ZZ TOP 50th Anniversary

My 5 LP box arrived. It’s a bit bare bones from a packaging standpoint but nicely done in typical Rhino fashion. The playing order is what sold me on this.

The LPs themselves appear to be GZ pressings but mine are quite good. I can’t make out the initials in the deadwax for the life of me (even with cheaters on). I’m finding the sound quite satisfactory as well. It certainly won’t dethrone any of the CB or Hoffman/Gray pressings however.

 

You get what we found. I could write a book about my experience on the ZZ film. But you haven’t actually seen the film, right?

 

No, I haven't seen it yet, I don't know if there is any way for me to do so over here in Sweden at this point. I was just commenting on what it said in that review, and especially the last part that begins:“That Little Ol’ Band From Texas” reveals little of who Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill are offstage., etc. I understand that the boyz want to keep the mystique, and that it probably was also not in their interest to continue past Eliminator (the review says the story stops there). So don't take this as a critique of the filmmakers, I didn't mean to offend, and I'm sure everyone did the best with what was offered. (I'd like to read that book, by the way. )

What I am personally most interested in is seeing as much vintage footage as possible, so I was excited by that Sunday Morning interview clip I posted where there was "new" World Wide Texas Tour footage of things I have only seen small fragments of before, so I am looking forward to that (as I assume that all came from the documentary). Does this mean there are whole shows filmed from the 70s and that there's material so that a proper concert release could be made (in theory)? Seem as, judging but the offstage footage, a WWTT documentation was being considered, or is that just from some type of news clip?

Edit: I think I actually found a way to view it, so I'll be back...

 

I ordered it today when it was listed for 22 GBP at amuk. Let's see if it will be shipped.

 

I grabbed it too for £22! Being delivered tomorrow so that means the walls will be shaking tomorrow night!

 

Hope this gets a blu-ray release somewhere down the line...

 

Certainly well worth that price for the 5th LP alone which may contain some selections you’ve never had on vinyl. This is a good set. I especially enjoy the play order and how it’s all put together. The sound is solid throughout IMO. Having said all that, I doubt this is the last bargain price we see on it.

 

It’s now jumped back up to £64. I doubt it will go cheaper than £22 again. That was an insane price - £4.40 per album!

 

Ok, so now I have seen the ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band From Texas documentary, in fact I have seen it twice because it was great! I am sorry for having any doubts. It is true it "reveals little of who" the boyz "are offstage" and it stops at Eliminator, but that may be a good thing because otherwise there may not have been room for all the goodies that is there. I am going to give my own review, but those who want to see the documentary without spoilers may want to skip this post.

I said I wanted vintage footage, and it is there in spades, the whole thing is built around showing vintage clips and stills throughout as the storys are told. I mean there are moving(!) images of the Moving Sidewalks! There's a film clip with sound of "Thunderbird" from a WWTT show. There are several other great sounding 70s live snippets playing in the background, like one of "Beer Drinker & Hell Raisers". There are tons of photos, most of which I have never seen before, from the mid-60s onwards, and there is silent footage, like Hendrix and the Moving Sidewalks getting off a plane during the time they opened for him. (There are of course not clips of whole songs from concerts, as that doesn't fit the format, so this thing has me screaming for a proper 70s concert release, either video or just sound.)

That it stops at Eliminator may be weird for some, for me it just means that there is more time spent on the early stuff, which is great, and the documentary does not spend a lot of time on Eliminator itself, the videos and all that which we have heard about so many times before, it is just the last stop on a journey. What the documentary does spend time on, and which surpised me, is the early pre-ZZ story, we get to hear especially from Frank and Dusty and how they got started and teamed up, which is refreshing, and then Billy joins the story when they meet. Even though we don't get to hear a lot of personal stuff I think they, and this applies to Billy especially, are very honest, Billy even for once tells a completely normal and believable story about how they came up with the name. I think this strikes a nice balance between keeping some of the mystique, by not getting into too personal stuff (although there is more of that than usual), and honesty, because whenever we get to the classic moments that have well told stories attached to them we don't just get the classic wind ups from Billy, and there are almost always some new bits of inside infomation provided.

Instead of trying to tell every detail, or dwell to much on some of the more well-known famous events, they make what I consider a wise middle ground choice of telling the story via certain important events: the recording of the first album (we get interviews with Robin Hood!), early shows including the classic story of playing to one fan (are those actual photos of that guy?), recording Tres Hombres (we get interviews with Terry Manning!), starting to get noticed and being picked to open for the Stones (but not getting any recognition from press), deciding to take the negative connotations of being from Texas and instead embracing their heritage, turning into a strenght with the WWTT (plenty of cool footage), then deciding to take the famous break (with the surprise of Frank openly talking about his addiction), getting back together after the break and being influnced by Punk/NewWave to try new directions (and growing their beards) and then finally the MTV era and Eliminator (with interviews with Tim Newman).

Another thing that works good is that when there is not footage of pictures to show to illustrate something, like for example when Bill Ham is talked about (I get the impression there are not many photos of him, I know it took me forever before I got to see what he looked like), animated cartoon segments are used, often with a little humorous twist, very nicely done.

For the non-initaited, who is not aware how rare it is with live sound and footage of ZZ from before 1980, this may not seem all that special, but to me this was a treasure trove, in fact I think I'll have to watch it again a third time because I dicovered plenty of new stuff I had missed the second time around. I urge anyone with any interest in early ZZ Top to watch this, as soon as possible, and maybe buy a hard copy too when it gets released (which I hope it does), I know I will!

 

I saw them in November 1972. It was Wild Turkey, ZZ Top and then Ten Years After. "Rio Grande Mud" was still pretty new. It was a barn burner of a rock show.

 

Mine’s just been delivered. Now, do I open it or flip it to pay for the other new releases I bought this week?

 

Looking at the dynamic range of this set... lowest value is a 3! I’ll keep what I have.

 

You're making it a bit too easy. Somebody who reads this post would assume that they squashed the material through the bank. But actually, the one song with a DR3 had exactly the same dynamics on its original relase (Mescalero) and if it was mixed that way, it's probably not easy to recover what was lost unless you go back to the multis. At least they level-shifted it down as to not make the jump too jarring. The song from La Futura has a much better DR value than on the original CD, and the older stuff varies between DR7 and DR12.

 

Easy for whom? Me? Yes. My experience has been I don’t like modern masterings loud, bright and compressed. I have sample CDs with low DR #’s and don’t like them.

Why is it the trend lately to correct ones opinion and ears? If you like it, all well and good.

 

Well, because it's just one track. The majority isn't anywhere near as bad. It seems the only other option would've been to not include anything from Mescalero (which is one of the most compressed rock albums of all times) at all. Your post implies, to someone who doesn't look at the DRs closely, that bad mastering was applied to the entire set but that's just not really correct.

For the record, I totally agree with your general stance on current mastering, and I still can't really listen to La Futura.

 

I can listen to it and think it's their best album since the 80s.
Can't listen to Mescalero because the material is dire.

 

CD or LP?

"Can't listen to it" might be an overstatement, but the last time I heard it, I kept turning it down with every song because the sound annoyed me so much. And personally, I don't think the songs are all that great. Half of them don't stand up in any way to the classic era, IMO. The other half are good and I'd listen to them far more often if they sounded better. "I Gotsta Get Paid" was fantastic live in Bietigheim, the song really came to life there.

 

I think it is their best album since Deguello.

 

The LP was cut by Bernie Grundman, and plays at 45 rpm. Doesn't get much better than that.

 

It's the cd, and I think almost all the songs stand up to what they did in the early 80s, best since Eliminator if not better
The loudness doesn't bother me for some reason, it doesn't sound squashed like Mescalero, which also has a mostly weak songs.

 

Consumption - sounds like a song that was too weak to be included on Recycler or Antenna. Constant repetition of the same lyrics, mushy cymbals
Over You - overwrought ballad, miles away from the quality of "Sure Got Cold after the Rain Fell" or even "Rough Boy"
It's Too Easy Manana - horrible, annoying song, distorted sound, the only thing interesting is the outro but it goes nowhere
Flyin' High - sounds very forced again
Big Shiny Nine - way too simplistic (where's the hook?), Billy's vocal sounds disgusting

That's five songs I have little positive to say about, and the constant self-quoting of Degüello lyrics doesn't make it better. And the only song Dusty got to sing is not on my edition.

All my opinion of course but I find the album extremely hard to sit through. Last time I did it completely ruined my mood. And I did think it got off to a strong start...

 

What can I say, I love all of those songs.

 

I wish I could say the same thing....

At least one positive thing about the album is that Billy had not discovered Autotune yet

 

I bought Perfectamundo second hand on vinyl. I figured, it's Billy, how bad can it be? Pretty awful as it turns out. I don't get it, he's one of the greats of blues based guitar music with a rock edge, a fine vocalist, and he autotunes his voice, barely plays any guitar and invites rappers onto his record?

 

I never bought Perfectamundo but did buy The Big Bad Blues. It's a strange album, some of the songs really sound like ZZ in their prime, others are vintage quality blues, but some of the songs have an awful, brittle sound, and use autotune... I just hope the next band album doesn't sound like this :/

(I'm not sure I agree that he's a fine vocalist. He used to be pretty good but his voice has been going downhill, which is probably one of the reasons why 1/3 of the show I saw this summer used playback vocals. He just can't sing a lot of the songs anymore, sadly.)