Cette semaine, nous partons faire l'éloge de la troupe d'un artiste à barbe. Non nous ne parlerons pas des ZZ Top ou d'un best of de Georges Moustaki. Les habitués de cette chronique se doutent bien qu'il s'agit d'une barbe bien suisse , suisse -allemande, même. Une barbe qui trône bien en évidence sur un album sorti ce vendredi 13 janvier, celle d' Elia Rediger , chanteur du groupe bâlois The Bianca Story . Sans sa barbe, comme dirait Corbier, The Bianca Story ne serait pas un groupe moins intéressant. Mais la pochette [...]

The So-Cal bluesman brought his 'bone to the Belly Up // Follow Owl and Bear on Facebook and Twitter for contests, MP3s, and links that don't make it onto the blog.

A requested cover story featuring the Texas trio! 58 minutes | Featuring: Title Artist Album Original Artist 1 Gimme [...]

ElectroSound - Back To The 802s [ mp3 ] Huey Lewis & the News - The Power of Love (1985) INXS - Need You Tonight (1987 Lipps Inc - Funky Town (1980) Ray Parker Jr - Ghostbusters (1984) B52's - Love Shack (1989) Survivor - Eye of the Tiger (1982) New Order - Blue Monday (1983) Phil Collins - Sussudio (1985) ZZ Top - Gimme All Your Lovin' (1983) Doc Emett Brown "Back to the Future" Movie (1985) – Doc's Plan Scene [...]

Skeeters are snackin'. They're as big as half-dollars and they'll bleed you dry if you let 'em. The gators are patiently waiting. Some are stalkin' their prey. Shine a light and you can see the battalion of reptile eyes, like fallen stars strewn across the water's surface. Yes, we're in the icky Florida swamp, where it's scary-dark and it's nasty. I lived there once, and it's also where Confused Little Girl and Southern Gentlemen rose from the filthy muck. I told Racer that I've been listening to the independent release of this album [...]
An unlikely array of artists salute Tres Hombres from Texas.
ZZ Top classics covered by all star performers.

Live in Germany 1980 may very well be the seminal live document in ZZ Top's catalog. ZZ Top are an American rock institution, revered in the band's home state of Texas and recognized worldwide as formidable purveyors of all things bearded and blues. That ubiquity was not the case in 1980, when, with six albums and a healthy amount of road time and sales under its collective belt, ZZ Top moved from London Records to Warner Bros. The label was intent on breaking the band in Europe and the vaunted German...

Dusty Hill, left, and Billy Gibbons tearin' it up in Austin. There was all kinds of stuff goin' on this weekend in Austin - the amazing Texas Book Festival, the always-popular Austin Film Fest, the Austin Record Convention and the nicer-if-it's-a-nice day Gypsy Festival showcasing the city's food trailers. So what was our big event of the weekend? The so-called "First Annual La Grange Fest," featuring ZZ Top and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Austin has a semi-new outdoor venue called the Backyard - kind of new, because they closed the old one and rebuilt a new [...]
The other day, one of the Rocks Off Crew was rummaging around in the Houston Press office and came across a bunch of publicity stills for various musicians. Allow us to explain what those are:... Continue reading "Vintage Pics Of Destiny's Child, ZZ Top, Blue October & More" >
That two-year-old listening to KKDA-104.5 FM K104 in Dallas (local tie!) in the clip above is cooler than all of us. But we've got some cool news to share about some artists with local ties -- am... Continue reading "News and Notes: [Daryl] Reunites, ZZ Top Gets Covered, Badu Gives Birth (Kinda) and More!" >
If you don't know that Rocks Off is a ZZ Top-friendly place, then you have probably only been reading the blog for the past two or three hours. The two men who run this blog love Billy, Frank, a... Continue reading "New ZZ Top Tribute Disc Frightens, Titillates, And Confuses Us" >

Recently some great musicians got together to make a tribute album for the great american rock group, ZZ Top entitled, ZZ Top A Tribute From Friends . Grace and Co's contribution was their hit song "Tush'. Check them out above performing the cover live for the first time last month. Below you can stream a sample from the band. The album also includes Steven Tyler, Wolfmother, Wyclef Jean, M.O.B., Coheed & Cambria, among others. You can grab all these awesome covers here.

Via Music Radar "Andy Langer, a well-respected music critic, invited me to dinner in Austin, and he asked some friends to tag along – it was Grace Potter & The Nocturnals. We got on great. To think that such an inauspicious beginning would lead to the band throwing their hats in the ring. "What really surprised me was that Grace wanted to sing Tush! [laughs] A girl singing Tush? That was sure going to put a whole new spin on things. But let me tell you, she copped every note and nuance that [...]
One of the best shows I've seen all year was Deer Tick's Deervana set at Bonnaroo. They've since retired their Nirvana covers set, but they've apparently expanded their covers to include ZZ Top. This video comes to us from Dodge at MOKB and Laundromatinee Download the MP3 over at MOKB
Folk-country-rockers Deer Tick let their '70s influence run wild on their romp through ZZ Top's 'Cheap Sunglasses'

This session is the second time we've welcomed Deer Tick into a found space in Indianapolis to record. John McCauley's feral, bloodthirsty howl is a truly painful thing of beauty. One minute he inhabits a down-and-out hard case seconds after getting socked in the gut bellying up to the bar one too many times, and the next he's that wounded, rabid beast raging for survival. He's a writer with a knack for prose that could fit between the margins of any Raymond Carver story, and he's smart enough to utilize [...]
The music and legacy of ZZ TOP - "That Little ol' Band from Texas," that has been part of the world's musical landscape for over 40 years - will be celebrated with the October 11th release of A TRIBUTE FROM FRIENDS. The album, to be released by Show Dog-Universal Music, features 11 classic ZZ Top songs interpreted by top-flight artists working in a broad range of musical genres. All of the album's tracks have been newly recorded, specifically for the project. These include Filter's performance of "Gimme All Your Lovin'," Grace Potter & The Nocturnals' take [...]

The Central Unit in Sugar Land is now closed. Here's a new one: in Texas, we're shutting down a prison. Not because there aren't enough inmates - no, they have shut down one of the state's oldest prisons because they want to turn the property into a shopping center. Texas is looking for ways to save money and shutting the Central Unit in Sugar Land will save about $12 million a year. Texas bought the prison property in 1908 from Imperial Sugar, the company for which Sugar Land was named. The current prison, built [...]