Australian rock rhythm guitar master John Brewster improvises a piece, in the below video, after being asked to explain where his band The Angels and their Alberts label mates (and friends) AC/DC crossed paths in sound/style in the mid-1970s.
Rhythm guitarists John Brewster and Malcolm Young jammed together in motel rooms on the TNT Australian tour, with Young being so impressed by 'The Keystone Angels' he and his brother Angus recommended them to Alberts and their producers Vanda & Young.
When AC/DC left Australia in April 1976, The Angels bought the amps and some of the guitars AC/DC played on the TNT, Dirty Deeds and High Voltage albums, which The Angels then used them to record their chart-rocking, pub-packing Face To Face and No Exit albums.
Considering the global musical impact of AC/DC and the direct influence of The Angels (Angel CIty) on 1980s L.A. hard rock and Seattle's grunge, I sometimes think that two year period when AC/DC and The Angels intersected was ultimately more influential on 1990s-2010s rock and metal music than the punk era that was beginning to unfold at the same time in the U.K. and the U.S.
And it all began in some of the cheapest, grittiest motel rooms in South Australia in 1975, with both bands fighting to find The Sound that would electrify brutally drunk and unforgiving Australian pub rock crowds and make them cheer instead of throwing glass ashtrays and full beer cans.
Both bands found their sound. And their own levels of success and fame.
'Angus In The Outback' began as a fun prompt on the first A.I. Art software I got to trial in 2020. I liked the idea of a painter like Sidney Nolan or Brett Whiteley being inspired to capture such an Australian icon in the stunning landscapes of this country.
Every new A.I. Art software I got to test or trial, I used the same prompt to see what this algorithmic compiler of new images could come up with. Sometimes they were fairly normal looking attempts at portraiture, which wasn't what I was looking for. I wanted the stuff humans wouldn't think to paint or draw, as solutions to restrictions placed upon algorithmic image makers. Like this one below: they can't show people smoking, but Angus smokes in many of the source images the algo uses. So the mouth and cigarette become a part of the wall, or background.
There's nothing particular special or unusual about this one, but I just liked it, so I kept it. I tried some changes, but any attempt to 'fix' the face in Photoshop made it look less Angus, so I left it.
It's new tech, this is still the early days. If I'm able to still do this with a famous person like Angus Young in a year or two, the results will be stunningly life-like. So in these early days, not every attempt at Angus's face worked, or even came close. But even from unusable images, I still pulled interesting details like the one below.
The 'Angus In The Outback' series totals about 400 images now, and that's after deleting the ones that definitely didn't work, or were just weird or warped to share. This one falls into the Interesting file for me; you can barely see Angus in all the 'paint' but his face and larger school hat are still there.
I didn't paint these. I prompted them into existence and then cleaned them up, or fine-tuned them, to varying degrees. Some were only 10 or 15 minutes work, others took hours. I have trouble remembering now which ones were almost complete in creation, and the ones that I kept playing with for 3 or 4 hours, or over a couple of days.
AI Art app Wombo Dream had trouble keeping Angus and the Ned Kelly of famous Sidney Nolan paintings separate, and merged them, so I got 'Angus Young As Ned Kelly In The Outback.'
And occasionally, AI Art decided to just do a landscape based around the rocking elements of Angus Young and created amazing images like this. What's going on here? I don't really know, but I like it.
I'll add more to this collection soon.
I should note many of these were made a year ago, or more, and that's already an eternity in AI development. If I go back today to the same AI Art apps, I won't get images like these from the 'Angus In The Outback' prompts I originally used. Again, I don't think these are masterpieces, but I do like them, and I've got some printed out and hanging up. I'm not bored with them yet.
Angus Young on his brother Malcolm's dementia is devastating:
“Malcolm was always very organised. And it was kind of strange for the first time to see him
disorganised, being confused about a lot of things. That’s when it kind
of hit me — there’s something not right with him.“
I thought that at times it was not Malcolm with me. He
would say at the time: ‘I have good days and I have bad days.’ Later on,
when he got diagnosed – he had brain shrinkage, and he got diagnosed in
America and they gave him some medication to help him – I said: ‘Are
you going to be fit for this? Because it’s going to be a hefty tour.’
And he said: ‘We’ll do it. We’ll do it.’
“He was not well when we went to do the Black Ice album. His symptoms of dementia were starting then, and he got through it. I had said to him, even before we did the album: ‘Are you sure you want to do this? I have to know that you really want to do it.’ He was the one who said: ‘Yes! We’ve really got to do it.’
As mentioned in previous stories here, Malcolm Young's dementia affected him, and his live performance, all the way through the Black Ice world tour.
“It was hard work for him. He was relearning a lot of those
songs that he knew backwards; the ones we were playing that night he’d
be relearning.”
“He was his own driver. He himself had that thing, where you’ve just got to keep going ..
“Sometimes you would look and he’d be there, and you’d be,
‘Malcolm!’ And you’d have a really great day and he’d be Malcolm again.
And other times, his mind was going. “But he still held it together.
He’d still get on the stage. Some nights he played and you’d think:
‘Does he know where he is?’ But he got through.”
“Can
you imagine knowing you’re not sure about (what’s happening)? You know
where you are, put it that way, but your mind’s playing tricks. He was
brilliant. He did brilliant.”
The singer adds that the other band
members wanted to step in and help, but they were worried about denting
Malcolm’s pride.
“It was tough. But you couldn’t say anything or do anything,
because it would have been like giving pity. You had to treat it like a
normal day. So we did. He said, keep making music. Without any of that sympathy stuff, you know? So we did..."
Angus also tells a story from his childhood, watching his older brother George suddenly become famous with The Easybeats:
“I knew my brother was in bands, but I’d never seen him play. I remember
coming home from school and seeing all these people outside the house,
and I couldn’t get in the house. There was all these police, all these
schoolgirls … I’m this little kid saying to the policeman: ‘I live in
this house!’ ‘Yeah kid, sure.’ I went right round the block then asked
the people behind: ‘Can I go over your fence so I can get in my house?’
That’s how I found out my brother had a hit. My father, he said: ‘You tell no one.’ At school I couldn’t say what my brother did. There’d be
some kids at the bottom of the street saying: ‘Angus, that’s your
brother.’ And I’m going ‘I’m not allowed to talk about it.’”
The secrecy that surrounded the Young family was present in Angus' childhood, and fixed in his early memories. For him to be so open with the media about Malcolm's dementia has surprised even some of Angus' friends. But it's important. And it raises awareness on dementia. Angus Young didn't have to front an anti-dementia campaign, just talking about what happened to Malcolm, so honestly, will make a big difference and raise awareness of what dementia can do to middle-aged people, too.
In one of the most personal interviews he's ever given, AC/DC's Angus Young has opened up about his brother Malcolm, now in a Sydney care facility suffering from dementia.
"It's something that had actually been happening for a long time,"
Angus Young told Rolling Stone magazine, meaning Malcolm's lapses in concentration and ability to remember riffs he'd written was failing as far back as 2008, when the band recorded the Black Ice album.
"(Malcolm was) still capable of knowing what he wanted to do. I had said to him,
'Do you want to go through with what we're doing?' And he said, 'Shit,
yeah.' "
Touring through 2008-2010 saw Malcolm receiving treatment on the road, and had to re-learn some of the band's most famous songs, which, Angus said, "was very strange for him. But...we made it work."
But then, "with the condition he got in, that kind of faded."
Malcolm and Angus Young had been writing for a new album since 2008, and all the songs on the new album Rock Or Bust are credited to the brothers, Young-Young, but Malcolm didn't play on the new album. Rhythm guitars are supplied by Angus' cousin Stevie Young, who used Malcolm's guitars and amps.
Singer Brian Johnson revealed the future of AC/DC, beyond unspecified touring in 2015, is all up to Angus Young. He decides now if the band continues beyond next year.
It certainly seems drummer Phil Rudd, recently arrested in New Zealand, and rumoured to be fighting drug addiction, won't be joining AC/DC on tour. Rudd turned up for the album recording sessions in Vancouver, Canada. But, claims producer Brendan O'Brien, Rudd was 10 days late, and was almost replaced there and then.
Angus Young told Rolling Stone, his brother Malcolm "still likes his music. We make sure he has his Chuck Berry, a little Buddy
Holly."
The same music the brothers Young grew up listening to, when they dreamed of becoming famous musicians and taking on the world.
You
may now call him Dr Rock, but AC/DC’s lead singer Brian Johnson had
even bigger news when he picked his Doctorate in Music from Northumbria
University, in his hometown of Newcastle, England:
The new AC/DC studio
album is finished.
Earlier
this year, rumours swamped the world’s media that AC/DC were finished,
after news leaked that rhythm guitarist and founding member Malcolm
Young was seriously ill, and unable to play.
But
after two weeks of an incredible outpouring of emotion and grief from
millions of AC/DC fans that filled millions of tweets and tens of
thousands of Facebook posts,
Angus Young and Malcolm Johnson defied
‘AC/DC are RIP’ claims and decided to push forward with plans to record
the band’s first new album since 2008’s Black Ice. They recruited Angus’
nephew Stevie Young (who had replaced Malcolm Young on tour in 1988,
while Malcolm Young had been in rehab) and did what Johnson had earlier
promised. They picked up their guitars and had “a plonk.”
Johnson said, in April, they were going into the studio to jam and to see “if anybody has got any tunes or ideas.”
Turns out, they had both.
Through
May and June, AC/DC recorded their 15th studio at Warehouse Studios, in
Vancouver, Canada, with veteran producer Brendan O’Brien. The sessions
have been described as quickfire, even frantic, and new songs were built
up from jam sessions.
For
their last album, Black Ice, which sold more than six million copies
worldwide, becoming the 2nd highest album of 2008, Malcolm and Angus had
worked on the songs for five years, amongst tours.
But
this time, it was back to the way Angus Young had begun recording AC/DC
songs at Alberts Studios in Sydney, in the mid-1970s. Ideas were
jammed, songs were written on the spot, notebooks scoured for lyrics.
Johnson
told Classic Rock magazine yesterday, “We’re done,” describing the
recording sessions as “brilliant. I’m very excited and we’ve got some
great songs.”
The
presence of Malcolm Young, recognised by most longtime AC/DC fans and
friends as the man who really ran AC/DC, was sorely missed in the
studio, Johnson said, revealing Malcolm Young was now in hospital in
Sydney.
“But
he’s a fighter,” Johnson told Classic Rock. “We’ve got our fingers
cross that he’ll get strong again. He’s a small guy but he’s very
strong.”
Stevie
Young looked delighted to be recording with AC/DC, in photos that
circulated online in June. photos that also revealed Angus was now
completely grey-haired, and had aged considerably since the band last
toured in 2010.
“Stevie
was magnificent,” Johnson said. “but when you’re recording with this
thing hanging over you and your work mate isn’t well, it’s difficult.
But I’m sure (Malcolm) was rooting for us.”
Johnson
said he had proposed calling the new AC/DC album ‘Man Down’ to honour
Malcolm, but feared fans might find the title a bit negative. The
proposed title does, however, fit with the Youngs notoriously dark sense
of humour.
The
new album, whatever title they settle on, is expected to be released
later this year, to tie in with a proposed 40th anniversary world tour.
Johnson had previously said any new AC/DC tour would not be as long or
as extensive as earlier ones had been now they were all in their 60s,
and may instead simply be 40 shows in total.
The
two year long Black Ice tour was one of the highest earning in music
history, racking up more than $430 million in ticket sales, and another
six figures in merchandise.
Johnson
hinted to Classic Rock that AC/DC may return to Wembley Stadium in
2015, but no word as yet when AC/DC might return to Australia. Stevie
Young is expected to fill-in for Malcolm Young if he is not fit to tour.
Darryl Mason is now writing a biography of Doc Neeson and The Angels.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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