Texas Rock & ZZ Top genre poll

From the South. That Rocks.

Go ahead and tell someone from Texas that they aren't from "The South." Go ahead, i dare you. Oh. And I don't know what i'm talking about. I only lived there for 3 years.
The results of this poll just confirms a lot for me.

 

Tush is about as straight blues rock as you can get. It is a twelve bar blues.

 

I changed my vote to "no".

 

One meaning of the word “tush” has a Yiddish derivation, so perhaps Tush could be Southern in a south Florida sense?

 

Good grief! You skipped over the best part, the creepy public relations dude phone caller! Ok, I like the Psycho Texas Blues term. But I'm hearing more of a cult snake worship religious hymn with the wood block and tinkle bell sounds around the middle part.

A gorgeous quirky Texas mystique and I miss it in the current ZZ top stuff.

 

Except nobody has spoken Yiddish in South Florida since Miami Vice aired. Unfortunately most who did have passed away. And the meaning of the Yiddish word tush (tushie) had little to do with the ‘tush’ in ZZ Top‘s Tush.

 

I miss it as well.

 

Not to nitpick, but Miami Vice aired from 1984-90, while Fandango came out in 1975. More to the point, I think ZZ Top’s use of “tush” was very much in the Yiddish sense, at least the literal meaning.

 

I was referring more to their current blues offerings. Tush was one of their introductory hits with blues used as the underbelly for their more eccentric experimentation in and beyond Tres Hombres album. Listen to their first albums that came before and they sound like a garage band. Tres Hombres sounds like a completely different and noticeably more sophisticated band including Deguello and El Loco albums. Wasn't a fan of the album that had "Sharp Dressed Man" on it. When they went disco I did a permanent face palm.

XXX was the last ZZ top album I bought because the rest that came afterward is just rehashed straight blues stuff.

 

Boz Scaggs and Steve Miller met when they were just kids at St. Marks private school here in Dallas. Their families moved around a lot, before and after that. Steve Miller Band was definitely Bay Area.

 

Don't know how many here have lived in Texas more than 10 years but I grew up and have lived here all my life. It's a huge state and there are a lot places that can give you the creeps. It's a state for people who come to hide from society. Think of the vibe you got from the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The pre-disco ZZ top kinda' played into that creepy mystique. They fit Texas like a glove before the tech industry took over Austin, Houston and Dallas with all the Yuppies.

There are some parts of Texas, in particular the Atascosa Wildlife refuge just west of South Padre Island on the mainland, where in the middle of the night you can venture out on old farm roads, sit on the hood of the car and not hear a sound, feel no wind, see no light, not even night glow to distinguish the horizon from the sky. Not a chirp from a cricket or any animal like you're in a black hole. Pretty spooky.

 

Yiddish meaning is literally rear end, and the ZZ Top incantation is singing about looking for a piece of ass. Not quite the same but perhaps you're right and maybe they interpreted it as such.

 

I don't think of ZZ Top as being southern rock but I do think that Point Blank are. Am I being knuckle-headed?

 

For those of you that actually read the OP, you know I tried to not make this about southern rock. I really did.

 

I didn't know Point Blank was from Texas. (not that I really knew that much about them, I only got into them recently)
Kings X is not really from Texas - just went there to further their career. Why did they go there? Because it is a music mecca.

 

You’re forgetting Alabama and South Carolina...a few important groups came from those states.

 

What do we call it? Well...ZZ Top, of course

 

When they became much more fun.

 

Welcome to the Forum !

D.D.

 

Along with Maryland and West Virginia.

 

I consider early ZZ Top (First Album thru Tejas) Blues Rock, after that I consider them a blues-techno-pop hybrid. Those electronic drums they started using in the late 70's/early 80's kinda ruined their vibe for me. YMMV

 

Texans typically don't consider themselves "southern", and don't consider Texas "the South"; Texas is its own thing, separate from the North, South, East and West.

 

No!

ZZ Top are a Rock band from the South, but they are not "Southern Rock", it's not just about geography (all though that has a lot to to do with it). I don't think ZZ Top are "Texas Rock" either for that matter (whatever that means, muscially), I have never heard another band that sound like ZZ, so I can't but them in any sub-genre like that.

Besides ZZ the bands that springs to mind when I think of Texas are first and foremost 13th Floor Elevators, also Fever Tree, The Children and of course Moving Sidewalks and American Blues.

 

You and I are at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to ZZ Top (see 3 posts above). That's what makes music (and this forum) so terrific. There's something for everyone!