I'm going to go out on a limb and figure most of you don't know ZZ Top, given the fact that most of you rather click AC/DC Ringtone Ads than comment on my blog (fuck you, seriously).
So then, it's not a big surprise that many of you might not know ZZ Top won a fucking MTV Award for their video of "Legs."
And that was when MTV Awards meant something. Back in 1983…when Van Halen was Van Halen and Heather Locklear was still Heather Locklear, she just wasn’t institutionalized. Back then, real Rock ‘n’ Roll didn’t have to compete for airtime with rap, hip-hop, country, emo, goth, punk, bullshit rock, pussy rock, boy bands, girl bands, or My Chemical Romance. It was complete and utter chaos and it was beautiful thing. I think that my life is a sham, really, because I wasn’t born ten years earlier to experience it.
That said, “Legs” is still a pretty sexy video and if you ever get to chance to find it yourself, you should really go on and do that. Unfortunately for all you fans of softcore retro porn out there, The Rock God continueth with his second installation:
ZZ Top, "Legs"
ZZ Top is one of the only bands in the history of Rock to stay together for forty years. Forty years. That’s four times longer than a decade, twenty times longer than a two-year lease on a Jeep Grand Cherokee, and forty times longer than Nickelback was cool (if they ever were). Forty years! The motherfuckers were together during Nam, that’s what I’m trying to say here.
ZZ Top’s three blues greats–Billy Gardena, Dean “Dirty” Mountain and Frank Bush–met one August evening in Houston, Texas after returning from years of serving our country in the rice paddies and whorehouses of Hanoi. Sharp-dressed, clean-cut and looking to find Cheap Sunglasses, the three began a rock band out of two rival bands named Catching Zs and Spinning Tops, by simply strangling the other members with fishing line. They were never charged in a court; the public agreed that any member of a band named “Catching Zs” deserved to die. Luckily for Frank Bush, he played a rockin beat and nobody gave a damn about who he killed.
After the buzz of the murders fizzled to a dull lull in the media, the three men changed their names to facilitate Rock…and perhaps escape future conviction.
Billy Gardena changed his surname to Gibbons as the result of a fascination for long-armed apes. Dean “Dirty” Mountain changed his name to Dusty Hill, as he felt people overestimated him. And Frank Bush changed his name to Frank Beard…uh…for obvious reasons.
In order to fully dive into the Rock scene, Gibbons and Hill decided to grow beards. Long, sexy, Rabbi-like beards. Beards. Beards. Beards. Ironically enough, however, Frank Beard decided to just keep a rock-stache. There are several rumors about this, but who really gives a fuck. Any stupid bastard can grow a beard. It takes a real man to grow a mustache (Hitler).
After a few years of moderate success with their beards (and Beard), and a Gillette offer to shave off their furry face-nests on a commercial for ten million dollars (that they didn’t take!!!! WHAT THE FUCKKKKKK?) the band finally exploded with Eliminator, an LP that went 10 x Multiplatinum. Aside from their momentary stupidity and desire to keep the beards, Eliminator’s Side B first track, “Legs,” became an instant hit, and propelled the ZZ Top missile over the walls of Rockom & Rollmorah. It dropped panties, mopped mommies and lopped earlobes off with a single, bluesy rift.
Unbeknownst to the public, the song that granted ZZ Top a MTV Music Video Award and cemented them as a major contributor in the famous genre Songs about the Body (“head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes”), was also a dedication piece to a woman that served in Billy Gibbons platoon and helped Frank Beard kill his former bandmates.
Her name was Gina and unlike the song would imply, she actually had no legs. No legs at all. Sure, Gina had legs at some point in her life. She just lost them in Kwangju, 1952…during a night raid by the North Korean Air force.
After years without the use of her bottom two extremities, Gina was able to master the prosthetic wooden pegs, turn them into a set of Captain Hook lethal technology unlike the world had ever seen before. Spears, batons, clubs, boomerangs…she was able to master several martial arts with the legs. She was a killing machine.
So, when Billy Gibbons says, “She’s got legs and she knows how to use them,” we know that he wasn’t lying about this woman, he was warning us of her.
Something that’s important to know about this woman, though: Gina took pride in her ability to kill Gook children. Billy Gibbons actually met her in a hut, drinking the blood of Hwaun Luo Min, the youngest son of a Communist Rebel. Gibbons was immediately impressed with her killer instinct and decided to make love to the woman directly in the blood of the Gook infant. Their love was spurned upon her return to the states.
Regrettably, like many others who served in Nam, Gina became addicted to opium and after a bitter struggle to end her dependence on the drug, she turned to marijuana. The lyrics, “She’s got a dime, all of the time,” tell of her possession charges and inevitable death by suicide in a female prison. It has been said she drew the words “Eliminate-Her” in blood on cell’s bed sheet.
Gina eventually died in 1982 and the song “Legs” is simply ZZ Top’s tribute to her memory. Also, it’s really… a song about great legs.
Long, tan, tight legs.
And that’s a female attribute that we can all air-guitar to.