As a guitarist, singer, producer, and general fiend, Billy Zoom is a 100% unadulterated rock n' roll purist. I'm not just talking about X. He had his head on straight before X (and since). I'll give you an idea what runs through his veins. What were you listening to before punk rock? Bowie? Stooges? New York Dolls? Not Billy Zoom. He would have none of that. As he said in 1998, "I think everything between Woodstock and the Ramones is an embarrassment and needs to be erased from the history books. I hated all of that stuff." Before punk rock had even entered the picture, he'd already played with soul legends Etta James, Johnny "Guitar" Watson, Johnny Taylor, and rockabilly first stringers Gene Vincent, Ray Campi, and Mac Curtis. He had his own bands too, notably his rockabilly band that had a few cuts on Rollin' Rock Records in the mid-seventies, the Billy Zoom Band. And this wasn't some sort of latching on to a trend type of thing. Rockabilly was all but dead in the mid-seventies, and Zoom was young. The fact that he landed on Rollin' Rock says a lot about the respect he commanded in the small L.A. rockabilly camp.
Everyone thinks of Zoom as the guy with the silver Gretsch, standing with legs spread, apart, on the left of the stage; as he did night after night with X. But he's no punk rocker. He is a rocker, as in old school, unabashed. Not one for trends in music or anything else. There's a telling scene in the X biopic, The Unheard Music. As it shows Top Jimmy, a friend of the band, giving John Doe a tattoo, Zoom is asked if he's going to get a tattoo. He replies "No." When asked why he's not, he answers "Don't want one." Period. No elaboration is offered or needed.
We all know about the spot-on guitar Zoom provided for X. He made it look easy. That was partly intentional, as he tells it, a direct result of having to witness one of the Doobie Brothers play a simple solo with an agonizing guitar face,..."So as a joke, I would play something difficult and just smile and not look at the guitar and act like it was nothing." Dave Alvin, who took his place in X, said it was no easy task learning his parts. "How Billy Zoom put his parts together was amazing. For a three-piece band, his orchestration on guitar was really tremendous. They were almost mathematically perfect arrangements."
Today's whole Zoom-fest started with a hunt for his Rollin' Rock cuts. I'd lost the long out of print Rollin' Rock compilation that they appeared on, and hadn't heard them in at least twenty years. In the time that's elapsed, my tastes in rockabilly have become more refined, and I wondered, if I ever found them again, if I would still think they were as good as I remembered. I found them today, right under my nose, on Zoom's site. And they are as good as any rockabilly I've ever heard, vintage or not. And not just the Rollin' Rock stuff. There's a cover of Ray Charles' "Hallelujah, I Love Her So," recorded live in 1981 (at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go), that sounds like Eddie Cochran back from the dead. A few oddities on his site as well: X doing a Budweiser spot (utilizing the same backing tracks used for their cover of "Wild Thing"). And an X "blooper" (as he calls it), where his guitar is out of whack from the git-go, before the whole song just falls apart. (Exene, the only non-musician of the band, sounding a little peeved, "Whose fault was it? Whose fault was it?!") Following that, theme music for Gearhead TV (all instruments and production by Zoom); and a great, no, outstanding profile/interview, by Buddy Seigal (AKA Buddy Blue). There's more mp3s and radio interviews, so dig in!
Today's whole Zoom-fest started with a hunt for his Rollin' Rock cuts. I'd lost the long out of print Rollin' Rock compilation that they appeared on, and hadn't heard them in at least twenty years. In the time that's elapsed, my tastes in rockabilly have become more refined, and I wondered, if I ever found them again, if I would still think they were as good as I remembered. I found them today, right under my nose, on Zoom's site. And they are as good as any rockabilly I've ever heard, vintage or not. And not just the Rollin' Rock stuff. There's a cover of Ray Charles' "Hallelujah, I Love Her So," recorded live in 1981 (at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go), that sounds like Eddie Cochran back from the dead. A few oddities on his site as well: X doing a Budweiser spot (utilizing the same backing tracks used for their cover of "Wild Thing"). And an X "blooper" (as he calls it), where his guitar is out of whack from the git-go, before the whole song just falls apart. (Exene, the only non-musician of the band, sounding a little peeved, "Whose fault was it? Whose fault was it?!") Following that, theme music for Gearhead TV (all instruments and production by Zoom); and a great, no, outstanding profile/interview, by Buddy Seigal (AKA Buddy Blue). There's more mp3s and radio interviews, so dig in!
~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:Billy Zoom Band - Bad Boy mp3 at BillyZoom.com
Billy Zoom Band - Say When mp3 at BillyZoom.com
Billy Zoom Band - Crazy Crazy Lovin' mp3 at BillyZoom.com
Billy Zoom Band - Hallelujah, I Love Her So (live, 1981) mp3 at BillyZoom.com
Billy Zoom Band - Big Legged Woman (live, 1976) mp3 at BillyZoom.com
X - Budweiser commercial "Bud Thing" mp3 at BillyZoom.com
X - In This House That I Call Home (live, blooper) mp3 at BillyZoom.com
Billy Zoom - Gearhead TV Theme mp3 at BillyZoom.com
Billy Zoom - Gearhead Tenor Sax Theme mp3 at BillyZoom.com
Billy Zoom - Gearhead Alto Theme mp3 at BillyZoom.com
Watch:
X- Beyond and Back (live, with snippet of Billy Zoom interview) video at YouTube
X - Los Angeles (live) video at YouTube
X - Live, David Letterman appearance, video at YouTube
Billy Zoom with the Blasters - Long White Cadillac/Border Radio (live in Finland, 1987) video at YouTube
Read:
Billy Zoom interviewed by Buddy Seigal (Buddy Blue) from the OC Weely, 1998
Billy Zoom at Wikipedia
Billy Zoom's Official site
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