![]() ![]() Then the videos came along, and now we’ve recaptured the 16-year-old girls. You know, our audience grew up with us until the videos, and they were beginning to get a little long in the tooth. As Dusty Hill told Creem, “The videos have given us a younger audience. ![]() These videos made them heroes to New Wave misfits, winning them a new female fandom. These guys always got the joke, at a time when other bands were still just nervously lip-syncing in front of brick walls. ZZ Top reveled in the humor and ridiculousness of it all, busting their synchronized dance moves and spinning their white-fur guitars. Against all odds, the weird beards turned out to be the old-school rockers who best adapted to the Eighties music-video revolution. (The channel turns 40 this Sunday.) But they changed everything about their story with their synth-y reinvention on Eliminator and the classic video trilogy of “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Sharp Dressed Man,” and “Legs,” made with director Tim Newman. ZZ Top had a long career before MTV even existed. As Billy Gibbons said, shrugging, “Dusty and I don’t fit too well with Giorgio Armani.” And they did it without cleaning up their look: beards, hats, cheap sunglasses. The little ol’ band from Tejas, the most proudly unfashionable rockers around, became MTV’s unlikeliest superstars ever. But Dusty was more than just a legendary bluesman - he and ZZ Top helped define music videos in the early Eighties, conquering MTV with their Eliminator Trilogy. He was a beer drinker, hell-raiser, sharp-dressed broom duster, and bassist in the same trio for more than 50 years. The Old Orchard Shopping Center opened in 1965 and, along with the Valencia (Big V) golf clubhouse, was the first vertical development in The Newhall Land and Farming Co.'s "new town" of Valencia.The world is mourning today for the late, great Dusty Hill of ZZ Top, who died Tuesday. One of the more plausible theories is that owner Billy Gibbons had one or more lookalikes made for taking on tour while the original, which was used in the videos, stayed at home. ![]() The Eliminator car has been the subject of legends involving sightings and possible thefts. Some filming (possibly the make-up shooting) was done at a shopping center at Van Nuys Boulevard and Nordhoff Street in Panorama City. We had to reshoot a major portion of the video." We all got over $2,000 for the shoot, which is so much for a video dancer." She said the shoot "went fine" but something went wrong at the film lab. 13 on the dance charts.Įliminator girl Kymberly Herrin ("Romancing the Stone," "Ghostbusters") said in a 2013 interview : "We were paid really well. The rest of the music was created by engineer Terry Manning.įilmed in February and released in May 1984, it was the inaugural winner of the MTV Video Music Awards in the Best Group Video category. Like a silent movie, the video uses pantomime to tell the story of a shoe clerk (Wendy Frazier, who turned 21 on the set) who is teased and harassed until the Eliminator girls show up and put everyone in their place and the ethereal band members pop in and hand her the keys to the car, to the envy of those who had ostracized her.Īll three band members - bandleader Billy Gibbons, bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard - appear in the video, but only Gibbons, on lead guitar, was present for the studio recording in 1983. The "Legs" video introduced the furry, spinning guitars. ĭirected by Tim Newman, "Legs" was the third and final music video from the band's 1983 album, "Eliminator," the others being "Gimme All Your Lovin'" and "Sharp Dressed Man." The series introduced the iconic "Eliminator" car - a fire-engine red 1933 Ford three-window coupe - as well as the Eliminator girls: Danièle Arnaud, Kymberly Herrin and Jeana Tomasino (who later married baseball's Matt Keough to become Jeana Ellen Keough). February 1984 - The Old Orchard Shopping Center in Valencia is the primary filming location for ZZ Top's 1984 music video, "Legs." Among the stores featured are Kinney Shoes (as "Yolanda's Shoe Salon"), Isadora's discount clothing store and Country Girl Fashions (dressing room scenes).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |