Saturday, June 06, 2020

I'll be damned, Moon Eyes 3.5gal tanks on the drum kit


https://www.reddit.com/r/drums/comments/ypbrh/frank_beards_new_zz_top_drum_kit/

By the way, I never paid attention to the lyrics of a lot of songs, just hummed along, but check out


Well I was rollin' down the road in some cold blue steel
I had a blues man in back, and a beautician at the wheel
We going downtown in the middle of the night
We laughing and I'm jokin' and we feelin' alright
Oh I'm bad, I'm nationwide
Yes I'm bad, I'm nationwide

Easin' down the highway in a new Cadillac
I had a fine fox in front, I had three more in the back
They sportin' short dresses, wearin' spike-heel shoes
They smokin' Lucky Strikes, and wearing nylons too
'Cause we bad, we nationwide
Yeah we bad, we nationwide

Well I was movin' down the road in my V-8 Ford
I had a shine on my boots, I had my sideburns lowered
With my New York brim and my gold tooth displayed
Nobody give me trouble 'cause they know I got it made
I'm bad, I'm nationwide
Well I'm bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, I'm nationwide, yes man!

good grief, he needs a crosswalk sign


after visiting Australia in 98 when in the Navy, I don't think that most people can relate to big quiet slow moving creatures that often hang around in herds, can be a hazard to driving about. Unless you live where elephants roam around, or herds of Zebra... because white tail deer, raccoon, and skunks (typical Michigan road hazards) have nothing on roos.

https://www.instagram.com/p/6Yl0SJMSFn/

thoughts on the problems brought up by a comment from Max

ok, You've opened up on many issues, and that's a lot to respond to, so, I'll keep it simple.
I'm sorry your ranch is getting assaulted, that sucks.
The environmental wackos are very far out in the deep end, like a few other fanatical extremists.
Civil disobedience, alone, just that issue is a thing of pride in my view. Rosa Parks, Muhammad Ali. Icons of civil disobedience, that led to the changes that were needed in America.
Just sticking on that issue, CD, I am all in support of the 1st amendment assemble to petition the govt.
The obvious trouble, is that the govt people are NOT INTERESTED in reforming, changing, comprehending, or understanding that THEY ARE the problem.
So, instead of the very diplomatic and ultra civilized behavior I suspect the founding fathers expected, like not even raising voices, taking turns talking and responding, and giving "my good colleague from the state of Minnesota" the time on the floor to speak uninterrupted to be heard, we have NO civilized method where the people with grievances will be able to force the people causing problems, the police, local, state, and federal governments, to shut the fuck up and pay attention with the intent to cooperate to handle the very constitutional right of the citizen.
So, since govt people prefer to avoid confrontation that they can not force citizens into submission with police power, we have found that the govt people gave the police unlimited abuse of power with immunity.
 And police recruited apes with bully mentalities that seek out jobs with power over anyone else.
That's just the ugly side of human nature.
So, protests beget rioters who, again, human nature, seek to lash out to vent rage, vandalism actions, frustration.
Since, no, and I mean zero leadership in elected officials, civilized quiet mention of meetings to discuss the issues of police brutality are occurring, the revolution will commence. We see it in Hong Kong, the Arab Spring riots, etc etc.
Of course, those were all verbally supported by the idiot in chief, who now condemns anyone doing anything similar in this country, where it inconvenience him, and his re-election campaign.
So, without intelligent leadership from anywhere, the protests continue, the rioters take advantage of the distracted police, and car dealerships get raided, etc.
Nothing surprising about any of it except that it's simply a result of no strong leader with a brain who can see, oh, this happened in 2016 in Minneapolis, and the governor didn't do shit to get progress made in police reform.
History repeats, more people die. More people riot.
I'm surprised the Waco massacre didn't get repeated.
Your statement about the right to peaceably assemble, well, ok. Too bad the govt actively teargasses and rubber bullets that from occurring. When we can't get smart people seeing the obvious, that our right are meaningless without the consent of the governing elected officials that won't represent the citizens who are petitioning for a redress of grievances, because petty politicians are only interested in getting rich, and getting reelected, unlike the founders who couldn't conceive of the world that's evolved from the life they understood, and the citizens aren't going to get satisfaction and see police that commit murder and manslaughter arrested by their fellow officers.
It's only their job description and sworn duty, to arrest people that are suspected of committing crimes.
It's a bad time in the USA, high unemployment, higher greed, lower satisfaction in living, higher inflation, and now, the same issue that should have been solved by brave people in the 60s, racist behavior among police, rears it's ugly head in every city in the country. So does the issue of abortion, equal rights for women, gun rights, etc.
We had a government that failed us, and so did the legislature, and supreme court. Cowards that ran for office to get rich, not to get progress on issues of the people that they represented elected them to handle.
Obama promised to close the torture chambers of Gitmo. Never did it, 8 years in office.
Ol read my lips Bush raised taxes.
I DID NOT Clinton had sexual relations with THAT WOMAN, and orgasmed on her dress. In the oval office, during business hours.
And they all went on to make millions and millions after office, selling books, giving speaking engagements for hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour to corporate board members. And playing golf while elected, costing hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars, plus xmas shopping sprees for their wives and kids.
Each of the previous 5 or 6 presidents cost the US taxpayers billions, for bullshit. Not to mention wasting billions in airplane loads of pallets sent to the middle east for various give away schemes.
So, we've had decades of being let down, screwed over, and abused by politicians, and "leaders" and "representatives" who are focused on getting rich, moving on, soaking up that retirement money for life, and vacationing anywhere the fuck else but here in the USA.
As for your issues with BLM, they wouldn't exist if police weren't killing black with impunity and immunity.
You can maybe see what I'm saying is cause, and effect, and symptoms. Or not.
I'm just a blogger raised with BSA ideology, in a Norman Rockwell landscape, listening to Paul Harvey and Walter Cronkite.

this is a crazy looking automated tractor.... either they hired a designer from Pixar, or one from Robocop, to get this look







Contrary to John Deere's video claim, I disagree with their idea that farming will be autonomous, in the next 80 years anyway.
Why? Well, Deere seems to be in business to sell tractors. That's not going to happen if everyone switched to autonomous farming. Why? Because that would put family farming out of business, and corporate farming would be so highly efficient, they wouldn't need many of these robo tractors. The same tractor would be able to work so many farm acres in the same area, day or night, that very few would be purchased, and then you've got a big corporation like John Deere with no more customers.
Just my speculation.

Anyway, funky robocop evil droid looking machine. Notice there is no model number on the hood

https://www.thedrive.com/news/33805/the-age-of-unmanned-tractors-is-coming-but-not-without-a-fight-from-farmers

musicians and friends


Steven Tyler has one oddly posed right foot that is distracting

Yes, that is Jim Carrey, I'm glad to see he's getting out and having fun, after that Cars n Coffee episode with Seinfeld, I was concerned he was depressed etc. After Robin Williams and Richard Jeni, there's reason to be concerned about extreme extrovert comedians

Not sure what to make of the license plate, a guitar reference I suppose, maybe to the self titled 1975 album from Fleetwood Mac?

dig that old bus brake light

https://billygibbons.com/2017/04/mick-fleetwoods-gathering-grinders-hawaii/

here's a rare and unusual ad, Simca, part of Chrysler decades ago when it bought Sunbeam-Rootes corp (thanks Maxime!)


Ironically, Simca was a French automaker, founded by Fiat and, after Simca bought Ford's French activities, became increasingly controlled by the Chrysler Group.

 In 1970, Simca became a subsidiary and brand of Chrysler Europe, ending its period as an independent company. Simca disappeared in 1978 when Chrysler divested its European operations to another French automaker, PSA Peugeot CitroĆ«n.

 PSA replaced the Simca brand with Talbot after a short period when some models were badged as Simca-Talbots.

And now Chrysler and Fiat and PSA are partners. Ironic

Book review, BIlly F Gibbons, Rock + Roll Gearhead


I had no idea BFG was a sketch artist, but seriously, that's fucking cool.
This printing of this book has this killer box cover - few books come in cases/boxes, unless you're getting a boxed set, and this is fantastic to have covered with a self portrait. Serious, you know how much I love art, I post art - car art mostly, all the time. But I also have posted a hell of a lot of artists too, and had no idea BFG was one. So, shocking, fucking cool


this is an inset he seems to have free handed in a book he took time with to autograph for a VIP who later sold the book

that's some nice pinstriping!

Time it takes to read, about 5 hours, depending on how long you look at the guitars, and how fast you read. But, seriously, it's a perfect afternoon book.

Pages: About 222

Photos - a category that I have in most book reviews, as they simply are rare in most of the books I've reviewed, but, this book is every page, so, no point in counting

Problems? I still insist that the publisher should have me, or a qualified editor look at the book before going to press. I shit you not.

Everyone reading this book will be familiar with Holley carbs, lets just go with that understand as few people ever reading this will be living in the Arctic, the Amazon, or some other place without cars, knowledge of hot rods, and familiarity of Holleys.

So, how the hell did they misspell Holley? Spellcheck? Could anyone rely on Spellcheck to edit their text before going to press? No one I'd pay to be an editor.

The other three: Zero mention of the nudu hat that BFG wears all the time now, or that he got it when on tour in Africa, trading his Stetson to the leader of the Bamileke tribe for this beanie. Since it's been the most drastic change in the way BFG appears for the past 20 some years, vs the MTV 80s when he wore the Stetson, I think it not only deserves a mention, the explanation about it is crucial to her persona. When you are never seen without something as unusual as that hat, in contrast to your previous public appearance, it's worth a mention.

Page 122 says the 1958 Thunderbird, Mexican Blackbird, "has the high horse Tri Power V8" under the hood.
I'm guessing that you, too, know that the 352 was a 4 barrel. Since Hot Rod Magazine did an article on the car, and said "Just your basic 352" then I'm going to go along with that, and point out that this is a mistake. It doesn't have 3 carbs. Also, "Tri Power" was a Pontiac term, and fender badge. Ford didn't put 3 two barrel carbs on cars until the '60, and the T Bird didn't get it until 1961.
https://www.pjstar.com/business/20190603/cars-we-remember-very-first-tri-power-setup-dates-back-to-1957-edelbrock-jr-recalls-440-mopar-six-packs

Or you can see the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eExs3166WaY where Adam Corolla interviews Pete, BFG, and lifts the hood and talks about it.


Page 156 shows a guitar that has zero mention, and since that page is mentioning the guitar above it, there's a problem, the bottom guitar is not the same as the photo caption for the top guitar, and it's the only guitar in the section of the book on guitars, that has no caption. I'm not the only one looking at this book closely because of the look into the collection of guitars. So, it matters.

After those issues, this book is a dream. Just terrific. If you didn't know that it's about 15 years old with a couple pages of new photos that weren't in the original 2005 book, you wouldn't care that it's not been updated to show the other cars, the Hollywood type events BFG has been busy with, (guest starring in a recurring role on the tv show Bones, or co-starring in his own Discovery channel show with Jimmy Shine, and that some of the guitars it shows were sold years ago. https://entertainment.ha.com/itm/musical-instruments/electric-guitars/zz-top-s-billy-gibbons-owned-li-l-red-gibson-electric-guitar-1961-total-2-items-/a/7089-46516.s  It's not like books are required to be updated with each reprint, but, it would be nice. This did get about 20 or 30 more pages, and about 10 of them are the intro full page photos. Another 10 or so are the Whiskey Runner hot rod and the '51 Willys. Really cool


That is the coolest log art I've seen in a while. I've now looked at it a dozen times, I still laugh and love it. It's perfect

It's pretty thorough until about 1999 or 2000. Which is the last time I bought a ZZ Top cd, and went to the concert.

Book review summed up, fantastic. Fans of ZZ Top will dig it, hot rodders with a familiarity of ZZ Top, but who read this book for the cars, not so much. It doesn't dig into the cars as much as I've done on my blog, http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2018/05/what-cadzilla-looked-like-before.html  for example and I was hoping for more. More about the cars, a look into his garage (that IS what the publisher promises, " throws wide Gibbons’ garage and studio doors " and I don't take a promise like that lightly. No photos inside the garage, no photos inside the studio. Not cool man.

Things I learned from reading this, BFG has played with nearly everyone, from the guys who were still playing into the late 60s like Hendrix and a hundred others, to being friends with Bo Diddley and other legends, of course it makes sense, but hell, I didn't know ZZ Top went on tour with Hendrix!

Paula Abdul was the choreographer for the ZZ Top videos

ZZ Top got some of their outfits from Nudie Cohn 's haberdashery


I hadn't heard about the cabin that Muddy Waters grew up in, at Stovall Farms, in Missisippi, that was severely damaged and one of its roof timbers built from cypress beams was made into a guitar that was commissioned as a fundraiser for the Delta Blues Museum


I had no idea of the variety of guitars he has, from steel guitars (National) of the 1930s, to custom ones that he toured with or used in videos. If you're a guitar fan, the other 2 parts, biography and cars, are just warm ups until you hit the guitar collection section.


I didn't know that BFG has a Gretsch guitar that Von Dutch pinstriped, and it might be the same one he learned of as a teen that a group in his hometown played, mentioned early in the book

There may be a better book out there on his guitars, or maybe a better one on his cars, but I'm going to say that you're best off getting this one, if you are into both guitars, and cars, and especially if you want to learn more about ZZ Top.

https://www.amazon.com/Billy-Gibbons-Rock-Roll-Gearhead/dp/0760367973
https://territory-mag.com/articles/rock-n-roll-alchemy-in-a-masters-hands/ if you want to read more about Bolin guitars

and you can get a good preview of 20 pages of the book on Google books, as they scanned the original printing, so, none of the new 30 pages

reminder that Netflix has the documentary on ZZ Top hitting the 50th year of playing music together, and, this book would make a cool fathers day present

You might want to have You tube ready to pull up the many songs that are referred to, as some will sound familiar and you might want to listen to them again to catch on to what they are, and some that are mentioned will likely inspire you to listen to them for enjoyment again.

By the way, something I read in an interview that wasn't even mentioned in this book, was how he was inspired to get into music, more specifically the blues. His dad was and exec in the music recording studio business, and:
 “I was about seven or eight years old. He took me with him one day in the car down to a recording studio where he told me to sit in the booth and something was going to go down. He then went off to an office or something, leaving me kicking my heels. After a short time, BB King and his band walked in, set up and began recording. I’ll never forget the moment. I guess it gave me a sort of head start in the music.”

PS, in a Rolling Stones recent interview was this Q and A

Everyone always talks about the negative aspects of the collapse of the recording industry. What are the positive aspects? It’s now up to the individual to invent the kind of business offer that he thinks will work. You no longer are you slave labor to someone else’s wishes. I think it’s a glorious awakening to know you have the opportunity to step up and control your destiny.

https://billygibbons.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BillyFGibbonsOfficial/

for a look at ZZ Top instead, watch the Netflix documentary ZZ Top: That Little ol Band From Texas
but though it's a good documentary, with really nice early concert footage, it is only covering the band until the MTV vids from Eliminator, and it's very fun to see those again. But that's it, nothing after that, no Afterburner, no Recycler, no XXX. Yes, I am a fan of this band's music and hot rods. But apparently, they have no interest in documenting the past 20 years at all.  

Good news for the day, Navy Reserve nurse is given a new truck! (filmed earlier this spring)


U.S. Navy Reserve Nurse Lt. Rob Guerra from Palmetto, Florida.

To thank him for everything he's doing, Jimmy Kimmel and Ford surprised him with a brand new F-150.

 If you have a #HealthCareHero who you think we should feature on the show, share their story on social media with the hashtag #HealthCareHero - be sure to tag @JimmyKimmelLive

https://www.facebook.com/rob.guerra.73
https://abc.com/shows/jimmy-kimmel-live/video/jimmy-kimmel-quarantine-minilogues/vdka18601585