AC/DC.
The End of the Highway to Hell.
Sad news circulating today that the mighty AC/DC have been
forced to call it a day due to rhythm guitarist, Malcolm Young being the victim
of a stroke.
After the death of Bon Scot in 1980, DC regrouped and did
what few bands are ever able to do. They came back with a new front man and
continued to garner the love and respect of their fan base. The last thirty
four years has seen them become a global rock colossus, whilst still
maintaining the memory and legend of the Bonny Scot. It is a pretty unique
feat.
However, the condition of Malcolm Young seems to have
prompted the band to follow in the foot steps of Led Zepplin, when John Bonham
died, and accept that some band members are just not replaceable.
I saw AC/DC several times but never met any of them, either
professionally or socially, but in the most bizarre of circumstances, Angus and
Malcolm Young once sent me a guitar which I then accidentally gave away. How
the hell do you do that?
At the time I was working for a guitar company in London and
found myself minding the office whilst my boss was at lunch. I picked up the
phone to hear the voice of a very flustered Alan Rogan. Alan is a music
industry legend and has acted as guitar technician to everyone from George Harrison,
Keith Richards, and Pete Townsend. Right now he is at customs in Dover,
England, and things are not good.
AC/DC are on the European festival circuit this summer, and
in a couple of days time they are headlining a big UK rock festival at The
Milton Keynes Bowl. However, some irregularities with their shipping and
insurance carnets has caused UK border officials to impound the fleet of trucks
(and all their contents) until such time as the correct documentation can be
faxed over.
The situation is solvable within 12 hours, explains Rogan,
but the delay is going to cost them mega money in another respect. The
following day, AC/DC are due to shoot a new music video at Elstree Studio’s, an
hour’s drive north of London. This is where the James Bond movies are made, and
the cost of the studio hire is in six figures for the day (It was the video for
either Heat Seeker, or Ball Breaker, I forget which) In typical AC/DC fashion
it is going to be a massive live performance video with hundreds of extras
making up the audience. These have been recruited from the UK- AC/DC fan club
who, right at this moment are putting petrol in their cars, arranging their
mini bus pick-ups, and preparing to head to Elstree from all over the country.
Rogan explains that he and the crew are due at the studios
later that day to begin rigging the sound stage with the band’s equipment.
However, around 40 Marshall amplifiers and speaker cabinets are now in the
Dover customs secure warehouse until at least the following morning. He tells me
he can probably hire the requisite drum kit, and get it to the studio for this
evening, but do we know of anyone who has forty Marshall amps and speaker
cabinets, and can they get them to Elstree studio’s in the next four hours?
It is a pretty ridiculous request, and on any other day most
people would shrug their shoulders and say, ‘Sorry mate, no idea.’
However, just occasionally in life, you find a nugget of
information stored in the back of your mind that in a dozen life times you
would probably never need to use. Right at this moment, I find I might have the
answer to Alan Rogan and AC/DC’s problem.
The legendary Marshall amplifier is built in a factory, not
an hour’s drive from Elstree studios.
Being that this is a music video shoot, and the song will be on a
play-back, as opposed to being played live on stage, of course the amplifiers
don’t actually need to be making any noise. They just need to provide the
requisite rock band stage set for a good visual.
I call Marshall Amps and explain the situation. Can they
fill a truck with empty speaker cabinets and get them over to Elstree by 6pm?
It’s AC/DC. Of course they can.
5 days later I am at work when Alan Rogan walks in, carrying
a Gibson SG guitar case. He speaks to my boss who points me out and comes over.
‘Are you the lad who sorted the Marshall’s, He asks. I tell him I am. ‘’You
bailed us out of a big disaster on Friday, so Angus and Malkie have asked me to
give you this to say thanks.’
I open the case to find one of Angus Young’s Gibson SG
guitars, signed on the back by the whole band, and with a hand written note
from the Young brothers saying to take Rogan’s mobile number and to call him if
I ever want a guest list for a gig.
It was a favour that cost me nothing but making a couple of
phone calls. AC/DC managed to avoid cancelling the video and losing tens of
thousands of pounds, and I had one of Angus’s very own stage guitars. A nice
result!
Despite it being an Angus guitar, it wasn’t something I
would play regularly. It was a little clunky for me, the action was too low,
and Gibson SG’s are a bit top heavy for my liking. As a result of this, I hung
it on the wall in the office where upon it often sparked interest from any
visiting guitar-head who happened to pass through.
Some weeks later, such was the case when an American guitar
dealer (straight out of Goodfella’s) came calling on my boss. The boss was on
his usual 3 hour lunch and I had once again been left to man the office. ‘Is
that for real?’ said the Joe Pesci look a like, scanning the room and spotting
my Angus on the wall. I told him the story of how I came to own it. He narrowed
his eyes and thumbed his chin. ‘I got a good friend in the U.S….Big AC/DC fan,
and it is his birthday next week…How much?
Like all Italian New Yorker’s, he could shit pennies and
drive a deal. We agreed on £5000. I was skipping to the cellar to find the case
and thinking, two weeks in Portugal and no worrying about the bar bill. When I
got back to the office he handed me his Amex card. Mmmm, I was hoping for cash.
Doing it on card would mean I had to put it through the company. That meant a
few hundred pounds in my boss’s pocket, just to give him a drink out of the
deal, and a wait for my boss to then draw the cash from the bank. I reminded
myself that it was money in the bank for a guitar I had got for free (and
didn’t really play) and a couple of weeks wait was no big deal.
I took his Amex and inserted it into the PDQ machine to take
the payment. Something suddenly struck me. This card reader was new and I
hadn’t had cause to use it until now. How hard could it be? I inserted our
codes and asked him to add his pin number and confirm. It beeped and went
green. A few minutes later, the guy walked out with my Angus SG and I got
online to check late availability flights to somewhere warm. Life was sweet.
Two weeks later, I walked into work to see my boss looking
at me through the glass panel of his office. Before I had reached him, he came
to the door, looking frantic. ‘’What the f*** did you sell for £5000, two weeks
ago?’ I told him. It was my Angus Young SG. His face went from frantic to smug.
(as opposed to relived) I knew this was
going to seriously screw my day. ‘Thank god for that.’ He said. ‘You forgot to
press CONFIRM PAYMENT, so it hasn't debited the buyers account.’
I learned a very valuable lesson in life, here. When people
give you a present, you should respect why it is given and not consider its
dollar value. Regardless of whether you ever use it, or even have any aesthetic
love for it, it is given with thanks.
Heavy Rock is a very easy genre to ridicule. It is a type of
music that has always walked a tight rope.
It is a genre infested by the likes of Moltey Crue. However, there are
some true genius bands that have always risen above the posturing and remained
true to the book. True to the riff.
None more true than AC/DC.
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