But I was super-pumped about the weekend and nothing was going to dampen my enthusiasm. There was a screaming baby on the flight I cared a little about that. I had a middle seat on the plane I didn’t care. Last minute flights are pricey! I didn’t care. He gave me a ring, “Hey man, I have a suite here. Mike was there to guest on a couple of songs. ZZ Top recently held a residency at The Venetian Theater. When would I get to hang out with The Bearded One? When would I live the rock & roll high life? Well, that day finally came…in Las Vegas. When Mike played in Havana, Cuba with Gibbons, I was in Denton hanging out with my buddy Johnny watching a documentary about the 2-dollar bill. I was slightly jealous, to say the least. Billy referred to my brother as “MoFlo”, a fusion of his full name, Michael O. Once, Mike called me to say he was staying at Gibbons’ house and Billy had just delivered to his bedroom some pajamas and a few snacks (What kind of snacks?). Over the years, Mike guested with ZZ Top at Montreux Jazz Festival, toured with Billy Gibbons and the BFG’s, and recorded a solo album, The Drifter, with a star-studded cast of musicians, including Billy. So began a friendship between my brother and the guy that sang “La Grange.” Billy dug the soulful sounds of the B3 his father had played one. “’What happened last night? What did he say? Was he cool? How did his beard look up close? Tell me he tossed you a ZZ Top keychain!” We hung out.” I called him immediately and the questions came in rapid fire. That is until the morning I woke up to a text from him that said: “Billy Gibbons came to the club last night. Although I was proud of Mike’s success, his accomplishments were largely lost on me. Playing clubs such as Antone’s and Continental Club, my brother became part of the city’s thriving blues community. He traded in his guitar for a Hammond B3 organ where he honed his skills as a blues musician in Austin, Texas. But Mike, being a musician and the smart one, is still going strong. Achy knees have put my basketball days long behind me. Makes me smile even now.įast forward more than a few years. Picture us, windows down, smoking those cigars and drinking beer, with “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide” cranked. At the time, the drinking age in Texas was 18 and sipping a beer behind the wheel was no big deal (today, doing both would be unthinkable). On weekends, Mike and I would pull into the local quick stop where I’d buy a six-pack of Lowenbrau and a pack of Swisher Sweets cigars. But in my Camaro, Deguello appealed to both of us. I’m sure he thought the same of my constant dribbling. To me, I saw all the hours he practiced music as a waste of time. While I was perfecting jump shots on the backyard hoop, he was holed up in his room plucking strings on his guitar and banjo. ![]() Back then, Mike and I couldn’t have been more different. Riding shotgun with me, was my younger brother, Mike. To this day, whenever I hear “I Thank You,” I crank it up and sing along. (For me, finding Bigfoot would have been easier.) “Cheap Sunglasses” made even the nerdiest of kids feel like the coolest cats around. Songs like “She Loves My Automobile” and “Manic Mechanic” sounded that much better when I was behind the wheel of my Camaro, cruising up and down the “drag” of my city. Guitar driven, but with vocals that were equally nasty. That album was like nothing I had ever heard before. But without question, the tape that was almost always jutting out of my tape player was ZZ Top’s Deguello. My car’s 8-track player rotated Van Halen, Journey, Styx, and Boston through the Jensen coaxial speakers I had installed in the back. ![]() My red 1978 Camaro had one strategically placed on the rear window. In my hometown of Denton, Texas (just north of Dallas), kids like me had Q102 album rock stickers on their cars. For someone that didn’t drive a pickup or have a cheatin’ wife, I never connected with it. I was a rock & roll guy, but country music dominated the South. Growing up in Texas in the 1970s and ‘80s was a mixed bag for me, musically.
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