Youngs : The Brothers Who Built Ac/Dc (9781466865204) Read Free

been followers and this is something that 99.9 percent of other rock bands should realize and understand if they really want to become a legend, as AC/DC surely are as a band.”
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    The Youngs’ songs—they have written and recorded hundreds between them over close to half a century—have their own stories. Why have they endured and resonated with hundreds of millions of people and inculcated such fierce loyalty and outright fanaticism? AC/DC concerts are not just concerts. They are rallies held under a band logo that is as powerful as any flag. What has made “It’s a Long Way to the Top” a virtual national anthem in Australia? Why is “Thunderstruck” routinely played at NFL games in the United States and soccer matches in Europe? Why, above all other bands in the world, did a festival in Finland elect in 2006 to have AC/DC ’s entire catalog performed live by 16 acts (including a military band) for 15 hours straight? What prompts cities—Madrid, Melbourne—to name lanes and streets after them? Why are there legions of Angus Young impostors on Facebook? Why is “Back in Black” frequently sampled (without permission) by hip-hop artists and mash-up DJs; used in network television, commercials and Hollywood films; licensed to gaming and sporting corporations; and played in helicopters and tanks on the battlefield? At the Battle of Fallujah in Iraq in 2004, American Marines blasted “Hells Bells” from giant speakers to drown out the call to arms coming from the city’s mosques.
    What is it about AC/DC ’s music that is so regenerative and restorative? That transmits that power to make us change the way we feel, alter our outlook, give us the strength we need to get through our darkest moments?
    There’s even a tour operator in Port Lincoln, South Australia, who’s found that playing AC/DC to sharks attracts them like no other music. Matt Waller told Melbourne’s Herald Sun : “We know AC/DC ’s music works best by trial and error … I’ve seen the sharks rub their faces on the cage where the sound is coming from, as if to feel it.”
    The answers to these questions, whatever they are, strike at the heart of what makes the Youngs’ music exceptional.
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    And it all began with the brother who rarely shows his face in public.
    George Young, who turned 68 in 2014, stopped playing on his own records with Flash and the Pan, another project with longtime writing and producing partner Harry Vanda, in 1992. He has kept his hand in with production, most recently helming AC/DC ’s Stiff Upper Lip in 2000 to add to the music he co-produced for the band with Vanda between 1974 and 1978 and again in the late 1980s. Most famous as rhythm guitarist for The Easybeats, he was also co-producer with Vanda for Rose Tattoo and The Angels (aka Angel City), and co-wrote with Vanda songs such as The Easybeats’ “Friday on My Mind” and “Good Times,” Stevie Wright’s “Evie,” John Paul Young’s “Love Is in the Air” and Flash and the Pan’s “Hey St. Peter,” “Down Among the Dead Men,” “Walking in the Rain” (covered by Grace Jones) and “Ayla,” the latter memorably and erotically used for a dance scene in the Monica Bellucci movie How Much Do You Love Me? . The sight of Bellucci gyrating to it is not a memory easily erased.
    â€œI keep many records at home and I try various pieces of music as I work on my films, which sometimes throws up surprises,” says the film’s director, Bertrand Blier. “I like ‘Ayla’ very much.”
    George is the “sixth member” of AC/DC , the leader, the coach, the stand-in bass player, drummer, backup singer, mimic, percussionist, composer, business manager and svengali. AC/DC is as much his band as it is Angus’s and