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Guess they rolled away the stone early.  And ain’t that a great Leon Russell song.

Anyway, they say Ativan is more addictive then heroin.  I’ll tell you, the Internet’s got both of them beat.  It’s hard enough to resist the pull of the World Wide Web, but once you log on, you can’t get the fuck off.

I can’t tell you how many sites I’ve been to that haven’t changed in years, I’m just waiting for them to be updated.  Then I’m looking up someone I used to know, or a synapse fires and I’m doing research on some act or ski area or arcane subject that could suck up the rest of my life.

And when I’m truly a goner, when I know there’s no fucking way I’m gonna log off, that I’m stuck for hours, I go to my favorite music blog and see what bootlegs have been posted.

Yesterday, it was the original recording of "Who’s Next".  In New York.  Ultimately scrapped, the fact they could cut shit this good in weeks floored me.  Furthermore, there was a version of "Pure and Easy", the great Who song that no one knows.  I was riveted.

And then there was this Bonnie Raitt/Little Feat tour from back in ’73.

But as good as those two documents were, what truly floored me was this.  A pristine edition of ZZ Top’s King Biscuit Flower Hour performance from June 16, 1980, from before I was a fan.

They were an American act on London Records.  Explain that to me.  And a million people went to see them, and they toured with livestock, but I wasn’t in to base boogie.  Sure, I liked to look for tush but I saw the band as a slightly improved Black Oak Arkansas, a red dirt version of Grand Funk.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

What changed me was "I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide".  With its stuttering intro and humorous lyrics…

Well I was rollin’ down the road in some cold blue steel
I had a blues man in the 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

This wasn’t macho swagger, this was intelligent musicians having a LAUGH!

That’s what players used to be, cool.  And I’m not talking about charismatic, not that that’s mutually exclusive, no, I’m talking about cool cats.  Removed from the mainstream, functioning in their own universe, laughing at the rest of the world.  Musicians had it figured out.  That it was about living in the moment, enjoying the ride.

And that’s what "I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide" sounds like.

And every time I went to my friend’s house in Huntington Beach I played "Deguello", the album that it was ensconced in, to revel in the magic, to experience the euphoria.

And then the stars aligned and ZZ Top became one of the biggest bands in the land.  And "Gimme All Your Lovin’" and "Legs" deserve the accolades.  But little did I know the dudes making this music were brothers.  I met Billy Gibbons and it’s like we went to the same high school together.  Sure, he had a beard down to his belly button, but we were cut from the same cloth.

Let me explain it to you…

You know that kid you’ve known since kindergarten?  Who you used to crack jokes with in the back of class, all the way through high school, even though you no longer shared the same friends, even though you no longer treaded in the same social circle?  That’s Billy.

He wasn’t edgy and distant, he was soft and warm, welcoming.

He was a musician.

And believe me, it’s rare you meet your heroes and they live up to the rep, that they don’t disappoint.

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You download these bootlegs in .rar format.  You decompress them in programs that record execs have never heard of.  And then you end up with a folder on your desktop, containing gems.  To say this King Biscuit Flower Hour concert is a find is to do it a disservice.  It’s an elixir, the essence, the pure guava of the experience.

We used to sit at home in front of our giant stereos, listening to these live broadcasts on the radio. They were a facsimile of being there.  In an era when every gig was a little bit different, when you went to the show like going to a movie, when you didn’t have to join the Christmas Club in order to save enough money to attend, when you didn’t have to join a fan club or get a credit card to get inside the building.

Oh, you did have to get up early and wait in line.

But it wasn’t so bad, you were with your brethren.

Anyway, this show was recorded when the band was promoting "Deguello", it’s got all my favorites. But what got my fingers working, what made me need to reach out was the take of "Jesus Left Chicago".

The floors were sticky.  The people were sweaty.  The refreshments were lame.  Usually there wasn’t even beer.  But you were thrilled to be there.  All together.  There was not a special section for hedge funders, no separation of the classes, we were one, reveling in the music.

And the band reached out from the stage and tried to convert us.  Not because someone might be shooting video for YouTube, but because that was their job, that was the essence.

Music’s not static.  Not choreographed.  It’s a living, breathing thing.  And even though this cut is thirty years old, it feels like it was born yesterday.

The bass sounds like a Yellowstone mudpot, oozing all over the floor.  The drums are accents. Thunderous.  Like Fred Flintstone is behind the kit, banging the skins with chicken legs.

And Billy’s guitar is distorted, it’s fuzzy, there are only three instruments but the sound is a virus, infecting everyone in the building.

I can see the heads nodding.  As the band is plodding.  And that’s the song’s magic.  Just like Zeppelin’s "When The Levee Breaks".  You feel like you’re being banged on the head, and you’re enjoying it!

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ZZ TOP – Best Of The Biscuit

King Biscuit Flower Hour original airdate Aug 31, 1980

Live from The Capitol Theatre, Passaic, New Jersey

Sourced from original broadcast vinyl, second edition of program

Recording date May 4, 1980

Notes:

I originally first recorded this show in the early eighties from radio in Vancouver, B.C. This was still before all the videos and fur covered spinning guitars with television sets built into them, and even before their trademark beards were quite so bushy.

It made me a fan for life. Imagine my surprise a few years later to acquire the actual records the radio had played! What an upgrade! Wow. Working in a collector’s record store had it’s priviledges!

Through the years, I’ve taped these slabs o’ vinyl for many many people. About a year ago I finally got around to transferring them to my computer to put them on CD. I wasn’t happy with how flat and dull they sounded.

I spent several months (off and on again) doing listening tests and messing around with several mastering techniques. I tried EQ, several different filter-y thingies, harsh radio compression, etc… Lots of crazy tricks…

I finally settled on the settings I described earlier. I tend to go for ‘less is more’ and subtlety of processing is the key to success. I’ve heard some ‘ReMasters’ that really sound ReMastered! That is, you can hear how processed the sound has become.

The main criteria of my listening tests was that if I could ‘hear the ReMaster’ job, it was processed too much, and should be scrapped. I found settings that improved it but still let it sound analog.

This version is an improvement over my raw vinyl transfer, by far. The original’s really OK, but had some surface noise due to repeated heavy-handed radio play. It also sounded thin, and the transfer was done at a slightly lower volume.

My ReMaster bumps the levels up to slightly less than average levels of today’s CD releases. They sure do master modern discs too loud these days! I also killed probably 90% of the vinyl groove imperfection sounds, but left a reminder that the source was a record. Not over-processed…

I recently found out there is a bootleg of this ‘out there’, but I don’t think it is from a pre-FM source like this is.

I included everything relevant on the records : commercials, test tone and all! I re-ordered the promo spots, and cut the silence bands between commercials and program, but everything else is there. Honest.

Tracklist:

01 ZZ TOP KBFH show promo announcer

02 ZZ TOP KBFH show promo blank

03 KBFH ZZ TOP test tone

04 ZZ TOP KBFH show beginning

05 honda commercial

06 I Thank You

07 Waitin’ For The Bus

08 Jesus Just Left Chicago

09 I’m Bad I’m Nationwide

10 Low Down In The Street

11 A Fool For Your Stockings

12 Cheap Sunglasses

13 Arrested For Driving While Blind

14 budweiser commercial

15 She Loves My Automobile

16 Hi Fi Mama

17 Dust My Broom

18 Jailhouse Rock

19 Tush

20 honda commercial 2

21 ZZ TOP KBFH show wrapup

Included in the torrent are scans of the KBFH record labels and promo sheets from DIR broadcasting. Note the DJ handwritten notes on page 1. I also photoshopped a blank page to make cover notes on and combined data from page 2 + 3 for your printable origami masterpiece.

I also included pre-existing cover artworx for the semi-commercial boot releases of this show. Note that the track numbering on them does not match my edition you have now.