Archive for February, 2008

Dirt Cheap

Published
by
Lucas
on February 14, 2008
in Listening and On the road
. 11 Comments

dirty deeds cd on the bus to canberra

Following Damo’s advice, I went down to Pitt Street looking for “that bargain CD shop near where that vegetarian yum cha place used to be.” Damo had acquired the entire Bon-era back catalogue there at only ten bucks a pop. He said they were imports from Argentina or something. Who knows how the music distribution business works? It’s a mystery to me.

I found the place. It’s called “Dirt Cheap CDs”. Inside, the AC/DC section (which takes up a fair amount of shelf space) was crammed with Brian Johnson-era releases: Flick of the Switch, Fly on the Wall, Stiff Upper Lip etc. etc. (One of these day’s I’ll do an analysis on Acca Dacca album names, there certainly seems to be a pattern there…)

Dirt Cheap CDs only had one Bon-era album: Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (1976). I figured given the name of the CD, the name of the shop, and the price of the item, it was meant to be. I asked the guy behind the counter if he had any more early AC/DC stuff. “Nah,” he said, “the computer says we’ve got 2 copies of Let There Be Rock, but I went looking for them earlier and I just can’t find them. They keep getting nicked.” Then he added hopefully: “But hey, you should check out some of the post-Bon era albums too, mate. They’re still pretty good!”
Continue reading ‘Dirt Cheap’

LAST CALL FOR BON SCOTT DRIVER!

Published
by
Lucas
on February 13, 2008
in On the road
. 1 Comment

This is it folks! Last chance!

In my callout (BON OR BUST!) I have searched far and wide for a travelling companion to accompany me to Fremantle on a historic pilgrimage across the Nullabor. Many hard rockin’ candidates have fallen by the wayside, victims to that terrible affliction, the “W” word (”ah man, I’d love to go but I can’t get the time off me work”)

What’s wrong with you people!? Throw off those shackles, and in the great Aussie tradition, “Don’t Be a Thickie, Chuck a Sickie!” Ahem, of course, this would have to be a 2 week sickie, at least.

But seriously, I am considering declaring “BUST!” and booking me a flight. Get in touch today if you want to jump on board.

The advantages of the flight, of course, are that on 19 February (the actual anniversary of Bon’s death) I can hang out at the cemetery, rather than being somewhere east of Adelaide. And I can spend the week in Fremantle in the lead up to the great bronze statue unveiling, maybe getting to meet some of the fanatics who have made it all happen over there.

Franck’s Brush with Bon

Published
by
Lucas
on February 11, 2008
in Correspondence and Fandom
. 1 Comment

The imminent erection of the Bon Scott Bronze Statue in Fremantle is drawing fans from around the world. Because of the distance, many international Bon-lovers won’t be able to make it on the 24th of February, but they seem to be following the events from afar with fascination. Franck, a passionate fan from Paris, contacted the Fremantle Arts Centre, to enquire about the best way to get to the cemetery. I emailed Franck, asking him if he had any special stories of his own. Here’s his reply:

Hi Lucas,

Many Thanks to contact me…
Of course I’ve got lots of stories about Bon but the best i think it was in 80’s (1981/1982 ?) during the concert in Paris ; I was 17 or 18 (I’m born in 1964) and Bon with Angus on his back climb down in the arena in the middle of people…they arrive just in front of me and i was paralyzed looooooooool

i couldnt move my arms to touch Bon and Angus and it was very easy….at the end of the concert i was crying alone in a place of the arena and a man come in front of me and says what ’s the matter ? I explain my story and he says ok dont cry come with me …we have passed the security and nobody ask me nothing just smiling to this man…and we have arrived in the backstage i have entered in a room and here just in front of me Bon / Angus / Malcom and Phil !!!!
after i have dream many time i was playing guitar with them looooooool but no… i have never play with them …just to speak with them and take a glass of whisky.

At this time it was impossible to live a story like that with the french stars in France…french are too idiot…but with Australian stars it was possible.
so god bless Australia…
cheers
Franck

Reyes Del Sonido Metalico

Published
by
Lucas
on February 7, 2008
in Correspondence
. 2 Comments

esto es rock
(Above: a scan from Hana’s 1983 Mexican Heavy Metal zine…)

AC/DC actually can put me in this kind of mood…say if im feeling down or whatever, I can put some of these classic Bon Scott albums on and then I get in that kind of hyperactive mood. Something about it takes me back to being fifteen and then I can tap into that youthful spirit…and I think that’s something Bon Scott carried with him as well. That youthful spirit of living the good life…
-Demolition Damo, February 5th, 2007

With this mood-altering theory of Damo’s in mind, I’m a-bloggin’ away with Back in Black blaring through the speakers. I know, I know, it’s not a Bon album (depending on which side of the fence you sit on, vis-a-vis that conspiracy theory) …but I’m yet to aquire any Bon-era albums beyond T.N.T. (I’ll remedy that later on today down at a discount CD shop on Pitt Street Damo told me about). But in the meantime, I’m trying to spit words out on my keyboard with these driving beats and the screeching of Brian Johnson… hammering out words and headbanging (mildly) at my desk …It really slows my word-per-minute rate down, and I have no idea if the resulting paragraphs will be readable, but it sure feels good…

Anyway, I’ve been rummaging through the Bon Scott Blog Mailbag®. Thanks to everyone who’s written or sent in their stories. Here’s a highlight: an email with attached images from Hana, who seems determined to boost my Bon Scott credibility by sending through some extremely rare old Mexican Fanzines. She writes: Continue reading ‘Reyes Del Sonido Metalico’

Demolition Damo

Published
by
Lucas
on February 6, 2008
in Fandom and On the road
. 2 Comments

damo doing a scary face

Damo is one helluva fan. My first big one! I contacted him through a friend of mine, a musician called Lucas who plays a miked-up a shard of glass with his mouth, complete with saliva and blood smearing all over its surface. Damo’s musical predilections, while also pretty wild, at least use conventional guitars and drums and so on.

Damo’s place, a small flat in a housing commission building perched on the southern edge of the fashionable bit of Surry Hills, is a shrine to loudness. Every surface that could possibly transfer noise to the outside world has been fastidiously padded with custom-cut knobs of foam. He’s even built some thickly insulated panels which hinge so as to swing across and clip into place, blocking out the windows. And in the deepest corner of Damo’s tiny abode is a padded cell, a chamber so perfectly sound-proofed you can almost hear your own blood pumping in your veins. It’s here in this airless cave, with just enough room for a computer and a drum kit, that Damo rehearses and records his own music.

“AC/DC is probably the biggest influence on my music” he says, munching away on one of the falafel rolls I’ve brought for dinner. He shows me his prized collection of LPs, original vinyl records in plastic sleeves. “The only Bon-era record I don’t have is TNT. A friend of mine bought it for me as a present, but then the bastard decided to keep it for himself.”
Continue reading ‘Demolition Damo’

Driving without Bon

Published
by
Lucas
on February 5, 2008
in Listening
. 0 Comments

Last week I proposed that driving around is one of the better ways to listen to Acca Dacca: you can turn it up loud without disturbing the neighbours… the stereo in the car is pretty good, and somehow the rhythms of the highway meld with the driving force of the rock rhythms.

So to try it out, I picked Diego up from his house, and we went for a spin around Redfern. Earlier, Diego had told me about his first encounter with an AC/DC cassette tape - in Italy in the late 1980s. Telling the story, he couldn’t help himself, and air guitarred the key riff from Back in Black. So Back in Black, naturally, was his album of choice for our drive. I went and bought it from the record store (thereby doing my little bit to help cement it as AC/DC’s highest selling LP of all time).

Bon Scott, of course, doesn’t actually sing on Back in Black: by the time of its recording, 1980, he was freshly dead. Malcolm and Angus Young quickly auditioned for a new singer, who turned out to be Brian Johnson. Now I don’t want to get bogged down in a fruitless never-ending debate, but if you Google “Who is better: Brian Johnson or Bon Scott?” you come up with over seventy thousand hits. So you can see that this controversy, far from being laid to rest, is one of the defining and enduring features of the band.

I’ll reserve my opinion on this for later. In the meantime, you can listen to Diego musing “live” over the top of the album… some of the songs trigger memories of his first home-made tattoo, the time he did a strip-tease to Back in Black and his Eighties enthusiasm for Reggae…

We head down Regent Street, past Green Square to Gardeners Road, and then proceed to loop back up past Redfern Station. As a result of skipping a few tracks we get bored with, the odd nip n tuck in the editing, and muddied by road noises and conversation (apologies to the purists), Back in Black is thus compressed to just 18 minutes.

Click here to listen now, or right click and choose “save target as” to download the file [mp3, 10mb, 18 mins].

Or for the time-poor, here is a shorter version, with just the first six minutes…[mp3, 3mb, 6 mins].