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BIZARRE: Zz top | Mind Blowing Facts

“Jeff Beck arranged delivery with Marshall’s first factory arrival into the States, loading ZZ Top’s stage with stacks”: Billy Gibbons tells the tale of how an accident with a knife –and a British guitar great – set them up to conquer the ’80s

How Billy Gibbons unleashed the power of his holy grail '59 Les Paul Standard for the Texan blues-rock legend's “in-between” classic, El Loco –and set the stage for ZZ Top's domination of the decade

Guitar World

"Touring was about how messed-up I could get, and it wasn't about the music any more. Things got very, very dark." British bluesman Danny Bryant hit rock bottom two years ago: Now he comes clean

Walter Trout protoge Danny Bryant has survived alcoholism, divorce and liver disease, but new album Nothing Left Behind is the exorcism he needed

Louder

“Always a pleasure to host BFG in my office, and even better when he decides to take one of my CEO builds on tour!” Gibson CEO Cesar Gueikian has made a stunning custom Explorer – and Billy Gibbons is playing it onstage with ZZ Top

And the Gibson CEO also given us a sneak peak of the forthcoming DES lineup in the shape of a Ghost Burst SG?

MusicRadar

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“I’m not anybody’s best guitar player. I’m not the fastest, the most knowledgeable, the shreddiest. I’m none of those things. But I play and it sounds like me”: Mark Morton on the chemistry behind Lamb Of God's twin-guitar groove and what he owes ZZ Top

Morton gets geeky with rhythm and discusses the making of Lamb Of God's pummelling new album, Into Oblivion, and explains why he is proud to be (just) behind the beat

MusicRadar

Leo Fender’s favorite amp, recreated? Fender ’62 Super Amp review

The original, ’62-era Super was said to be Leo Fender's favorite amp. Let’s see if this exacting recreation captures the original magic

Guitar World

“He came ripping into the hotel room and said, ‘Um, do you know this?’ He slapped down a lick that lasted 10 minutes”: When Jimi Hendrix gave Billy Gibbons a guitar lesson unlike any other

Gibbons' pre-ZZ Top band, the Moving Sidewalks, toured with Hendrix for a time in 1968 – and he got to witness the Strat legend's magic up close

Guitar World

“He plays that amazing lead, and I'm like two feet from him. Can you get a better private concert with Van Halen, anywhere, ever?”: Charlie Sheen reveals the real story behind Eddie Van Halen’s legendary Two and a Half Men cameo

The long-running sitcom featured a rotating roster of A-list cameos, including Elvis Costello, Steven Tyler, ZZ Top, but EVH ...

Guitar World

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“I went to the Crossroads Festival when I was 7. I've been married to my Eric Clapton Strat since I was 13”: Meet NYC trio Tchotchke and their six-string hotshot Emily Tooraen – who caught the blues bug when she saw B.B. King and ZZ Top as a kid

They've toured with the The Gossip and The Makeup, play self-styled diva rock, and on their sophomore album, Playin' Dumb, Tchotchke are taking their '60s-indebted girl-group sound global. As Tooraen explains, it all goes back to the blues

Guitar World

“Even today, that instrument is fascinating. I’ve passed it around and players of all sorts have all come to the same conclusion – there is something magic in that instrument”: Billy Gibbons on why Pearly Gates is one of the greatest Les Pauls of all time

All Gibson Les Paul Standards from 1959 are special but what is it about the ZZ Top frontman's Pearly Gates that makes it so unique? As Gibbons says, it might be something entirely supernatural

MusicRadar

“I said, ‘Rick, you think we should take a break?’ And he goes, ‘Oh yeah, we got it on tape three hours ago – we just like hearing you guys play!’”: ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons describes Rick Rubin as a “peculiar” kind of producer

Plus: how the Texan trio created something new out of an old hip-hop track

MusicRadar

"We have achieved what we set out to achieve": Aussie rock legends Rose Tattoo will play their final ever show next year

Led by Angry Anderson, Rose Tattoo formed in Sydney in 1976

Louder

ZZ Top add yet more dates to ever-expanding Elevation tour as Frank Beard continues to miss shows

46 shows already played on ZZ Top's mammoth Elevation tour, 63 more to go

Louder

“To be honest, I didn’t like Stevie’s tone as much in the heavy Dumble period. It sounded a little tight to me”: Ian Moore on jamming with the Stones, writing with Billy Gibbons, and discussing those SRV comparisons – with Stevie Ray Vaughan

The SRV disciple admits he confused people by moving from Texas blues to art rock, but believes his skills are only increasing, despite a neurological condition that means he can barely speak

Guitar World

“I thought Billy was the coolest guitarist I’d ever heard, and that opinion hasn’t changed in 50 years”: Add some Texas blues sizzle to your lead playing with this lesson in Billy Gibbons' sweet soloing style

This lesson is the ZZ Top content you need to stay cool while bringing the heat. It will develop your sense of pacing and blues phrasing, and give you a chance to let some pinch harmonics fly off the fingerboard

Guitar World

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MusicRadar

“Watching his hands in the studio, I learnt something I never knew”: Steve Cropper on ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons’ secret sauce

The legendary guitarists have a special relationship

Guitar World

“The Black Crowes got thrown off the ZZ Top tour. We picked up where they left off…Every night the tour manager warned us when the explosions were going to go off”: Michelle Malone gave up sax for guitar – and had John Mayer “begging” to join her shows

With her 20th album looming, the raw Americana player looks back on working with Albert King and Blackberry Smoke members, her ever-loving vintage gear and running her own label

Louder

"We were out on our asses": How Aerosmith took flight with Get Your Wings - only in the new issue of Classic Rock

Also in this issue: John Mayall, Pink Floyd, Joe Elliott, Creed, Phil Mogg, The Cadillac Three, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Joanne Shaw Taylor, LA Edwards and more

Guitar World

“Pearly Gates, our long-standing fave-rave six-string, entered the studio to do that righteous thing”: Billy Gibbons on bringing out his legendary Les Paul for Slash’s all-star blues album – and the liquor store run-in that sparked their friendship

Gibbons checks in to tell us how he and reimagined Willie Dixon's Hoochie Coochie Man for a new era, and to assure us why the blues is in safe hands with today's players

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MusicRadar

“I'm not the bass player. I'm not in the band. I'll never be in the band. I shouldn't be in the band”: Elwood Francis says he'll never replace ZZ Top's Dusty Hill

Elwood Francis isn't comfortable being bassist in ZZ Top

Guitar World

10 legendary blues guitars, from Lucille to Lucy and the ‘Loch Ness Monster of Les Pauls’ – a priceless Gibson that has been missing for more than 50 years

Named and famed! Behind every great blues player is a great guitar, and they don’t come more iconic than this...

MusicRadar

Watch Billy F Gibbons jam Jimmy Reed’s Baby What You Want Me To Do on a Vintera II ‘70s Tele Deluxe with Matt Sweeney, Danielle Haim and Tim Montana

This very cool promo for Fender's Vintera II series finds the ZZ Top rock icon and his BFGs making like it's the ‘70s, striking up an irresistible groove on the electric blues pioneer's 1959 hit

Guitar World

“I used to not bend strings at all, but I started doing it as a joke to make my friends laugh when I played classic rock riffs – it became this massive part of my playing”: Omni’s Frankie Broyles on his unlikely journey to post-punk transcendence

Post-punk trio Omni are masters of minimalism, but guitarist Frankie Broyles is having fun with classic rock moves and ZZ Top-inspired tones

Louder

“We treated them like a bunch of hairy blues wankers… I wish we’d had the sales Eliminator had!” How British synth-pop duo OMD unwittingly set ZZ Top on the path to mega-stardom

It may seem unlikely, but Billy Gibbons and co. learned their best moves from electro-pop duo OMD

Louder

"Every single note he played could kill me with its beauty": Celebrating the life of a man regularly described by his peers as the greatest guitarist of them all, Jeff Beck

A look back on the life, times and truly extraordinary music of the The Guv’nor

Louder

"They couldn't transport the snakes in the cattle trailer because it upset the Longhorn and the buffalo": How ZZ Top took Texas on the road in the most sanity-defying tour ever staged

ZZ Top's Worldwide Texas Tour featured a plexiglass pyramid filled with rattlesnakes, trained buzzards, a fake wolf, and a night in Pittsburgh one doctor called "the most horrible thing I have seen since World War II"

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