From A to Z (Avett Brothers to ZZ Top)

We have an amazing summer of shows coming up.  Here’s the list:

April: Rhett Miller, Avett Brothers, Subdudes

May: Stephen Stills

June: Houndmouth, Jason Isbell with Frank Turner, Violent Femmes, Melissa Etheridge

July: Mavericks, Folk Festival

August: ZZ Top

September: Chicago

When Nels said he wanted to go to ZZ Top, I was like “meh.”  After hearing songs from Eliminator throughout my high school years, I was pretty sure I never wanted to hear “Gimme All Your Lovin’” or “Legs” again—similar to wanting to cover my ears and scream at the first chords of Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll” or Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville.”  As a nightclub deejay for a very brief period of time, I played my share of songs simply to fill the dance floor with drunk women dragging along their drunker partners. I once had a bouncer at Our Place (Fort Wayne friends, remember that club?) swear at me after I played “Sledgehammer” because he had heard it so many times.  Sorry, dude. 

Thus, I was less than excited to go see ZZ Top, notwithstanding that it’s in one of our all-time favorite venues—the Melody Tent in Hyannis on the Cape http://www.melodytent.org/.  It also occurs during the last week of August, which is probably the first week of school (and no, I’m not checking). 

Besides, I wanted to prep for the Avett Brothers this Sunday.  I began by listening to I and Love and You and was progressing to Live, Volume 3 with the stop and start of “The Ballad of Love and Hate” (don’t get me started on the gender issues in that song—that’s for another blog https://youtu.be/1cTJV3HK-Xs).   Then Nels un-subtly placed DeGuello, his favorite ZZ album, where I could see it and started singing “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide” (https://youtu.be/C9r1P5Boek4) in the shower.  I was intrigued enough to throw DeGuello onto iTunes Friday morning.  I had every intention of doing my duty as a citizen and listening to NPR on the way to work.  All it took was the opening bars of “I Thank You” https://youtu.be/Vr_Q2UKN6eU to max out the volume and open up the sunroof in 45 degree weather.  Politics could not overcome rock and roll.

The unapologetic, unsentimental blues raunch of ZZ Top was in crisp contrast to the earnest songs of the Avetts.  ZZ Top celebrate sex.  Avetts celebrate love.   Both are completely open about what they are doing.  Unlike some other genres or artists that focus on love but really mean sex (adult contemporary, country, pop and R&B are the worst offenders), ZZ Top are not just fools for my stockings, they want to thank me for my general foxiness and love that I want to ride with the top down (I just got that double entendre and am blushing).

As a woman who is inconsistently feminist, there is room in my world for bawdiness and sweetness.  I hope I don’t have to check my professor credentials at the Will Call, but if that happens, so be it.