The loud, proud trio that sold Texas blues and boogie to the world had, by the 1990s, begun to sound like a classic rock band trapped in the past. [...] 42 years after recording its first slab of certified blues, ZZ Top came home earlier this year and re-imagined a local classic hip-hop song about crack, cars, diamonds and paychecks. True to its title, "La Futura" presents a strong case for this revitalized trio, which made the record with producer Rick Rubin, who was responsible for restoring Johnny Cash's recording career. The real irony is Rick's here to make this back-to-basics ZZ record," guitarist Billy Gibbons says, "and we end up doing this very well-known hip-hop song from Houston. The lyrical emphasis on flashy material goods makes the song a natural fit for ZZ Top even though the song was written nearly 15 years ago by Dorie Dorsey, a Port Arthur rapper who had a hit with it as DJ DMD. In concert, Gibbons often sums up ZZ Top's enduring success as a touring act: three guys, three chords, 40 years. At New York's historical Beacon Theatre, before a sold-out show, he spends quiet time backstage with his wife and a soulful 7-year-old pomawawa named GIZZMO. The day before the concert, he's signing copies of "La Futura" at J&R Records in Manhattan, part of a week's worth of promotion for the new album. For a moment, the scene, with its scarcity of people, holds the potential for a sad, unintentional comedy of the Spinal Tap sort. Some things associated with ZZ Top that didn't play well during the serious '90s alterna-rock boom - big videos, guitar solos, lascivious lyrics, a sense of humor - have come back around in music. Stylistically varied younger musicians took on the group's songs for a 2011 tribute album; they ranged from hip-hop (Wyclef Jean) to mainstream rock (Daughtry) to roots rock (Grace Potter and the Nocturnals) to country (Jamey Johnson). A week after ZZ Top's visit to New York, "La Futura" debuts at No. 6, the band's best chart showing in 20 years, though its sales of 31,000 are a far lower than in the '80s, when synthy, hooky rock songs and some shrewd, stylish music videos boosted "Eliminator" to sales in excess of 10 million. [...] five years ago the band changed management after more than 30 years with Bill Ham, who discovered and guided the trio from its bar-band roots through its MTV heyday. With radio out of play, Stubner is looking for other promotional options: brand partnerships, TV and film licensing, even a ZZ Top-inspired musical that is in development ("Sharp Dressed Men") with Andy Fricke of "Little Shop of Horrors" directing. At a post-show dinner in TriBeca, Gibbons pulls a pen from his pocket and, on the paper that covers the tables, he sketches a gestural but identifiable caricature of himself, Hill and Beard on stage with a radio signal behind them (a representative from Clear Channel is at the table). Yet ZZ Top hasn't changed since it formed in 1969 from the remnants of Gibbons' Houston psych rock band the Moving Sidewalks and Hill and Beard's Dallas blues-rock act American Blues. [...] to follow Gibbons after a show is to find yourself in a West Village dance club at 3 a.m., where a millionaire from India celebrates with live music performed by a trio consisting of a DJ, a tabla player and a guy picking away on what appears to be a double-neck electric mandotar. [...] he and Hill move forward like an armored truck, though they're also a spry rhythm section able to stop on a dime for one of those sliver-short breaks that serve as launching pads for Gibbons' rocket-fueled guitar solos. The band has survived by an uncanny ability to make complex musical things seem simple, and simple things seem if not complex, at least colorful.
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