Speaker
It'S worth kind of remarking here that, Jeff, you. What did you refer to the six pack as? Did you say pointless or regrettable or something?
- [212:30]
Andrew Fink
I said misbegotten.
- [212:32]
Guest Speaker
I think then again, that was probably Bill Ham trying to make some money and that. That is still working, you know, and so that's kind of part of. I. I think what's going on here is like, they are. Yeah, okay. Creatively, they're. I mean, I do think they're trying to find a little bit creatively. I mean, some of this stuff winds up sounding super dated now, but probably, I suppose in 1990 would have sounded reasonably contemporary, even like these names like Tell it or Give It Up. Like those kind of sound like somebody talking in like a Spike Lee movie or something. So I, you know, it. Look, it's. It's. It's not a great record. I like some of the songs. I've actually really come around in 2000 blues, which almost has a Nothing Else Matters vibe to it. So I kind of like that one. My Heads in Mississippi is probably the one that like a ZZ Top fan would be the most fond of of.
- [213:19]
Jeff Blair
It's the most blues. It is, you know, blues based song.
- [213:22]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, there's still like some amount of synth on that one and double back and probably some fake drums too, but there's also definitely real drums and. And so those. Those kind of have. Have become somewhat canonical. They're also on the greatest hits record, which probably helps. I wound up liking Give It Up a lot because the lyrics, I think are the most reminiscent of those great, like, 70s lyrics. You know, I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide, or. Or those kind of somewhat braggadocious ones. Although there's a little bit of humility in the. In Give it up where it starts out. I bet the derby and I won by a nose. I bet Vegas and they took my clothes. So it's. It's kind of fun and. And throwback in that sense. But overall it. It does have this problem of kind of sounding. All sounding the same too. And that's. That's not. That's not very good. So it's a little hard to. To love this record, but I don't hate it.
- [214:16]
Scott Bertram
In love down in Mexico Thunderbird wine's the only way to go I've been in love 10,000 times all you got to do is remember my life Give it up, give it up, baby, give it up. You gotta give it up, baby Tell me where is it? Come on, give it up, give it up, baby, give it up. You gotta give it up, baby and tell me where it's at get it.
- [215:03]
Guest Speaker
I probably like it a little bit better than Afterburner, but these are both clearly, you know, serious steps down from eliminator and really very little like, what drew me to ZZ Top in the first place.
- [215:16]
Jeff Blair
And boy, oh boy, you think about bad record contracts that were handed out at the time when money was overflowing in the record industry. REM's kind of pointed to, like, what do they give? I can't remember what the label they ended up signing with, you know, what did they give them after they left their label and kind of fell apart?
- [215:32]
Andrew Fink
Warner Brothers resigned them. It was after, like, Bill Barry left. And it's just like there was nothing great after that.
- [215:38]
Jeff Blair
Well, this is even worse because. Because ZCTOP leaves their label and joins RCA after they sold a billion records in the 80s, they got a burn off. The Greatest Hits was, I think, the last album they owed the previous label. And so their first record for the new label, rca, ready to sell its antenna, which dies almost immediately upon release. I don't know how much money RCA lost on that easy top record contract, but it had to be a lot, a lot of money. Antenna comes out in 94. And essentially every album from here on out, the story is, hey, it's easy Top getting back to their blues roots.
- [216:19]
Andrew Fink
They.
- [216:19]
Jeff Blair
They don't sound that way anymore. They're bluesy and then you listen to it and you're like, sounds the same. What are you talking about? You don't have the title of the.
- [216:27]
Andrew Fink
Album, like One Foot in the Blues. And I'm like, not, not really. Maybe a toe.
- [216:32]
Guest Speaker
That's just a collection. Yeah, that's, that's a bunch of old stuff.
- [216:35]
Jeff Blair
Yeah, but I mean, for, for Antenn, they, they haven't abandoned this mechanical grind of the past few records. There's a few songs, I think Fuzzbox Voodoo is, is, is okay, but even on that song, you have these very fake cymbal crashes that are clearly mechanized and not played by a real live human being. Or if they are, they're recorded terribly. I will say this album does contain two of my favorite post eliminator afterburner tracks, and they're the first two on the record. I think Pincushion is a good song and they still play that live. Do a pretty good job with it. And the second track is one of the only places you can escape from this just mountain of noise they begin creating in this era. It's one called Breakaway, this very slow blues song set to this kind of syncopated rhythm track that I like a lot. And it's the only time you sort of, you can breathe these days around, Around a ZZ Top album. I think those two tracks work, but the rest of the album is still far too indebted to what they were doing on Afterburner and Antenna.
- [217:59]
Scott Bertram
Oh, yeah, we were working it through. Maybe we had a groove moving to a moment when we make our movement. What it happen? Something happen. And I'm not lying about the.
- [218:37]
Guest Speaker
There's also a lot of pretty close recycling on this one, I think. Girl in a T Shirt, I want to say it's. Tell it that it sounds a lot like. So, yeah, there, I mean, ZZ Top doing a song called pch, which you'd think would be fun. Like if ZZ Top's gonna do a Pacific Coast Highway.
- [218:52]
Andrew Fink
Pan American Highway. Pacific Coast Highway.
- [218:55]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, it's not really fun at all. So that's, yeah. There's also one towards the end. I think on this one, I, I, I'm not even sure. I, I cannot remember what most of these songs sound like despite listening to this record like three or four times to get ready for this Thing. And I've listened to it before. Pin cushion. I can. And I've. You know, I agree that that one's pretty good. One of them at the end almost has like a. I can't quite get which 90s band, but like. Almost like a Sugar Ray guitar part or something.
- [219:22]
Jeff Blair
Oh, is that the one where it kind of sounds like you too?
- [219:25]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, that's probably closer. Probably. But like a very 90s. Yeah. Or third eye blind was another band that came to mind. None of these quite hits it, but yeah, YouTube might. Might be the one. But it. Yeah, it's. Overall, there's nothing creative here. There's a reason that this. I. I am very confident that if you go to a used record shop, this CD will be on the shelf. And the reason is no one's ever bought it.
- [219:52]
Andrew Fink
Yeah, I mean, I have to say that for me, this entire era is sort of like this Dakota, the post. You know, the post Relevance era. And I. And I know there are probably some hardcore ZZ Top fans that'll be very angry at me. I ask you by way of forgiveness to understand that my real acquaintance with this group happened exactly a month ago. So maybe, maybe, just maybe somewhere down the line I'll feel differently. But I. I look at all these next few albums and I just don't know if I have much of anything to say I. About them. I think the. I think actually the one that I might try to defend a little bit is, is There's Rhythm. The next one, 1996 title track, is pretty good. It's a little bluesy thing. It's got a nice, nasty little crunch to the guitar work. But even there, even on that, there's a problem with it. It's too crisp. Something about this foul sounds like it was played to a click track. It doesn't feel quite, I guess, authentic enough. You know, they say, oh, always going back to our roots. Well, everything's just a bit too clean in studio sounding to be kind of like what ZZ Tops actual roots were. They were a messier band back in the day and they had to sort of develop their way into the studio craft. It's a lot more difficult to unlearn those technological habits once you've gotten them.
- [221:24]
Scott Bertram
Solid Silver Beat Machine Broken down is funking up my magazine. I'd rather even know I left.
- [221:52]
Andrew Fink
And so that's why, like, oh, I just don't really have too much myself to say about any of these further records now. If you guys do, I don't want to stand on, you know, I don't want to stomp on your. Your wonderful feelings. But this is the point where they sort of descend into genericness for me. It's not to take anything away from what they. They achieved. But you know, I'm not hearing them on any kind of trend at this point. Maybe just repriing some of the greatest hits from their past.
- [222:18]
Guest Speaker
No, I. I have nothing different to say about rhythm. Mean same thing. The first track or 2h have elements that I think are nice and. And maybe a little bit of a revival, but it doesn't. It's not completed. There's this problem now of the songs are all the same pace like were in the 80s maybe, but it's not 124 beats a minute. It's like 85 beats a minute. And they're like these kind of plotting very heavy blues tracks with Frank playing with his hi hat open. That's. It's the same issue for me on. On Antenna Rhythmine, Triple X, Mescalero. They all have this problem. I. Triple X has like one track that's kind of a nice blues on this fearless boogie. But you don't need a whole album, you know, to have that one decent track. Mescalero has some different things happening. I mean, I guess it should since to Scott's earlier point it's like 17 songs or something and it is like 65 minutes probably. So it's not a good album in that sense. There are some different things happening on it though. Like there's a marimba and I'm not saying you need to go out and get this record because of that, but at least you are getting a little bit of aural variation. There's a song what would you do that's almost a little reminiscent of those Trace on Trace on Bra tracks we talked about where it's like a different kind of just a different vibe. But overall this group of records, I. I basically only go back to them to confirm my previous opinion.
- [223:52]
Jeff Blair
Do you want to defend La Futura at all? This is the. The last studio recording from ZCT Top 2012. Rick Rubin's involved, so he does bring his Rick Rubin touch to resurrecting careers that have been dormant for a little while. And again a lot of it's returned to form and blues and it got really good reviews. I listened to it again for this, you know, leading up to the episode and there's a couple things, you know, the Got to get Paid, which is a cover of some hip hop songs. Right. Would imagine suggested it works pretty well, Chartreuse, actually.
- [224:28]
Guest Speaker
I don't think so.
- [224:28]
Jeff Blair
Don't think so.
- [224:29]
Guest Speaker
No, I think it's Billy. Billy has some appetite for hip hop. Yeah. Oh, okay.
- [224:33]
Scott Bertram
I got 25 light as well, don't you know? 25 fly diamonds in my ring 25 12s in the trunks to bang.
- [224:48]
Jeff Blair
Oh.
- [224:51]
Scott Bertram
Making move. Making 25 mil gonna knock off a big time 99 Seville.
- [225:00]
Andrew Fink
Come on.
- [225:02]
Scott Bertram
25 liners on my gosh, to get paid. I got 25 mothers on my Dress up, dress up, you know I got to get paid.
- [225:25]
Jeff Blair
Chartreuse is the second track, and that's Tush turned Inside Out. It's very similar as you talk about recycling. I mean, it works, but it's just. It's just Tush turned Inside out one called Heartache and Blue. That is okay. Flying High sounds like modern AC dc, which kind of makes sense because Reuben produced Ball Breaker for AC DC in front of Use Some of the Same Tricks.
- [225:43]
Andrew Fink
One of my least favorite albums ever.
- [225:45]
Jeff Blair
As well, Ball Breaker. But I. I went in hoping to hear what everyone else heard, and I still didn't hear it.
- [225:53]
Guest Speaker
Here's my defense of it. All right, so in terms of production, there's less layering and. And, you know, extra pieces. The guitars are okay, got. I Got to Get Paid as a counter to this. It is still Frank with the open High. High hat and very heavy, but I like it. It's like, actually a good version. Version of that, I think.
- [226:10]
Jeff Blair
And after you mentioned that, I cannot stop hearing Frank playing the open hi hat on every single track.
- [226:15]
Guest Speaker
Is as though he. Yeah, it's pretty bad. But I mean, he's an awesome drummer. Like, you know, if you ever. If he ever listens to this, which evidently does happen to you guys. To understand, I'm not hating on Frank Beard so much as just. This is not the. What makes Frank Beard, like the. An interesting drummer, so. But I Got To Get Paid as like, the best version of that. Like, yeah, it's kind of like the openers to these previous records we've been talking about as, like, it's kind of the best of this style and then the rest of the record sort of falls off. But I. I like Got to Get Paid a lot. I think it's probably the best of those. I don't like Chart Truths. I don't like Consumption. Like, yes, those are the repetitive, like, they are kind of repeats. A track like over you is sort of reminiscent of those good early ballads like Sh Got Cold and Hot, Blue and Righteous. So I do think that it's more reminiscent of those of those earlier ones. The only, the only other track that I I, I think Hardick and Blue have a Little Mercy. Those are kind of of truly old style blues. Now they're not fast and funky, but they're kind of slow and funky. And so in that sense it's, I do think it's more evocative of old Z Top.
- [227:32]
Scott Bertram
That's what I say. Way I'm crumbling all around in a wrangle Switch with you you love me love my heart again Bl.
- [228:14]
Guest Speaker
The production is better. It's way cleaner. And in the song the songs are better. These are mostly, by the way, like Billy co writing with some songwriter person.
- [228:24]
Jeff Blair
Some country all star writers. There's a lot of co writes on this, that kind of thing.
- [228:28]
Guest Speaker
All right. And the last thing I want to mention here is, is there is a David Rawlings Gillian Welch cover, which I gotta say is maybe the least likely thing to have ever happened on a ZZ Top record. In terms of covers, I think that one's actually quite good. It's very heavy. The, the original version is like a bluegrass song. And this one is too. It's too easy Billy inserts It's too easy Manana, which is a little cheesy. But anyway. Do I defend it as though I think it is actually a return to the 70s? No. Do I defend it as like if they had been doing this through the 90s, would I be listening to confirm my dislike or rather to maybe like listen to the two or three tracks that I do really like? It's more like that. So I don't think it's a great record. But it's a, it is a, it is something of an improvement and, and something of a return compared with the four records between Recycler and La Futura.
- [229:23]
Andrew Fink
Well, where does that leave us, Scott? Do we want to discuss this Raw?
- [229:26]
Jeff Blair
Yes, I do. Only. But make sure you're sitting down because I'm going to recommend a live album.
- [229:32]
Andrew Fink
Your live album. You actually have some time.
- [229:34]
Jeff Blair
I think it's an important part of the legacy and an important part Andrew alluded to earlier, at least in portions, especially post Eliminator. There's this need for backing tracks to help flesh out some of the sound or help with the songs or a little synth part here or there. Raw is the sound of Frank Beard, Dusty Hill and Billy Gibbons getting on stage and playing together and still showing in 21:20. 21, 2022. Whenever it was recorded, they were doing a soundtrack for little old band from Texas documentary about the band. And they were supposed to play like a song, like, get on stage, play all songs. We have some footage. And they just played a set, played 13, 14 songs. And that's what ends up on Raw. And what I like about this, that I. That usually does not attract me to live albums or the reason why it's different is because it really does show a different side of the band. It is. It is what the title says. It is Raw. It is them plugged into the amps. It is exactly what we hear. It is that the three guys having a little bit of banter between songs sometimes because. Because there's no crowd whatsoever. They just got on a stage with nobody around to play these songs.
- [230:45]
Andrew Fink
It was a sound check. Apparently they showed up and like, you know, like they were going to film later on that day. And so they just sent, you know, as I said, they started to play and it was. They were with the whole, you know.
- [230:55]
Jeff Blair
45 minutes, but just got paid. Heard it on the X Lagrange Jeffrey U. Thunderbird is here. I'm bad Nationwide Blue Jean Blues, which we talked about earlier, is this example of how well Billy can still. Still on Raw, play this wonderful blues track, Certified Blues from the first album. If you want to hear what they sounded like before Dusty passed away a couple of years ago, how they were still an effective and muscular live band. The way they interact with each other on stage that you perhaps don't get to hear in other places. I really like Raw. That's a really good live record.
- [231:47]
Scott Bertram
I got the half a shot.
- [231:51]
Jeff Blair
For.
- [231:52]
Scott Bertram
What you got is like a boomerang. I need a repeat. Give it all your loving all your heart Give me all your loving don't let up what you went through. You got to whip it up and hit me like a T.
- [232:27]
Guest Speaker
The other thing I'd say that's interesting. They. They've released a fair amount of live stuff in the last 20 years or so as they have stopped putting out records. I think what Mescalara was 03. Laura is 12 and that's it. They do evidently have a record in the can, or at least portions of it, including some. So Dusty died in 2021. Frank and Billy are still around, and then their guitar tech, Elwood Francis has taken over as the bass player.
- [232:54]
Jeff Blair
And he does have the beard.
- [232:55]
Guest Speaker
He does have a beard, yes. Yeah. And I'm sure he's a. I, I'm. I'm very confident that the guy who's been Dusty and Billy's guitar tech for the last 30 some years or whatever.
- [233:05]
Jeff Blair
And Dusty asked that they continue with him. So blessed.
- [233:08]
Guest Speaker
So it's all kind of kosher. But they, they have a recording that. That features some Dusty I guess and some. Now I haven't seen anything about when this is going to come out. No idea what it. What we should expect it to sound like. Billy's done some solo records lately, which was always verboten when Bill Ham was in charge or at least when he was producing them. They never sat in with people, they never guessed it. There's like a tribute to the 13th floor elevators I think that they played on in like 1990. And that's like one of the very few places you can find sort of an extraneous ZZ Top track or appearance even by Billy in the last 20 years. He's done a ton of that. So there's other material out there. But the only thing that they've been putting out as easy Top other than La Futura is this live material. I do think this is the only one of those that I would like sort of send somebody to. I mean maybe listen to one of the other ones just to kind of see what it sounds like when they are playing live or whatever. But none of them is like remarkable live live music. This is interesting among other reasons because of the song choices. So Certified Blues is on this. I don't think that's something that anybody who wasn't like a pretty hardcore ZZ Top fan might have expected. So I, I like the, the song choice Brown Sugar Just Got Paid. These, these really, you know, throwback tracks along with Give me All your Loving and Legs Tube Snake Boogie. It does have this problem that I think a lot of older acts especially maybe older blues based acts have of slowing tempos down as they get older. I think not because they're old so much as like they're enjoying it. Like they. It's fun to play Thunder taking their times with.
- [234:40]
Andrew Fink
They're taking their time with it after having always played at same pace and rate, you know, on, on the tour for the cheering throngs. And they're like, yeah, let me explore this song. But of course the truth is you kind of want to hear Give me, Give me all your loving at the original pace.
- [234:54]
Guest Speaker
Yeah. And if so like. And Thunderbird. Okay, maybe they can't play it the frantic way or they. It just doesn't fit as well. So I forgive them for something like that. But today if you like find a recent version of Just Got Paid, it's too slow in my opinion. But on this recording, it's close to the original speed, so it does have some fun. Good perspective on kind of what these guys sounded like into their later career with obviously a strong sort of tribute or nod to the early days of.
- [235:23]
Andrew Fink
Their career when I think it was recorded. Yeah, very, very, very briefly before Dusty died. And he died of like a. It was like a hip injury. Like, he. He had a hip injury to leave tour. And then I think a couple days later he died at home. I think it was chronic bursitis. His wife said he had, you know, kind of random, really sad. You know, of all the things that you would have thought would take a member of ZZ Top down. Drugs, misadventure, prostitutes from Mexico, those kinds of things. It's a broken hip, of all things. It's kind of a shame. But I think that's a really great album to, to listen to, kind of as a tribute to their core strengths and, and, and I think a good way to sum up the career.
- [236:03]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, it's. And you're right, the. It's not a rock star's death to pass in your sleep at 71 or whatever, but there's also a degree to which, like, these guys were pros pretty much from the beginning. Yeah, Frank went to rehab in the late 70s or early 80s. I guess you don't really hear that much about that kind of stuff from Billy and, and Dusty and some of it is the, the pretty private nature of their, of their lives. But you do get the sense that the. Yeah, maybe they had some wild days and whatnot in the 70s, but there was probably a lot of singing about a lifestyle that was pretty well in their past for the last 50 years. So that's, that's. That's probably true.
- [236:43]
Andrew Fink
All right, Scott.
- [236:44]
Jeff Blair
Yeah, that brings us to the end of the road. Not for ZZ Top, who are still touring, as Andrew mentioned, with Lynyrd Skynyrd this past summer, but for this particular program. As we look back on ZZ Top with our guest Andrew Fink, and we come to the part of the program where we give you the advice. Two albums you should own. Five songs you've got to hear from ZZ Top. And we start with our guest, Andrew Fink, current Michigan State Representative candidate for. For Michigan Supreme Court. ThinkForMichigan.com is the website. Andrew. Two albums, five songs.
- [237:18]
Guest Speaker
I really wanted to say something else, and I can't do it. Deguello was always going to be there. And the second album for me is Tres Hombres. I. I wanted to Be more creative than that. I. I just. I can't justify it. If you were going to listen to two records, those are the two. In terms of five songs, I obviously could go many places, many different points in their career. I'm going to say Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings off of Fandango just got paid from Rio Grand Mud. I have to go to Eliminator. I'll say give me all your loving and then maybe a couple off the beaten. No.
- [237:53]
Andrew Fink
Okay.
- [237:53]
Guest Speaker
No. Well, all right. It's Only Love.
- [237:58]
Andrew Fink
The agonist.
- [237:59]
Guest Speaker
It's tough. Yeah. I'm going to say it's only Love from Teos since I. I almost picked that record and I. And I want to give that one a shout out. And then rather than jump forward and try to rescue a track from La Fra, that. That would probably be a little bit of a stretch. So instead I'll say I want to drive you home from El Loco.
- [238:19]
Jeff Blair
All right. My two albums are Deo and Eliminator, and my five songs going back early to the second record just got paid. As I said, I think the first real ZZ Top song they put down from Fandango Heard it on the X. The best song from that record, I'm Bad, I'm nationwide. Andrew took its only love we praised during the show, so I'll leave that off. So I can also recommend Esther be the one from Deguayo. And then Andrew's wrong, of course. I think the best and most perfect example of what they were trying to do on the Got Me under Pressure. That's the fifth song that you got to hear. Jeff, to you.
- [239:05]
Andrew Fink
All right, there's a bit of overlap here for both of your lists. I think I have to agree that it just has to be Tres Ombres and Deo for the two albums, no need to explain. And for my five tracks, I guess I'm going to choose ones that are not on those two albums. So, you know, I always like to achieve maximum spread of songs. First one will be Coco Blue, which I really like. It's a really smart, little, well written tune from Rio Grande Mod. The second one, since I'm not mentioning mentioned in Trace Hombre Songs, I'm gonna go skip ahead to Fandango. And it's got to be Heard it on the X. Tush. It's famous, it's generic. Heard it on the X, it's manic, it's insane. It's the real spirit of ZZ Top. Another song that is absolutely the real spirit of ZZ Top comes from Tejas and That is El Diablo. I think it's a fantastic tune. Deguello every everything on the album. So we're not going to mention it. So that takes me to El Loco and God, yeah. Pearl Necklace. It's pretty vulgar as a meta. As an analogy or a metaphor, I suppose. But you know what? You gotta love it for the new wave goofiness of it and the fact that Talking Heads were clearly paying attention as well. And I guess the last one I'll mention is from Eliminator and it's none of the more famous songs. It is the one that unfortunately Andrew doesn't like. It's Got Me Under Pressure, which Scott and I agree is a fantastic tune. And since, you know, host prerogative, I'm going to just name a last one, an extra one. It is from deguelle. It is the one that Scott singled out as the one he expected. Meeting with Thor. It's I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide. What an amazing song. Yes. Perhaps that truly does summarize the essence of ZZ Top in the tone and in that riff with my New York.
- [240:41]
Scott Bertram
Brim and my go to display. Nobody give me trouble Cause they know I got it. I'm Nisha. Hey. Amazing. Wow.
- [241:36]
Jeff Blair
There we go. It is the political beats. Look at the music and career of ACDC. And while this won't be U2 length, it'll be fairly long. Fairly long episode.
- [241:49]
Andrew Fink
But we're after over three hours now. You know, my friend.
- [241:51]
Jeff Blair
I know. We're just lucky they didn't have a fantastic second act. Otherwise we'd have to break this into two.
- [241:56]
Andrew Fink
It's funny, I remember I specifically asked you guys if it could end early today. And here's. Here's what happens. We couldn't help it. We couldn't stop the music.
- [242:03]
Jeff Blair
Thank you to Andrew Fink, who is an attorney, Marine vet, state representative, currently running for Michigan Supreme Court at Andrew Fink M I on X and Fink for michigan dot com. We appreciate you coming back for a third time, sir.
- [242:16]
Guest Speaker
I appreciate you letting me get caught up to Brad Burzer, the others who have had three, and for anybody who's out there. As a fan, if you want me to come back again, you got to pressure Jeff into doing Los Lobos or Leon Russell.
- [242:29]
Andrew Fink
Those will be new for me both.
- [242:32]
Jeff Blair
Jeff, we've got another. We got the next two episodes, I believe lined up, at least not scheduled yet. But in theory they're ready to go. So we'll jump a few decades into the future from where ZZ Top began. Next time I think I believe so. Find Jeff on x at Esoteric CD. I'm there at Scott Bertram. Remember patreon.com politicalbeats support us. Help the show stay ad free entry level, mid level and our upper level best friends. Check it out@patreon.com Politicalbeats also subscribe to the feed for new episodes or go to nationalreview.com to find the audio there. We're on Facebook, also on X at politicalbeats. Join the conversation there. This has been a presentation of National Review. This is Political Beats.