THE END OF AC/DC? NOT YET. ROCK IN PEACE GEORGE AND MALCOLM YOUNG

Brothers Malcolm Young, George Young and Angus Young, 2012 (photo from Facebook)

By Darryl Mason

UPDATE, SEPT 29, 2020: A poster appears on a pole outside the Sydney school where Angus Young once went to school: 

Hours later, a new AC/DC website launches: 

Rumours are running hot in Australia that AC/DC will return with a Sydney live show of some pandemic-friendly kind. But that's all they are for now, rumours. We were supposed to make the 'AC/DC!' link between the poster outside the school where Angus was once a student and new AC/DC music. 

But why would AC/DC want to evoke 'school days nostalgia' around their new 2020 work? 

Maybe because Angus Young has searched back through decades of tapes of brother Malcolm's rhythm guitar recordings, noodlings and jams so his brother can be a part of this new album and he's gone right back to start of when they first began laying down riffs and rhythms on tape. 

The AC/DC-Angels Intersection (1975-1976)

Exactly what AC/DC's touring plans for 2021 are not yet known, or if there will be a tour at all. Other bands are currently cancelling their recently rescheduled shows for 2021, as the COVID19 pandemic seems determined to stop all reasonably crowded live gigs, anywhere, for possibly 2 or more years to come. It's unimaginable to get an AC/DC album without a new tour. So maybe they have something else planned. A VR Live Experience? Pay-per-view gigs for home concert rocking out?  

Is there a new single? Of course. A new video? Definitely. A new album? Assuredly. Power Up, or PWR Up, will be the name of the album, and presumably a single. But when? That is not known at the time of posting.

AC/DC are just teasing us for now. But something is coming. A new album by Christmas is all but confirmed.

And now, just a 25 second tease: 

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iKOlC8hNMZA" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

UPDATE: DEC 12, 2017: Brothers George and Malcolm Young, the foundation builders of the 1980s new age of hard rock, are dead now. Their legacies and legends live. 

The deaths of these two brothers, only a few months apart, reminded me of the first time they worked in the studio together. Back in 1973. The recording project was a fictitious rock group, The Marcus Hook Band, with George Young and Harry Vanda producing, playing and singing. 

At 17 years old, Malcolm Young went into the studio, after school, with his big brother to lay down his first recordings. Angus also got his start on the Marcus Hook Project, contributing a few solos and rhythm guitar parts. This was the first project for George Young and Harry Vanda after The Easybeats that looked like it might be a winner. There was interest from the United States in the first recordings, completed back at Abbey Road before they returned to Australia. In a month, the brothers Young and Harry Vanda. 

Working from a heavily scratched vinyl, I've remixed some of the songs to highlight the guitar playing of the brothers Young. All the Marcus Hook Band songs are worth hearing in full. 

As well as being a test-run for Vanda and Young's Flash And The Pan, the month of late night 1973 studio recordings also revealed how incredible Malcolm and Angus sounded playing together, just how talented they were. And they could get it down in the studio, and do it fast..

AC/DC were born in these sessions - the swinging hard blues is already there, the boozy, chant-friendly pop, some of that AC/DC pummelling attitude, and the tone of the guitars. Oh, Boom. There's that sound.

I'll do a separate post for the rest of the remixes, but here's two for now, to remember the time in 1973, when George Young invited his younger brothers into a recording studio and created the sound of Australian hard pub rock. Or at least, fashioned the Australian pub rock sound that would soon take on the world. And win.

If you think that sounds like Malcolm Young on slide guitar, it probably is. The Angus Young solos are already signature. He was 17.

Remix of 'Watch Her Do It Now'



Remix of 'Goodbye Jane'



More To Come. The story of AC/DC is not yet done.

1975-1976: The AC/DC-Angels Intersection

'The Last Original Member Of A Legendary Band' 

 
NOV 15, 2014: Angus Young Reveals Brother Malcolm Has Been Suffering Symptoms Of Dementia Since 2008, Kept Touring, Co-Wrote Riffs On New Album


SEPT 26, 2014 LATEST NEWS: Malcolm Young Officially Retires From AC/DC, New AC/DC Album 'Rock Or Bust' Announced For Late Nov Release, Track Listing Here


AC/DC Latest News, April 19: Brian Johnson Confirms AC/DC Future Still In Doubt - "I Don't Know What Happens Next" 


By Darryl Mason

UPDATE: April 13, 2015 - Very happy to acknowledge, one year later, I was wrong in the below story in stating AC/DC would come to an end without Malcolm Young. AC/DC have now debuted their new first new live show in five years to mostly positive responses at Coachella, have sold more than 2 million tickets to concerts across Europe and the US and tickets are about to go on sale for stadium and arena shows Australia later this year.

Here's a few more predictions that may, or may not, turn out to be wrong:

- By the time AC/DC's 2015 tour winds down, they will have sold more than 4 million tickets, making it the Biggest Tour Of 2015.

- AC/DC have lots on open dates on their Australian tour (between the announced capital city shows), which means if tickets sell well, they could keep announcing more shows. Predicting this will happen, and AC/DC will play to more than 500,000 Australians by Christmas.

- AC/DC's new 'Rock Or Bust' album will be either the biggest selling album of 2015, or within the Top 3 best-selling.


----------------------------------------------------

ORIGINAL STORY FROM April 15, 2014 BELOW:


AC/DC are ending their 41 year career on a terribly sad note.

Plans were underway for a new studio album, their first since 2008's monumental Black Ice, and a '40th Anniversary' world tour, 40 huge shows across the globe.

More than a month ago, founding member, rhythm guitarist, co-producer and co-songwriter Malcolm Young had a stroke, which left a blood clot on his brain.

When AC/DC reunited at the start of April to begin a month of rehearsals, in the lead-up to new album recording sessions, Malcolm discovered he couldn't play. At least, he couldn't play like he used to play.

Nothing has been officially confirmed, as of this writing, but friends and family members have been discussing what happened to Malcolm for the past couple of weeks. The blood clot, resulting from the stroke, is believed to be why Malcolm couldn't keep working.

Although friends have described Malcolm's condition as serious, it doesn't mean he won't recover. People do get better after strokes, and people do recover lost skills.

But friends and family of band members believe the decision was made last week to call it quits.

Media in Australia have gone ballistic today on rumours of The End Of AC/DC, and it appears the news got out ahead of a planned official announcement from the band and management.

Right now, that announcement is expected Wednesday, April 16, and a press conference has been scheduled.

Angus, Malcolm and George Young working on AC/DC songs in the mid-1970s, on piano

AC/DC won't continue playing and recording without Malcolm. It can't be done.

While Angus Young is the more famous, and more recognisable, AC/DC is most definitely Malcolm Young's band, he started AC/DC, under the guidance of big brother George Young (ex-Easybeats, and co-producer) and encouraged his younger brother Angus to join him, and take on the world.

Malcolm Young has been the quiet motivator and boss of the band for four decades, co-writing nearly all of AC/DC's classics, and making sure nothing happened to harm or damage the band's reputation, or disappoint the fans who've stuck by them for decades.

His passion for the band and its music, and integrity, were so intense, back in the 1970s he used to have fistfights with his younger brother, Angus, in the studio, when disagreements about a sound or riff couldn't be resolved. Proper punch-ups, teeth were lost, blood was drawn.

So that's it. AC/DC are coming to an end.

But what a career. AC/DC set out to conquer the world, and they did it, multiple times. Even the death of singer Bon Scott barely slowed them down, and only slightly delayed recording sessions for Back In Black.

Back In Black is still one of the biggest-selling albums in rock history, and AC/DC have easily sold more than 180 million albums, and probably half as many singles and DVDs and videos and special edition packages. They've influenced pretty much every hard rock, heavy rock and heavy metal band that has followed in their wake, including Nirvana, Metallica, you name them, they probably grew up loving AC/DC. And AC/DC are still in the record books for one of the biggest live audiences in rock history, playing to more than 1.6 million people in Moscow, in 1991. They were invited to play by the youth of Russia, who grew up on AC/DC bootlegs, after the fall of the Berlin Wall.



The band have been written off by critics, numerous times, but they stuck to their guns and beliefs and never compromised their sound. They were rarely, almost never, tempted by the musical fads that came and went over the decades. They dabbled in glam rock at the start of their career, but that barely lasted through the recording sessions of their debut album. Their fans wanted rock n roll, heavy rock, they could rely on, and that's what AC/DC delivered, across more than 14 albums, and numerous live-in-concert releases.

Malcolm Young never gave up on his belief that 1950s and 1960s rock n roll was rarely bettered, and he used the riffs and rhythms of black blues players as the basis for AC/DC's sound. He's also cited The Rolling Stones' Keith Richards as a key influence, and talks about that influence in the below interview.



The secret to Malcolm's playing, as Guitar Magazine explained, was open chords with the amps turned down, not up, and mics shoved right up close to capture all the details. He didn't churn out huge rock riffs through blasting amplifiers, his playing, and magic, is much more subtle than that, despite the rawness of the early studio albums.

I still reckon AC/DC's 2008 album Black Ice was amongst the best they made, right up their with Back In Back and Highway To Hell (their last album with Bon Scott), it's absolutely killer, and filled with excellent playing, classic AC/DC songs about rock n roll and some of Brian Johnson's better vocal performances. It's also pretty much a live-in-the-studio album, with minimal overdubs, just like they did it back in the Alberts Studio days in the mid-1970s.

Malcolm's work on Black Ice, in particular, is superb, not just the detail of his playing, but also his songwriting with brother Angus. They worked on the writing of the Black Ice songs for five years, and gave themselves the time to get it right. They nailed every single one, and Black Ice became the 2nd highest selling album of 2008.

 Rock N Roll Dream, from Black Ice, is everything AC/DC was about. They wanted the rock n' roll dream, they got it, then they lived it.

"And it could be the very last time..."




Malcolm Young and his family have now returned to Australia. Everyone is hoping he makes a recovery, but close friends are saying the situation is not looking good, right now. Things may change. We can hope they change, and Malcolm recovers.

Instead of linking to an AC/DC classic, most of which you've probably heard a thousand times already, here's a rare treat instead - Malcolm Young's rhythm guitar from Let There Be Rock, way back in 1976.



Updates to follow

1975-1976: The AC/DC-Angels Intersection 


UPDATE:

Mark Gable, from The Choirboys, provides another confirmation on the sad news about Malcolm Young:

"That is true, Malcolm is sick.

"From what I understand, and it's even been confirmed in part by his son Ross (Young), that it would appear Malcolm is unable to perform anymore.

"It's not just that he is unwell, it's that it is quite serious. It will constitute that he definitely won't be able to perform live.

"He will probably not be able to record."

An official comment/announcement from AC/DC management is still expected today.

Fairfax media claims the following is from a "family source":

It is understood Young returned to Sydney with his family before Christmas and was having in-home care at his house in East Balmain. He is now said to be having difficulty remembering familiar faces and having increasing problems communicating.

"His memory loss is so bad it is consistent with Alzheimers or dementia although we do not know that is what it is. There has been talk about cancer too."

The response online, and on radio, to news of Malcolm's illness has been massive. If AC/DC were in any doubt that millions of people around the world still love and respect their music, and their skills and talent at songwriting, they should wonder no more.

AC/DC are still the biggest rock band in the world, with devoted fans across three generations and from just about about country. Nobody can really believe it.

UPDATE: Brian Johnson has spoken to the UK Telegraph. He said members of the band are still planning to meet in the studio in May, "and have a plonk." On the future of AC/DC, he said:

"I wouldn't like to say anything either way about the future. I'm not ruling anything out. '

That might be the last we hear from anyone in AC/DC for now about a new album, or tour, or Malcolm Young's illness, for now. Sounds like there won't be a media conference, and the studio sessions will be to see if anyone comes up with new songs and if they're worth recording. We can only hope.

UPDATE: AC/DC have officially confirmed Malcolm Young will have to "take a break" from the band due to ill health, rest of the band will try to "make new music." Click for the full story
 
'The Last Original Member Of A Legendary Band' 

More Rock Writing From Darryl Mason Here - Ozzy Osbourne, Jeff Buckley, Silverchair, Kyuss

From The Orstrahyun archive:

When AC/DC Were Glam

AC/DC: The Product

AC/DC: Kings Of Father's Day

2008: AC/DC - The Musical?

Cyclone Ita Prepares To Smash Far North Queensland

Cyclone Ita is now expected to hit Far North Queensland as a Category 5 storm, winds of 280kmh predicted, with a predicted path of destruction that could spread from Cooktown to Cairns.

Still a chance it can blow out a bit, and reduce, before making landfall Friday night, April 11, or lose some of its power when it starts crossing the coast. Maybe. Hopefully. But it's looking like it's going to wreak some terrible destruction and kill people before it's done.

Here's how the storm looked from satellites on Thursday afternoon:

This is the predicted path of Cyclone Ita late Thursday afternoon.

And the infrared view:

Updates to follow.

Massive Unexplained 'S' Formation Appears on WA Radar

For now, at least, the appearance on Bureau of Meteorology radar of a giant 'S' off the coast of Western Australian is unexplained.

The BoM:

There's no cloud, there's nothing to produce a rain echo, ...which we do see a lot, but not this particular shape," he said.

"They don't take on S shapes and things like that."

ABC News asked the Department of Defence if the 'S' has anything to do with them. No comment.

This isn't the first time bizarre looking things have shown up on BoM radar. Check out these giant discs from 2010. Here's just one:

If that catches your interest, check out this:

Australia's Bermuda Triangle? Or Is It Australia's Area 51?

Bizarre Discs Appear On Bureau Of Meteorology Over 3 States

A Remarkable, Almost Forgotten Story About Drugs Found In A Bag In Bali

The infamous boogie board bag and 4 kilos of cannabis

As Schapelle Corby gets closer to release from jail, here's a recap of one of the most extraordinary stories that emerged during Corby's trial. It was covered briefly by the media, and soon forgotten.

June, 1997.

This is a true story, but we'll call them Lisa and Colin.
Lisa and Colin lived in Melbourne. They’d been working too hard and Melbourne had been too wet and too grey. They decided they needed a holiday.
Like hundreds of thousands of other young Australians each year, Colin and Lisa decided Bali was just the ticket. A short flight there and back, cheap airfares, endless sunshine, tropical heat and all those bars and nightclubs and endless miles of white sandy beaches. They asked each other a simple question. What could be more fun and more relaxing than two weeks in paradise?
Nothing.
Colin and Lisa flew out of Melbourne and into Bali. They grabbed their bags off the luggage carousel at Denpasar Airport, checked through Customs and went straight to their hotel room.
Colin lifted the bags onto the bed so Lisa could start the unpacking while he headed to the toilet.
Lisa zipped open the first bag and looked inside.
She froze.
Tucked snugly between the neatly folded clothes was a fat brick of compressed cannabis, tightly bound in plastic wrap.
The brick was the size of a loaf of bread.
Oh, shit...
Lisa yelled for her husband.
“Colin? Colin!”
When Colin rushed back into the bedroom and saw what Lisa was holding in her hands he thought for a moment he might actually be dreaming.
This simply couldn’t be happening.
Colin wasn’t an idiot, he read newspapers, he watched television, he’d seen the movies about this kind of thing, he knew what the punishment was for being busted in Bali with a big fat brick of cannabis.
Drug traffickers got the death sentence. Signs all over the airport they had just passed through told him that.
It didn’t matter that Colin and Lisa had no idea where the cannabis had come from, all that mattered was that it was in this hotel room with them, it was in their possession.
The death sentence.
And Colin knew what that meant. Death by firing squad. For him and for Lisa.
Panic hit him like ice water in the face.
Colin was smart, or smart enough. He knew he had to make immediate contact with an Australian official in Bali, someone who could tell what the fuck they were supposed to do. He had to tell an Australian official what they had found in their luggage before the Indonesian police found out.
Colin located the number of the Australian Consulate and dialled with trembling fingers.
When he finally got through to someone at the Consulate and explained what had just gone down he was placed on hold, for long minutes.
An Australian consulate staff member eventually came onto the line.
"Do you want the good news or the bad news?"
"Well," Colin said, "give me the good news."
The voice laughed, "There isn't any."
Colin swallowed hard.
"What's the bad news then?"
The voice that was supposed to help fix everything then told Colin something incredible, something impossible to believe.
"You get caught with that mate,” the voice said, “and you'll be eating nasi goreng in jail here for the rest of your life."
Colin was shocked.
Stunned.
What the fuck is going on here?
"Here's what you do," the consulate staff member told him, "flush it down the toilet. Break it up and flush it down the toilet, now. Get it out of your possession and do not, under any circumstances at all, do not make contact with the Indonesian authorities."
So that was it. Colin hung up and told his wife. She was as dumbfounded by the advice given as Colin was.
But he had to do it. And he had to do it now.
Colin grabbed the cannabis loaf and stripped off the plastic wrap as he lurched into the bathroom. The rich smell of the tightly compressed cannabis heads hit his nose and swirled his brain.
The fumes was breathtaking.
With trembling fingers Colin broke up a third of the brick and dropped the fat clumps into the toilet bowl. Not too much at a time, he had to be careful. If he tried to flush it all it might block up the toilet, and when the plumber came and found out what had caused the blockage....
Colin flushed the first lot and looked down.
Oh, shit...
Some of it had been flushed away but the rest was still there, bobbing away, and there was a ring of cannabis detritus and resin around the bowl. He flushed again, and then again, but the water wouldn’t get rid of it all. There was always something left, something obviously suspicious floating there, or glued to the porcelin.
Colin knew he couldn't take the remaining brick of cannabis downstairs, that would an act of sheer lunacy. There could be Indonesian police down in the foyer, right now, tipped off or something, waiting to bust him.
But then another thought hit Colin and the rest of the blood drained from his legs, they nearly buckled beneath him.
Worse, much worse than the cops. Right now, down in the foyer, there might be the people who owned this cannabis, asking about him and Lisa, or lying in wait. The people who missed the pick-up at the airport could have followed them back to this hotel, they could be on their way up right now....
Colin was freaking himself out with such thoughts.
The smell of cannabis resin in the room was cloying.
He dashed for the balcony. He looked around, tried to contain his panic, but there was nowhere to hide all this cannabis. He couldn’t just throw it off the balcony. What was he going to do?
Colin looked closer at the little garden that was the main feature of the balcony. He had a brainwave.
While Lisa watched on and urged him to hurry, Colin tore the fat half brick of cannabis heads into small clumps and spread them across the balcony’s garden. He sprinkled the cannabis amongst the fallen leaves, he buried long fat heads that his sticky, trembling fingers couldn’t break into pieces deep  down into the soil.
“Hurry up!” Lisa cried as she watched the door of the hotel room, thinking at any moment it would be broken down and Indonesian police would come charging in.
Colin hurried.
And then it was done.
Colin and Lisa looked the garden over carefully. Was anything suspicious still visible?
No.
Unless someone looked real close, and dug amongst the garden's dirt, nobody was going to notice there was more than a kilo of cannabis heads buried and scattered.
That rich, pungent smell lingered still but the heat of the day and the cooler evening breeze to come would take care of that.
Colin and Lisa looked at each other, laughed nervously.
They thought they would be safe now. All the evidence that could have seen them both shot through the chest with six bullets each had been destroyed.
They were relieved the minutes of high panic were over, now their holiday could begin. And they had one hell of a travellers tale to tell once they got safely back to Melbourne.
But for years afterwards their minds were still full of questions.
How often did travellers like them find fat bricks of cannabis tucked neatly away in their luggage?
Who, with access to their luggage, would have put it there in the first place?
And why.
So many whys.
Why had the Australian consulate official been so downright casual about what Colin had told him? And why hadn’t the official come to the hotel to help them out?
How often did the Australian consulate get such phone calls from Australian travellers who had suddenly found they had become unwilling drug mules somewhere on the way to Bali?
Nobody from the Australian embassy or the government ever made contact with Lisa and Colin. Nobody ever questioned them about what had happened. There was no Australian Federal Police investigation, no phone call from the Department of Foreign Affairs to find out more.
Years later Lisa and Colin would still, occasionally, talk about their experience and ask each other, “What the hell was that all about?”
And they remained haunted by the lingering questions, the what-ifs.
What if they hadn’t found the cannabis in their luggage when they did?
What if the people who owned the drugs had come to try and get them back?
What if their hotel room had been raided by the Indonesian police?
What if someone at the Customs desk of Denpasar Airport had opened the bag after they picked it up from the luggage carousel and had found that brick of cannabis?
Would they be in a Bali jail still?
Would they now be waiting on death row, still trying to get judges to believe that they really were innocent? That they didn’t know how all that cannabis got into their luggage?
Would anyone believe them?

- This is a chapter from a book draft I wrote in 2006 about the Schapelle Corby saga. I'll be publishing excerpts from it here over the next few weeks.