Archive for April, 2008

Air Guitar Tips

Published
by
Lucas
on April 11, 2008
in Rumours
. 6 Comments



[C-Diddy wows em with his air guitar prowess...The original video is posted here.]

Yesterday I was visiting the museum where I occasionally work, conducting children’s art workshops. Lately I only make rare appearances, mainly due to the fact that I’ve been galavanting around the country with this Bon Scott business. But people in offices love a bit of news from the outside world, so I found myself chatting over the cubicles about Bon and his fans, enthusing about some incredible AC/DC performances I’ve seen on YouTube lately, and crowing about my new career as an air guitar judge.

Being an “open plan” office, people inevitably overhear (and eavesdrop on) each other. So while I was raving to my colleague Nicky about all this stuff, from across the room Penny the conservator pricked up her ears. “WHAAAT!?” she screamed. Or, would have screamed, except it’s an open plan office, so she kind of hush-screamed, and the look of intensity in her face made up for the lack of volume. She couldn’t believe I had landed this plum gig with zero experience. It was so unfair.

Penny told me a story about going to see Magic Dirt play at the Annandale once. She and another female friend air-guitared so energetically that a small circle of fans began to gather around to watch the spectacle, ignoring the band on stage. Then she beckoned me over to her desk, and clicked onto YouTube so that I might witness the greatness of the video above, featuring world-reknowned air-guitarist C-Diddy. And lo, I was indeed impressed.

“Nobody in Western Australia will come close to C-Diddy,” she said. “But as a judge, it’s important to know the benchmark of excellence.”

Being the first air-guitar enthusiast to come into my life, Penny wasted no time in presenting me with some criteria for judging the competition:

1. It’s not about realism: Get over the idea that air guitarists have to know how to play a real guitar, or hit the “real” notes as if playing. It’s a performance, and has to be judged on that basis, first and foremost. On the other hand, note how C-Diddy creates the illusion he is actually holding an instrument. A kind of Marcel Marceau mime skill. Top marks.

2. Costumes are very important, perfect bodies less so. Note C-Diddy’s whacky open shirt and Hello Kitty chest piece, eclipsing his chubby belly.

3. Engagement with the audience: note that C-Diddy acknowledges his audience, and calls for them to participate in shouting out the chorus.

4. Women who participate get extra points. Since there are not many of them.

5. Use of the overbite while strumming, in order to convey the idea of intensity of concentration loses marks, according to Penny. Too contrived. Come up with something interesting to do with your facial expression.

6. Bonus points if you bring your own air-roadies or air-groupies, anything original of this sort…

Thanks Penny. I hope this blog post doesn’t result in an office-wide ban on YouTube. Or my blog.

Swanee pays his dues…

Published
by
Lucas
on April 11, 2008
in Listening
. 4 Comments

My friend Jessie (who came along last week to see Mark Evans rock out at the Sando) just sent me an excited text message. There will be a tribute evening to Bon Scott in Newtown in a few weeks!

So here are the details:

LET THERE BE ROCK - A Salute to Bon Scott featuring SWANEE

The Vanguard
42 King Street
Newtown NSW
Australia

Thursday 24 Apr 2008
7:00 PM - 11:45 PM

ACDC formed in Sydney, Australia in 1973 by brothers Angus and Malcolm Young. The band is considered a pioneer of hard rock and heavy metal, alongside bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath.

Celebrating the Bon Scott era of ACDC special guest vocalists rock out on a night that is going to blow you away!

Guest vocalists:
SWANEE
SIMON MELI (Ooh la la, Johnny G)
JOHN CASS
MAX SMIDT + More to be announced
The Electrfying Band is:
RICHARD MADDEN (Guitar)
CURTIS MARTIN (Drums)
TONY THE KIDD (Guitar) (Ooh La La)
CAMERON DUNN (Bass)

The Vanguard’s website is here.

Damn! I am heading over to Perth next week for the great air guitar gig, so I’m gonna miss this. Perhaps someone can go along to the tribute night at the Vanguard, and send in a report or some pictures for the blog?

Mr Know-it-All

Published
by
Lucas
on April 7, 2008
in Rumours
. 2 Comments

air guitar championships

Katie, the hard-working media expert from the Fremantle Arts Centre, has somehow managed to convince the WA Chapter of the Air-Guitar Championships that I would be a good celebrity judge for their state final in a couple of weeks.

The winner, as judged by me (and some other minor experts) will be heading to Darwin to compete in “The Nationals”. Hence their slogan: “It’s a long way to the TOP (END) if you wanna rock n roll” (don’t blame me, I didn’t come up with it).

What’s more, rumour has it that the West’s best vapour-strummer will be invited to perform his (or her?!) fave AC/DC song at the launch of the Bon Scott Project in May!

Stay tuned for all the finer details. And, ahem…can anybody point me towards some criteria for good air-guitar method?

Butt-head Science

Published
by
Lucas
on April 7, 2008
in Correspondence
. 1 Comment

graphical representations of pop songs

By now, “graphical representations of pop songs” like the one above have probably already weaseled their way past your spam filter and into your inbox, together with viagra and fake rolex watches and whatnot. I was sent a half a dozen or so of them from my friend Chris-O, who is obviously spending a few too many hours procrastinating from his thesis about the withdrawal symptoms of methamphetamine.

Someone has kindly uploaded ‘em all over here. And if rap is more your thing, you might find these mildly amusing. But whoa, google around a little more and you find hundreds of the little critters. Phew. I think I was happier when I thought there were only six.
Continue reading ‘Butt-head Science’

The Mighty Blues

Published
by
Lucas
on April 6, 2008
in Listening
. 2 Comments

tice and evans at the sando
[Dave Tice with the funny-lookin' red guitar, and Mark Evans on the right...]

Fans all over the world salivate over the tiniest scraps of information which occasionally filter through from AC/DC’s management. But the current band members live extremely private lives, subject to speculation of all sorts (will they ever complete a new album? will they ever tour again? do they ever rehearse together these days?).

But how many people are aware of this fact: Mark Evans, former AC/DC bass player, not only performs in an intimate setting every single Saturday afternoon, but if you’re lucky, you might even get to share a beer with him?

Last week, after hitting the second hand record stalls at the flea market, I went down to the Sandringham Hotel in Newtown to see him in action.
Continue reading ‘The Mighty Blues’

We are Family

Published
by
Lucas
on April 4, 2008
in Lovechildren
. 11 Comments

bon lovechild

Holy Matrimony! Bon’s lovechildren are a-comin’ out of the woodwork. The latest is this fella, Aussie actor Alex O’Loughlin. Here’s the story, lifted from the ever-reliable news dot com dot au:

The Oyster Farmer star — who recently joined the cast of US cop drama The Shield - has revealed he’s the son of late AC/DC frontman Ronald “Bon” Scott, according to the World Entertainment News Network.

And while Confidential yesterday contacted both the Sydney and LA-based agents of 29-year-old O’Loughlin, neither was able to confirm the bizarre claim, which first appeared in the Chicago Tribune last week.

O’Loughlin - currently dating fellow Aussie hottie Holly Valance - was also out of reach, in Canada to film thriller Whiteout alongside Kate Beckinsale.

The NIDA-trained actor, who was tested for the role of James Bond in the latest instalment, Casino Royale, before it went to Daniel Craig, was born in 1977 at the height of Scott’s fame as AC/DC’s hard man of rock ‘n’ roll - three years before the rocker died in London in February 1980.

ben scottIn the meantime, the Bon Scott Blog’s original and favourite lovechild candidate (although one lovechild does not rule out another, of course) BEN SCOTT has begun an online petition to help promote his cause.

He wants the supreme court to grant him access to Bon’s DNA so that science can prevail, and it can be proven one way or another.

I really don’t know how these things work, where any of Bon’s DNA might still be lurking, or how they match up these things…but ours is not to reason why, ours is just to sign online petitions, right? OK, off you go then.

(Oh, and thanks to my brother Josh for keeping an ever-vigilant eye on the world wide web. He sent me the above news story about Alex O’Loughlin. What are family for, eh?)

Hits and Memories

Published
by
Lucas
on April 2, 2008
in Listening
. 8 Comments

album covers

Saturday morning found me in Rozelle, a suburb of Sydney famous for its fleamarket. Lizzie was on the lookout for a mirror for her room. I didn’t really have anything in particular to search for, except a ceramic butter dish, which we’ve been hunting for ages (those things are rare!) So I just nosed around half-heartedly, while Lizzie tried on some jeans.

Since I started the Bon Scott Blog, I have been flipping through records at second hand shops, not in any disciplined way, just “on the off chance something might come up”. It never does. Somehow I get the impression that, like Stevo the collector, AC/DC fans keep a firm grip on their old vinyl.

So at Rozelle, of course, there were a few record stalls, and of course I had a shuffle through the boxes. As expected, no AC/DC. But I did start to turn up some records that were circulating around the time Bon joined the band and they started to have success…
Continue reading ‘Hits and Memories’

“A door is either open or shut.”

Published
by
Lucas
on April 1, 2008
in Listening
. 0 Comments

dave aston album cover

For some weeks I have been meaning to post a blog entry about “quality” in the music of AC/DC. But it’s not ready yet.

In the meantime, I want to point to something written by Sydney musician (and 1980s Holden Commodore Station Wagon enthusiast) Dave Aston. Dave is probably best known to local music fans from his work with bands Trout Fishing in Quebec, and Dave Aston and the Spanish Authorities. He plays the drums. I seem to remember, from the few gigs I attended, that these featured sprawling funky lineups - many personnel playing at once. And no lyrics, just instrumental jamming. And they were amazingly “tight”. I mean, 11 people on stage at once and they all manage to stop or start simultaneously.

Looking at this entry on Dave’s blog, it seems this is no accident - it’s something he thinks about a lot. It’s Dave’s opinion that AC/DC are generally misunderstood. Their music is regarded as “easy”, and yet there is an ineffable “something” which makes it so crisp and compelling to listen to. It’s the timing:

It is one thing to write, and rehearse, and execute popular music. But, even when learnt, the very best transcend the note values, and move into the realm of milliseconds, where everything is executed as close as possible to where the time is, without the aid of a click track. Of course, as we are not machines, theoretically we cannot play with absolute mechanical precision. [...But when it's done right] it’s as if the execution is so good, that the listener doesn’t understand the effect that it is having on them [...]

So, next time you hear someone say that AC DC’s music is easy, and it may be easy to learn the melodies, and beats, and basslines, ask why the covers band playing Highway To Hell doesn’t sound as sweet as the real thing. The difference may not be that the guitarist can’t play solos like Angus Young. It’s more likely, as with the 50,000,000,000,000 original bands that have tried to sound like them, that they just don’t have the touch, the discipline, the concentration and attention to detail, and the soul.

AC DC are the loudest funk band on earth. A door is either open or shut. But, if you close it half way, and then halve that distance, and halve it again, you’ll never actually close it. I guess having it closed is a computer, or the mechanical, and getting it as close to closed as is possible for humans is someone like AC DC, those great Australian exponents of soul music.