Tag Archives: rockpalast

Frank Beard (1949-2026): ZZ Top @ Rockpalast

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This writer had been subconsciously drawn to ZZ’s Tres Hombres (1973) several times over the late summer without quite knowing why. But maybe now it’s clear.

Drummer Frank Beard died at his Richmond, Texas ranch on 17 August after cancelling an appearance with ZZ at the Hollywood Bowl a few weeks earlier.

He had a lovely, flowing style. He never hit particularly hard but tuned his drums beautifully. Comparisons to Jim Gordon, Alex Van Halen and John Bonham are totally relevant. His playing on Tres and Deguello was every bit as subtle and tasteful as Gordon’s on Steely’s Pretzel Logic.

When this writer used to play the drums at school, ZZ’s ‘Gimme All Your Lovin’ was by far the most requested beat (though it now sounds a bit like a combination of real drums and an Oberheim DMX machine…).

No one played a Texas shuffle like Beard, with formidable kick-drum technique. ‘La Grange’ is much imitated, never bettered. There were many other tricks in his box too.

He was apparently an early adopter of hearing protection, with those big headphones, pre-click-track/sequencers(?). Photographer Ross Halfin also told a funny story about an ashtray being built into his kit so he could smoke throughout live sets.

Beard was famously modest about his skills and hardly gave any interviews. And yes he was generally the only ZZ member sans beard, despite the name.

ZZ’s whole 1980 Rockpalast gig is worth watching but here’s a fine version (with not great sound quality) of a movingtheriver favourite. Zappa meets ZZ, as someone said on YouTube, with ingenious use of backing tapes and a cooking Beard groove. Even after watching it a few times it’s still hard to work out how they did it. Play LOUD…

Level 42: Rockpalast 40 Years On

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It’s not surprising that a lot of Level 42 fans cite 1983 as the peak of the band’s career.

Messrs. King, Lindup, Gould and Gould had just released their first UK top 10 album Standing In The Light (and arguably their greatest single ‘The Sun Goes Down’) but were still very much holding on to their jazz/funk/rock roots, despite Polydor Records wanting more hits and less instrumentals.

The band were also still very much an in-your-face live act in 1983, a year off adding sequencers, drum machines and a much more commercial sheen to their sound. They toured Standing extensively during the autumn, including a dynamite show filmed 40 years ago today in Bochum, Germany, recently released on DVD.

It’s Exhibit A for those who love the early days of the band. And, for Level fans like movingtheriver who only came onboard around 1985, discovering the broadcast was gold dust. Also it’s not every day you see a bass player laying down deliciously funky lines while dancing like Max Wall (at around 4:30 below) and telling the fans to ‘Clap, you sods!’.

It’s interesting though that Mark King himself to this day strongly questions the live potency of the band during this era. In the March 1992 issue of Bass Player magazine, he came out with all guns blazing, discussing their November 1983 ‘Whistle Test On The Road’ appearance at the Brixton Ace (now the Academy):

‘I dug up an old one of us doing a live BBC programme… I thought, “Oh yeah, they were the good old days”. So I put on the video – and it was crap. The audience were fine, the lights were fine, the sound was fine. The band was crap. It was just so unsure, so uncertain…’

So which Level do you prefer? The choice is yours… In any case, it’s exciting to report that they’re currently in the middle of a UK tour celebrating 40 years of ‘The Sun Goes Down’.

Further reading: ‘Level 42: Every Album, Every Song’.