AC/DC News - Rockin' With Brian Johnson

AC/DC back in chart racks

Charlotte-area car hobbyist Tom Cotter rocks with AC/DC



If You Want AC/DC, You Got It…on iTunes!

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

You Can't Stop AC/DC

In today's AC/DC News we begin with a brief article from New Zealand about the positive reviews that Rock N Roll Train has been receiving lately from the music press. If you feel so inclined, you can also leave your review of AC/DC's first single from Black Ice on Stuff's site or, at least, read what other fans are saying about the record.

But not all of the music press is so enamored of AC/DC. Just ask Neil McCormick of the Daily Telegraph, for example.

In writing his review of a recent Columbia Records listening party, intended to preview their album releases for the Fall and beyond, this village idiot didn't have much good to say about the AC/DC portion of the show:

"Rock and roll will never die and all that.

A fact which was emphasised by a preview of AC/DC's 200^th album, which sounded exactly like every other AC/DC album, and is expected to sell sqaudrillions of copies. Apparently AC/DC are the biggest back catalogue artists in the world ... including the Beatles. Who'd have thought? Angus is still wearing a schoolboys outfit and (ever more decrepit with age) is really starting to look sinister. Bon Scott looks like he just staggered out of a retired working men's drinking club in the north of England in time to deliver his vocals. It is, of course, loud, leery, immensely effective and utterly ridiculous. I am beginning to worry that they are never going to get around to that experimental album."

Don't you love it when some fool who's trying to be so hip and so cool makes such a boneheaded mistake as to refer to Brian Johnson as Bon Scott? If you ask me, McCormick's slip shows just how out of touch with reality a supposed professional music critic can be.

In other news, AC/DC's snub of iTunes has, apparently, pissed the pants off of Apple fanboys far and wide. I first picked up their indignation from this piece in Macworld but the real shining star among AC/DC's recent critics is Bob Lefsetz.

You might remember Bob Lefsetz as the music writer who basically said Black Ice will be next best thing since sliced bread in his August review of the album. Now, on the other hand, Lefseftz has gone out of his way to tear AC/DC a new asshole in his latest diatribe.

Here's a few excerpts for you to get the picture...

"They’re (AC/DC) the second biggest catalog seller. Behind the Beatles. WHY? Because kids have traded their songs and found out how great their classics are. But now they want to fuck these same kids in the ass and make them buy their new album at Wal-Mart. So they can make fuckloads of money. The whole world is listening to files, shuffling their tracks, but these ignorant musicians from Down Under don’t seem to have gotten the message. Why don’t they tell everybody to give up their computers and use typewriters while they’re at it. The joke is illegal acquisition will dwarf CD sales. Whatever is sold legitimately will be distributed online INSTANTLY! Which is great for the band ultimately. Breeding new fans. But, like the rest of the industry, the band wants to ignore this. Even though without the aforementioned trading of the past decade their tour would not instantly sell out.

At least throw kids a bone. Let them buy tracks legitimately. But just like the inane industry they’re part of, AC/DC doesn’t want fans to have it their way. They must have never been to a Burger King…"

The rest of his rant is much rougher on the boys but I certainly can't fault Bob for not liking AC/DC's deal with the devil, er um, Wal-Mart.

Anyway, whatever your personal opinion, Lefsetz's latest AC/DC column is well worth the read. Click here for the article in its entirety.



Lastly, in nicer news, it appears Angus Young will grace the next cover of Q Magazine, Europe's biggest music monthly. From this article in the business section of The Times Online, it appears that magazine is going through an extreme makeover and will start off their revised publication with the man who's putting his famous schoolsuit back on after many long years away from his army of fans.

According to Q's editors, "AC/DC legend Angus Young is the first cover star of the new look Q. In a global exclusive for Q, Angus Young has agreed for the first time in decades to be studio photographed in his iconic schoolboy uniform. It is the first major interview the band has given in eight years. Subscribers receive their own ‘collector’s edition’ of the issue, which will feature a cover designed exclusively for them."

Sounds like this will definitely be a keeper for all those fans who love to collect magazines with AC/DC interviews and pictures in them. By the way, if you never been before, you should check out my friend Fanch's site called AC/DC Archives. He has one of the largest collections of scanned AC/DC articles around and they're all indexed by country of origin.

Keep rockin, Jon