Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 14, 1994 TAG: 9406170114
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By Mark Morrison staff writer
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
OK, well, maybe not completely.
But certainly there has been a shift in emphasis for the band, which plays the Roanoke Civic Center tonight. The show is expected to be a near-sellout.
Gone now - or at least not as pungent - is the group's mid-'80s cheesy video image of fast cars and fast women and all the stereotypes that go along with each.
Also gone is the techno-pop top of the same era, when the band added a measure of trendy synthesizers to its traditionally guitar-driven sound.
The formula proved successful, though. At a time when the veteran group, which formed in 1969, could have been ready to dry up and roll off into the sunset like a tumbleweed, they became more popular than ever.
Then came the '90s, and the winds have shifted again.
"With ZZ, we don't sit down and talk about things very much," explained drummer Frank Beard in a recent interview with a Canadian newspaper. "We didn't get together and say, `OK, let's abandon the synthesizers.'
"What we did do when it was time to write a record is get together and play a bunch of old blues songs just to get used to playing again. As we were doing that, we called attention to the fact that we had not done a ZZ blues song in the last couple, three albums.
"So we wrote 'Cover Your Rig.' It kinda just jumped out. Then the next song we wrote was 'Fuzzbox Voodoo,' and that one kinda jumped out. We looked at each other and thought, 'Well, this is a lot more fun than going over to the synthesizer and programming stuff, which is very tedious.' So we just followed that lead."
That led Beard and band mates guitarist Billy Gibbons and bassist Dusty Hill to create "Antenna," the group's 14th album, and a musical return of sorts to the gritty roadhouse blues with which the band first made its name.
The close interplay was the key, Gibbons told Music Connection magazine recently. "Yeah, stripped down, eye-to-eye contact, well within reach of elbowing one another."
The "Antenna" name refers to the high-powered radio stations Gibbons, Hill and Beard listened to in their Texas youth that introduced them to the blues and framed their musical influences.
It is the band's favorite album in a decade.
"Generally, we've only really been hot about certain records, and the interesting thing is that they all fall in 10-year intervals," said Beard. "From the '70s, it's unanimous that 'Tres Hombres' is the best record, and that was in '73. Then, in the '80s, it was 'Eliminator' in '83, and we did this new record in '93."
But "Antenna" isn't what the band would call a true blues album, despite the back-to-basics approach. ZZ Top's blues are more a send-up of the blues than the real thing.
"After all, we did not grow up in the '30s in Mississippi working the fields," Gibbons told The Boston Globe. "If anything, we're interpreters of the blues, the Salvador Dalis of the Delta as we were once called. That's the highest compliment ever paid us. I can't recall who said it, but I reflect on it with relish."
Still, the band's cheesy, cartoonish image of the '80s is not completely gone.
The buzz about the group's current tour is that it is as big and bawdy as ever.
Gibbons and Hill, of course, are still sporting their trademark Rip Van Winkle beards. They still have their fur-lined guitars, the walking treadmill and the cheap sunglasses.
The stage is set up like a combination power station and car dashboard, complete with speedometer and oversized radio dials. The set also features a 30-foot antenna tower, and several smaller towers, all with lasers that shoot from their tops.
Shows have been starting with fireworks and ending with a cover of Elvis Presley's "Viva Las Vegas." And there has been no shortage of fast women. This time around, they can be seen go-go dancing behind the band and silhouetted behind back-lighted screens.
Or is it cheesecloth?
ZZ Top plays the Roanoke Civic Center tonight at 8. George Thorogood and the Destroyers open. Tickets, $22.50, through the box office (981-1201), TicketMaster or charge by phone (343-8100).
by CNB