ZZ TOP 50th Anniversary

His voice is lower in range and rather hoarse, but I think he can still pull it off nicely.
I saw them in June but couldn't pinpoint anything that sounded like playback vocals.

 

From what I noted after the gig, those were the songs that were partially or entirely not sung live:
Got Me Under Pressure
Gimme All Your Lovin'
Pearl Necklace
Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers
Sharp Dressed Man
Legs (@99thfloor said this was never sung live at all)

The vocals on those songs were audibly louder than on those that were clearly sung live, and sounded suspiciously perfect (also, I'd listened to the recent live versions, so I knew those takes), whereas on other songs Billy sometimes sang behind the beat and had other "flaws" that made it clear he was actually singing.

 

Well I recorded the gig so I'll have a relisten. I don't recall the vocals on those songs being louder or different in character than on the other songs with the exception of the falsetto on Legs, a song I never really cared about. I recall there was a guitar part on Gimme that was obviously on hard drive.

 

There was a technical issue in Sharp Dressed Man at Bietigheim where the guitar dropped out for a few seconds and you could really hear the synth booming away. And there are other keyboard and percussion parts coming from the off. But those don't bother me quite as much as the canned vocals, although they do limit the possibilities of improvising and playing the songs at different tempos.

 

Yeah there's not much variation between gigs due to that. But they are essentially a never ending touring machine heavy on routine, and perhaps it would take too much out of their energy to improvise at this stage in the game. Old men.
I thought Frank's was struggling a bit, looking worn, playing behind the beat.

 

Does anyone know when the banger films doc is coming out on blu ray?

 

This looks cool:

 

That's what I'm interested in as well. Every time this thread is bumped, I'm hoping for news.

 

The new documentary is being shown right now on Sky Arts in the UK.

 

Dec. 16 : today is Billy Gibbons' 70th birthday !


now all three of them are 70 .....

 

I got to see this show. Fantastic sets by all involved. Not much of a Brad Paisley fan, but even he was enjoyable. The Doobie Brothers were there, as well (I think they were a late edition). But ZZ Top put on a clinic. Best performance I've seen them give since the '80's. The sound engineer should have been fired for the godawful mixing job. But it didn't matter. The performance made up for it. Great show.

BTW, can anybody comment on the sound of the Goin' 50 vinyl set? I've seen it around, and I've been tempted to pull the trigger. But I've been stung on too many poorly pressed and mastered modern vinyl records. So, I'm hesitant to blow $100 on something I'm going to sell right back (which I've done far too much of lately). Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

ZZ Top Setlist at VetsAid 2019
Pretty short setlist, no wonder they were good!

 

Yeah, all the sets were shorter, so bands didn't have to "pace themselves." I'm sure that played a part.

 

Billy F Gibbons discusses his extensive collection of hot rod-inspired guitars | Guitar World

 

50 years ago, January 16, 1971, ZZ Top's First Album was released.

 

Deutschlandfunk (German radio) will honour it on Friday, 29 Jan, in the "Milestones - Blues Classics" program

 

quite clever, naming their debut album ZZ Top's First Album.

 

A little late to this discussion, but I wanted to put it out there what is so bad about the mastering of the Mescalero CD, gaining it comments like "turning it down after every track", "can't listen to it".

First it is a 2003 release. That means like nearly all releases from then is is "volume maximised", compressed, dynamically crushed. It doesn't even get to benefit from mastering software improvements that allowed La Futura to be crushed worse but sound better.

But wait, there's more. The masterer then took each track and hard clipped it, the degree on each track I'm guessing being how gritty he thought they should be. If you rip the album to a single file and load it into an editor it looks like a picket fence with the pickets cut to different heights. This is the Japanese version with the extra track on the end but the USA and EU copies I have look identical otherwise:



Close up we can see the damage. This is a zoom in from Piece:


So yeah, Mescalero is a distorted, fatiguing mess. This is the worst mastered album I've ever ever seen or listened to. Interesting there is a pre-release promo that isn't clipped, just compressed to heck.

But............ I think the songs are brilliant. The material is varied, from gritty to humourus and quirky. Oh please can we have a Mescalero remaster! Done well I think it would then be my favourite.

 

That matches the DR values for Mescalero:

Album details - Dynamic Range Database

Highest is a 5, lowest a 2. I don’t understand the benefit of squashing music like that.

 

Hey louder is better right?..........right???

Seriously I thought maybe we'd be past this by now but still I buy a new CD (fewer and fewer) the only thing that improves every time is the compression software. Que Lastima.

 

Strangely enough, on the recent compilation "Goin' 50", one song from Mescalero and one from La Futura were included. The latter ("I Gotsta Get Paid") has totally normal dynamics, but "Piece" hasn't - it's just lowered in volume to make it fit the other tracks. (This was not done for the two live tracks that end the CD, but that's neither here nor there.)

Album details - Dynamic Range Database

But the promo sounds interesting, as it suggests that there is still something that could be done.

 

I agree with both of your points. It seems like the most creative album of theirs since the 80s, but I haven’t gone deep enough with the others yet. And it does sound terrible but it’s still not the worst sounding master I’ve ever heard. I think the reason for that is most of sonic elements are already heavily distorted and there aren’t that many layers on a ZZ Top record so it’s not quite as claustrophobic as listening to a heavily clipped Crowded House record for example.

 

And on vinyl please !

 

Hunted down my Mescalero CD just to check why I don't play this album. Now I know why.

But you are correct in that the songs have the classic style from the '70's with a little bit of El Loco's humor using vocal and phasing effects. It is so loud and distorted listening on headphones I had to drop my MacMini volume slider from it's normal level in the middle to almost bottoming out which made it sound pretty good but some of the snare drum hits are compressed so I can't tell a tim-tom hit from a snare.

I really like the songs on this album. Guess I'm going to have to rip the best ones and rework them in Audacity to normal volume levels which will require some EQ'ing.

 

Things in ZZ Top land have long been murky.

According to David Blayney, ZZ Top's stage manager, Hudson and Gibson used the electronic instruments to write and record demos for Eliminator without the involvement of Beard or bassist Dusty Hill.[9][10] Rolling Stone writer Deborah Frost reported that Hudson presented Gibbons with research finding that 120 beats per minute was the most popular tempo in rock music, inspiring Gibbons to record most of Eliminator at that tempo.[11] ZZ Top's management company Lone Wolf denied that Hudson was involved, and credited the album concept to Gibbons and manager and producer Bill Ham.[9] In his biography of the band, Blayney wrote that "Linden Hudson in a fair world should have had his name all over Eliminator and gotten the just compensation he deserved. Instead he got ostracized."[10] Hudson successfully sued ZZ Top for $600,000 after he was neither credited nor paid for writing the song "Thug".[9]​