RIP Frank Beard

Would you believe, I have actually written about ZZ Top? I reviewed their Greatest Hits along with a Lynyrd Skynyrd box set. ZZ TOP, Greatest HitsMelody Maker, 1993Like 'funk', like 'raunch', boogie is one of those rock'n'roll concepts that are elemental and un-analysable. There's probably some Rockschool equations that could enable you to go through the motions, but musicology can't endow or explain "feel", or account for the continuum that links such disparate instances as Led Zep's "Black Dog", T. Rex' "Get It On", Budgie's "Whisky River", MBV's "Slow", the Stones' "Can Ya Hear Me Knocking", Soundgarden's "Outshined".Anyways, there ain't a lot of it about these days, least of all this side of the Atlantic. Brit-rock today emits an astounding dearth of rhythmic heat. The drums in most Anglo-indie merely mark time, nobody knows how to groove. For all the calls in these pages for a return to Seventies perversity and caprice (nice rhetoric, I'll prick up when somebody makes a record as…