Saturday, September 27, 2008

The iWay To Hell


Fallout from Angus Young's recent comments about the band's stance against iTunes is still hot and heavy around the world wide web. In the last few days, I must have read posts from a hundred different forums discussing the issue with most of the posters siding with Apple against AC/DC's revolt. That's okay, though, most people said the United States would never win the Revolutionary War against the English, either.

What with AC/DC's exclusive deal with Wal-Mart and now their very vocal iTunes snub, the band is, in many ways, more controversial than ever. By the way, before I continue, I must give credit for the title of this post to a recent article from the Scotsman.

Speaking of Wal-Mart, it has come to light that the same management team who helped set up AC/DC's deal with that corporate devil is also responsible for Guns N Roses upcoming exclusive "Chinese Democracy" deal with Best Buy. Their name is Azoff Management and you can read more about what they've been up to with Axl Rose and AccaDacca here.

If this trend of major acts releasing their albums exclusively continues in the USA, I guess you can expect to be doing a lot of driving around to different stores to buy all the CD's you want in the near future. Unless, of course, you just download the music you want from the net for free like a lot of folks do these days.


In more exciting news for AC/DC, Billboard has just revealed that Rock N Roll Train is "AC/DC's highest-charting song since "Stiff Upper Lip" spent four weeks at No. 1 in March-April 2000."

The Back In Black album is doing pretty great, as well. It's at "No. 1 on the Top Pop Catalog chart for the second consecutive week and the third week overall." For the entire story continue reading here.


Of course, Black Ice Tour tickets have probably been on the minds of most AC/DC fans in the last couple of weeks so AC/DC News ought to have a story about that too, right? Well, we do and you'll find it at the Vancouver Sun. I must warn you, though, if you really hate ticket scalpers you might not want to read it right now.

In other AC/DC tidbits, you might want to take a gander at Confession of a Fanboy's recent discovery of the Highway to Hell album. Kind of reminds me of my bud, Lucas, and the education in great music he received as he wrote the Bon Scott Blog.

Lastly, if you're interested in learning a bit more about Australian rock music history and it's connections to AC/DC, you might want to check out Some Magic From Oz by the Star Online. There's also this story from The Australian about the history of The Easybeats which is well worth your time. Incidentally, Stevie Wright, their lead singer, was once rumored to be the man who would replace Bon Scott in AC/DC after Bon's tragic passing.

Before I go, keep an eye on this space as I will soon be posting a never before publicly seen photo of Bon Scott carrying a frenzied Angus Young through a crowd at a Canadian concert back in the 70's.

Keep rockin', Jon

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Billboard story on BIB is inaccurate btw.

Fred Bronson's article says BIB was moved to catalog in 2003, that is not true, it was on the very first catalog chart in 1991. 2003 is when the album was re-issued by Sony. And it is the re-issue that have now logged 3 weeks atop the chart. The original topped the chart for one week back in 1991 too.

BIB isn't the only AC/DC album doing well on the Top 50 Catalog chart. Billboard has 6 AC/DC albums on the chart this week and 7 last week!
Wal-Mart has AC/DC's albums on sale and it shows!

Thomas - 74JB

Jon Talisman said...

Yo, Tom. Glad to know you're out there still rocking. Thanks for the info, too.

- Jon

Anonymous said...

Thanks Jon. I'm still alive and kickin' AND as excited as anybody about this new album!

I like your news site. I check it almost daily. Thanks!

Cheers!

Thomas

Anonymous said...

I have another bit of news to add. I was driving home from my yoga class last night listening to XM 7 (the 70s station) when they announced that AC/DC has their OWN station at XM 53 for anyone out there who has an XM radio.

More info at: http://www.xmradio.com/onxm/channelpage.xmc?ch=53

(Only 63 more days til I see them live for the first time in Oakland, CA!!!)

lucazoid said...

I have no idea if this is just so obvious that it doesn't need mentioning, but Stevie Wright (of the Easybeats) released an AMAZING Vanda-Yound produced album called Hard Road.

I discovered this album at a second hand stall several months back and I have had it on high rotation ever since.

The easybeats made damn catchy rock and roll, and several years later (with the same producers) AC/DC took that catchiness and made it HARD. This gives the accadacca stuff a kind of full-body-satisfaction that the poppiness of the Easy's never quite reached.

...and Stevie Wright's Hard Road was, in my opinion, the bridge between the two...

Jon Talisman said...

Well at one point, if I'm not mistaken, Stevie Wright was announced to be the next AC/DC front man by someone in the Aussie media after Bon passed. Apparently, though, Stevie was never in serious contention for the job though due to his bad habits with drugs.

lucazoid said...

yes, that's what I read too, Jon.

And listening to Hard Road, I can actually hear how he influenced Bon. Those little exclamations between lines in the song, just like Bon did!

For instance, in the song Hard Road, he sings:

Well my mum and pop they told me boy you know you're just a fool (yes they did)
when I told them I was leaving home and I was leaving school (yes I was)

etc. They're funny and special - they indicate that he's not just mechanically singing the song, he's really IN it, he's communicating with me from the other end of the mike... or something...

And to continue the Bon-Stevie similarities... the title track of Hard Road could be seen as something of a pre-curser to "Long Way to the Top" - the musician's struggle and the "hard road" of show business:

"I've got my dog I've got my radio/ Livin' on Rock and Roll!"

But yes, I had heard that Stevie's unhealthy ways put him out of favour with Alberts. And in retrospect, they were right to go with Brian, given that it all seemed downhill from there for poor Stevie...

lucazoid said...

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1P3GQSJJ1YM9O/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

see that link for one view on Stevie now... sigh.

Jon Talisman said...

Personally, I have to say I favor Brian's voice over Stevie's for hard rock tunes. I've heard Stevie was pretty animated in concerts, though.