“Can I Sit Next to You Girl?” the debut single from AC/DC, has been sold to a fan for $1,225 on eBay.
According to Music-News.com, the song was only released in Australia and features vocals from the band’s original singer Dave Evans. The single was released in May of 1975 and climbed to #19 on the Australian chart. The band re-recorded the track for their TNT album.
The short life of AC/DC frontman Bon Scott has been turned into a play. Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be – The Story of Bon Scott will make its stage premiere in July in Australia. The play will open July 12 at the Anthenaeum Theatre in Melbourne, according to NME.com.
Scott was in many bands before he joined AC/DC in 1974. He sang the band’s early hits – including “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap,” “T.N.T.” and “Highway to Hell” – before dying at age 33 in 1980. After a night on the town in London, Scott choked on his own vomit.
Actor Nick Barker will play the singer, and has said that Scott is an Australian icon akin to Ned Kelly. Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be was written by Andrew Barker, who has previously worked on plays based on the lives on Johnny Cash and John Denver.
AC/DC continue to make the press rounds following the release of the new DVD, Live at River Plate. With their last tour, in support of the Black Ice album, finishing as the third most successful tour of all time, the group find themselves answering a bevy of questions about when they’re going to hit the road again.
"I would welcome another tour, just to get out there,” singer Brian Johnson told Absolute Radio. “I mean, if they said, 'Another two years' I might blanch a bit, but I think everybody in the band is fit, well prepared, and they've still got it."
Johnson said the monotony of touring is well offset by the thrill of playing onstage.
"The travelling is tedious, you know, but the onstage bit, getting on the stage, that's the fun bit, you know, that's what you're getting out for.”
Always known for their outrageous stage props—from the cannons to Hell’s Bell to the massive inflatable Whole Lotta Rosie—the group went into the Black Ice tour with another massive visual idea, the Rock ’N Roll Train.
“This is rock and roll, there's no such word as ‘no,’” laughed Johnson. “It was Malcolm and Angus [Young's] idea about the train, initially just trying to think of a train, and just say to somebody 'Right, we want a train,' and to convert that into the real thing."
He continued, "Yeah, but we did do it and it really was sensational, that train, and it never screwed up, it was always bang on."
Special thanks to ThisDayinMusic.com.
In 1976, three years after AC/DC burst onto the Sydney, Australia club scene, things were really starting to happen for the band. They signed an international deal with Atlantic Records and soon found themselves touring Europe, opening for the biggest bands of the day, including Black Sabbath, Aerosmith, Kiss, Styx and Blue Oyster Cult. Their music—a lethal concoction of revved-up Chuck Berry and ultra-heavy hard rock—was now reaching a larger audience, thanks to a three-million-selling compilation album released in Europe (culled from the group’s High Voltage and T.N.T. albums). Later that year, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap was released in Europe and Australia (though it was held back from American audiences, who wouldn’t see it until 1981).
By 1977, the group had made the final tweak to their lineup, replacing bassist Mark Evans with Cliff Williams, who also joined guitarist Malcolm Young on backing vocals. Of Evans’ departure, the CEO of Epic Records—who’d worked as a booking agent for the band during the mid-’70s—later remarked that he knew Mark wasn’t going to last because “…he was just too much of a nice guy.” With the last piece of the puzzle in place, the group released the powerhouse live recording, Let There Be Rock, which showcased the AC/DC’s frenetic stage act. The group launched their first U.S. tour that year, as well, brutalizing U.S. audiences with Angus Young’s guitar pyrotechnics over the band’s unstoppable backbeat.
1978 saw the release of Powerage, which marked Williams’ recording debut with AC/DC. The album spawned the #24 hit “Rock ‘n’ Roll Damnation” and, itself, went to #26 on the U.K. album charts. With their career trajectory shooting skyward, the band brought in legendary producer Robert “Mutt” Lange for the Highway to Hell sessions. Released in 1979, Highway to Hell became AC/DC’s first album to crack the top 100 in America, eventually landing at #17. The album was the perfect combination of the Young brothers’ rocket-fueled Berry riffs, the propulsive rhythm section of Williams and drummer Phil Rudd, and on top of it all, the lecherous howl of frontman Bon Scott.
The group was riding a new high when 1980 rolled around. But soon after beginning work on their seventh album, tragedy struck. On February 19, 1980, Scott passed out in his car after a night of heavy drinking at London’s Music Machine club. The next morning, Scott’s friend, Alistair Kinnear, who’d left Scott the previous evening passed out in the car, went out to find the singer still in the car and unconscious. Kinnear rushed him to King’s College Hospital in Camberwell, where he was pronounced dead.
Beyond the human tragedy of a talented life cut short, Scott’s death also halted a group on a seemly unstoppable roll. After a steady seven-year climb from the Australian club circuit to the verge of worldwide megastardom, AC/DC suddenly faced serious doubts about whether they had any future at all. They even considered folding up shop and quitting altogether. After much deliberation, though, the remaining members of AC/DC decided to soldier on, believing it’s what Scott would have wanted. A number of replacement singers were considered, including ex-Moxy member Buzz Shearman, Terry Slesser of Back Street Crawler and Slade’s Noddy Holder. Then there was a bloke named Brian Johnson, who fronted the band Geordie…
“I remember the first time I had ever heard Brian’s name was from Bon,” Angus later told Bravewords.com. “Bon had mentioned that he had been in England once touring with a band, and he had mentioned that Brian had been in a band called Geordie, and Bon had said, ‘Brian Johnson, he was a great rock and roll singer in the style of Little Richard.’ And that was Bon’s big idol, Little Richard.”
Johnson—who, it turned out, was an avid AC/DC and Bon Scott fan—auditioned for the job by singing “Whole Lotta Rosie” and Tina Turner’s “Nutbush City Limits.” He blew the band away and was given the job just a few days later—on this day in 1980. With Johnson on board, AC/DC finished writing the album they’d started with their fallen singer, and with Mutt Lange again at the helm, they recorded and released Back in Black, which would go on to sell over 45 million albums worldwide.
Over 30 years later, the band are still a musical juggernaut, with their recently concluded Black Ice tour becoming (at the time) the second-highest-grossing tour ever. Though the group still mourn the loss of the late, great Bon Scott, AC/DC continue to shoot to thrill hard rock fans around the world.
