ACDC Retrospective: The Lists

The entire time that I have been listening through all these albums, I have been keeping a list of "good" songs.  These are songs that I felt were a good listen and not something I would change the channel on if it came on with the radio.  In the end, not including duplicates or live versions, I came away with over 80 songs.  That is a surprisingly large amount of "good" songs for a band and further exemplifies why ACDC is the most successful rock band of all time.  I could easily to throw all these songs on a playlist and be done with it, but there's a couple of problems.  First, frankly I am a fan of well done, live songs.  Many times this adds a rawness back to the original studio song.  The complication added in with ACDC is that this is the only way to get a Brian Johnson sang version of the classics as well.  Then we have the "goof off" and super "sleazy" songs of the Bon Scott era.  I actually like "Big Balls", "Can I Sit Next To You Girl" for what they are, but its not what I listen to ACDC for.

Pass Number One: Mega List

So the first time I went through the huge song list with a quick listen to each song, lingering only with songs that I knew less of, I came out with a "Mega-list" of ACDC that is 60 songs long.  The Brian Johnson era was not immune from my culling, as I got rid of some of the very similar songs between "Ball Breaker", "Stiff Upper Lip" and "Blow Up Your Video".  Next I went through and substituted the "Live" versions of songs like Back in Black, Thunderstruck, and a handful of others.  When I came to a point, such as "The Jack" where the Scott and Johnson songs are different enough, or both had their own merits, I went ahead and doubled them up.

Pass Number Two:  Personal Favorites

The Mega-list serves its purpose; a whole collection of ACDC history right there for me to just randomly fly through.  I realized that I had songs on there that I do not necessarily consider my personal favorites, but are so iconic I could not leave them off.  Songs like "Sink the Pink" and "Riff Raff" are used in tons of movies and you might not even know their names, but chances are you've heard their riffs.  I wanted to have an even more personal list of favorites that I never get tired of, and I'd never want to skip ahead to a "better" song from.  I will share that list of 35 songs here in album release order:

*denotes a new song I learned or only learned to appreciate from doing this adventure

Its a Long Way to the Top
TNT(Live version)
Dirty Deeds(Live version)
Let There Be Rock
Hell Ain't a Bad Place To Be
Whole Lotta Rosie(Live Version)
*Rock "N" Roll Damnation
*Gimme a Bullet
Highway to Hell
*Girl's Got Rhythm
*If You Want Blood
Hell's Bells(Live Version)
Back in Black(Live Version)
You Shook Me All Night Long(Live Version)
*What You Do For the Money Honey
Have A Drink On Me
Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution
For Those About to Rock
*Let's Get it Up
*Rising Power
*Stand Up
Who Made Who(Live Version)
*That's the Way I Wanna Rock
*Meanstreak
Heatseeker(Live Version)
Money Talks(Live Version)
Thunderstruck(Live Version)
*Let's Make It
Hard as a Rock
*Cover You In Oil
*Honey Roll
Rock 'N' Roll Train
*Skies on Fire
*Stormy May Day
*Decibel

Notably absent would be "Ride On' in this list since I talked about being surprised by it so much, but one of the reasons it surprised me was how uncharacteristic it was of the Bon Scott era.  Its a detour of the rock sound and so while its in the mega-list, its not in my favs list.  I'll use both lists still depending on my mood.

And with that, I conclude my Retrospective on ACDC.  I have probably quadrupled the amount of songs I like from ACDC and learned many new favorites as well.  Several new songs are songs I would love to be able to play on guitar one day.  While my favorite ACDC song did not change over the course of this, I did discover just how many great songs are in the Bon Scott era that I never realized were his(I assumed there were only a couple of albums with him).  I found Ballbreaker is my new favorite whole album(though Back in Black is still my fav overall), and I gained an appreciation Razor's Edge and Dirty Deeds.

ACDC Retrospective: Album by Album

I'm going to go album by album and give a quick run down.  In the description I will put the predominate sound/genre/style, my favorite track, small review and a star rating.  I do not include compilations or live albums.  I chose the international versions of albums as well.

High Voltage(3 stars), Blues Rock
-This is the roughest sounding of the albums, but this also means its one of the most raw.  A big take away from this album is you will swear you've heard Chuck Berry or Little Richard play the riffs before.  Angus hasn't yet started doing his classic riffs yet.  My favorite is "Its a Long Way To the Top".

Dirty Deeds(4 stars), Blues Rock
-A direct continuation of High Voltage.  The mature parts got more mature, and the raunchy parts got even more raunchy.  They tried to up themselves and in general I feel they did.  My favorite is a hard choice... but Dirty Deeds is just iconic.  With Dirty Deeds we start seeing Angus take center stage in solos.

Let There Be Rock(3 Stars), Blues Rock
-We're getting more rock than blues by now.  A few of the songs start sounding like what you'll get for the next 20 years, but the band is still rooted in the bar room blues rock here.  My favorite song is easily "Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be".

Powerage(3 stars), Rock and Roll
-This is the first strong "ACDC" album that will set the tone for the rest of the band's history.  The band will go back to some blues rock some, but this is where they start pioneering Hard Rock.  There are still some blues and some Chuck Berry influence, hence the Rock and Roll classification.  My favorite song is Rock and Roll Damnation, and marks the first "favorite" off an album that is a song I had never heard before.

Highway To Hell(4 stars), Hard Rock
-Powerage gets kicked in the ass by Mutt Lange and Hard Rock is fully realized.  The last of the slow and sleazy Bon Scott era songs appear here, and while other songs on the later albums might try and copy, they just don't get the feel like this era.

Back in Black(5 stars), Hard Rock
-Not much I can say about this album, it is the best selling rock album of all time around the world.  My favorite song?  Holy crap is this the hardest one to choose my favorite by far... In the end I have to choose "Shook Me All Night Long" because I've known it longer and love its video too.

For Those About To Rock(2 stars), Hard Rock
-The sound is there for this album, but this is the start of really repetitive  choruses that go a few bars too long.  This will haunt the entire Brian Johnson era.  My favorite is by far the title track.  The band brought it, the lyrics just sort of slipped by

Flick of the Switch(2 Stars), Hard Rock
-The band tries to reconcile the older Bon Scott era with the new Hard Rock era and success.  Its a decent album, I just wish the lyrical content was less repetitive.  I'm not expecting Shakespeare, but repeating choruses just grates me.  My favorite is Landslide.

Fly on the Wall(3 Stars), Hard Rock
-It really is a shared sound with Flick and Those about to Rock.  Only there are a handful better songs than Flick of the Switch.  My favorite is probably Stand Up.

Blow Up Your Video (3 Stars) Rock
-SO close to being an amazing album, but it loses its momentum after the first 3 songs.  The band was flirting with more "modern" forms of blues, giving them a sort of Rock and Honky Tonk sound.  My favorite song is Heatseeker, which I learned to like with ACDC Live.

The Razor's Edge(5 Stars) Hard Rock
-Brilliant.  They flirt with Arena Rock style guitar shredding, but stay grounded in the Hard Rock sound they established with Back in Black.  My favorite song from this album is currently my favorite ACDC song of all: "Money Talks".

Ballbreaker(4 Stars) Rock and Roll
-Really good.  The group revisits what they tried with Blow Up Your Video, but do it much much better and more successfully.  My favorite ends up being Hard As A Rock because the riff is so simple and memorable, like older ACDC.

Stiff Upper Lip(1 Star) Rock and Roll
-The only album I was disappointed in.  Its the closest thing to phoning in or doing the rock version of elevator music.  There is almost no change in the songs throughout the songs.  The problem of repeating chorus lyrics is finally matched by repeating instrument parts as well.

Black Ice(5 Stars), Hard Rock
-Brilliant again.  While there are a couple of questionable choices by the producer(Brendan O'brien), the band came back strong and rocked things hard.  Songs about wanting to rock, living like a rock star, and continuing to rock all the time.  In the end, Rock and Roll Train is addictive in lyrical content, and the guitars are memorable and catchy, one of the "perfect" ACDC songs.


The star ratings are my thoughts over all, but it doesn't mean the highest star ratings are my favorites.  For example, I like Ballbreaker better overall than Black Ice despite being rated 1 less star.  And even though I have Highway to Hell higher stars, I think I like the Dirty Deeds album better than it also.

Just for those that may be curious, while Highway to Hell has to be my most memorable cover, my favorite cover is on my least liked album.  I love the statue of Angus on Stiff Upper Lip and would like a small replica for my desk.

ACDC Retrospective: Why

The Start of the Journey

Over the past few months I have taken an ACDC record one at a time and given them several listens.

I guess the first question is ask and answer again is "why".

ACDC was very integral to my formative attitude towards things.  It was a constant reminder of what it means to have a little "rock and roll" in your life.  "Highway to Hell" was one of the first records(in actual record form too) that I remember, that and some Muppet Christmas record my mom owned.  I grew up on the essentials, and remember when Razor's Edge was new.  I remember when the videos for "Shook Me All Night Long" were done.

But not just that.

I have finally, REALLY, started on the road of learning guitar in a meaningful and lasting way.  While Angus was not the soul reason that I chose to get a Gibson SG, he's easily 50% of it.  I have all my life wanted to be able to play "Highway to Hell", "Back in Black" and "Shook Me All Night Long".  The guitar of Angus and Malcolm is a pure blues-rock style guitar that I have always enjoyed and thankfully is one of the first genres you can learn competently as a guitarist.  Even Angus' advanced soloing work is fun variations and tricks within the pentatonic and blues scales.

Then there are my black-out areas of which I did not have much listening experience with ACDC.  My Bon Scott era knowledge was larger than I had believed when I started this adventure, but it was still greatly expanded by listening to the era.  My biggest surprises came from listening to early recordings.  The "Fly on the Wall" and "Flick of the Switch" era was another blackout section, and to tell the truth I did not know much about the album before those two, or after those two.  Finally the last black out era was everything after the release of "ACDC Live", other than Harder than a Rock, Stiff Upper Lip and Rock and Roll Train.  That's 3 of around 30 tracks I had never heard.

Was it worth it?

Absolutely.  With the exception of a grand total of 1 album out of 18(or 14, depending on how you count them all) that might be considered "wasted" money, I would say that is a hell of a career.  Some bands get a handful of albums in under a decade to make a career on.  ACDC has had huge success in 4 different decades.  They have a 10x US Platinum "Highway to Hell" in the 70's.  In the 90's there was the 5x US Platinum Razor's Edge.  The 2008 "Black Ice" is 2x US Platinum.  The 80's Back in Black is the SECOND highest selling album of ALL TIME in all the world.  More than Madonna, more than P-diddy, more than any Beatles album.  All this means is that over all these albums, there is lots and lots of quality rock.

I kept a listing of my favorite songs on each album.  I have 29 new "good" songs that I never knew existed, on top of the over 20 that I already knew I loved.  The hard part will be to create a "must have" playlist without including all of those.  I have found that while I love many songs on a lot of albums, there are 4 albums that I feel are a cut above the rest.  I have learned that ACDC is influenced greatly by their producers.  When family or the band are in charge, they get more and more like their idols, when they get someone else in there, they tend to get pushed to be more the "hard rock" they helped invent.  In either case, I love what they do.

I have to say that my favorite memories while going through the albums were that of "Ride on" being a huge huge surprise.  I am also proud that they did not take the route so many harder acts do; when a softer song gets popular they don't put out a new album with half being soft songs trying to bilk it.  I enjoyed being able to hear Mutt Lange's influence and understand its him in there.  This is because I know my Def Leppard and my Foreigner songs from classic rock radio, and can tell the similarities from all those albums he produced.  I love a strong come back, and ACDC has had the most legendary ones.  "Back in Black" is what every band hopes to pull off when they lose an integral member.  "Razor's Edge" is the "we can show these young'uns how to rock" come back, and "Black Ice" is the "we ain't dead yet, we're still F*ckin' rockin", and with each I was so happy to hear them doing their thing.  I also enjoyed how "Blow Up Your Video" was an "almost there" kind of album, with a detour back to hard rock, but was revisited with Ballbreaker to great success.

So there will be a few more posts coming.

1. The Album Summations
2. The Ultimate Playlist

To everyone that stuck through and read my weekly updates and posts about this, and largely I've said everything I said here before in those, thanks for reading.

TrainWreck and Thunderfunk

Trainwreck is an amp you have either never heard of or know them notoriously.  Trainwreck has become the only challenger in recent memory to the highly sought after "Dumble" amps in the 30-50,000 dollar amp range.  So what are Trainwreck amps and why are they so rare?

Trainwreck was a series of amps put together by Ken Fischer, an amp tech out of New Jersey.  From the very beginning Ken had a lot of health problems, culminating in a life cut short in 2006 and a production line cut short at only a little over 100 amps.  Ken's designs are exercises in simplicity.  When you look at modern Marshalls or newer Dumbles, you will see vast arrays of electronics, wired with many filters, creating these crazy complex marvels of modern technology.  Ken's designs were the opposite of that.  When you look at a Trainwreck on paper, you may go "that's it?".  Just like baking, sometimes its the care and thought that goes in to a work, instead of the amount of ingredients.  Ken's designs were unique, new, and while some say influenced by Vox, were his own.  The "purity" of the signal path leads to touch dynamics and a "quickness" to the amps that other designs lack.  I am generally a "new tech or you're a cave man" type of person, but there is this word called "elegance" and if you can put elegance in your simplistic designs, there's art there that I appreciate.

How does this get to Dave Funk's spin on the A.M.P. 420, the Thunderfunk?  Well Dave was an amp tech, one of only two amp repair workers approved by Ken to work on the Trainwrecks.  In fact, when Ken was at his worst physically, he asked Dave to make two amps that were sold as Trainwreck amps, which are well documented, and verified due to the low numbers of Trainwrecks in existence.  Ken named each of his amps a girl's name instead of using a serial number, and so it is easy to track and keep records.

When I hear people compliment a Trainwreck on youtube or in a print review, I hear so many familiar things.  I hear about how fast the signal goes from playing on the guitar to hearing through the amp, and how it changes how you can play.  I have had the same thing happen with my Thunderfunk.  After playing it for months I got out the old Trace Elliot while I was demoing some compression pedals a friend let me barrow.  There was lag in the signal, the Trace Elliot, a tone machine of the rock gods, was "slow", and I never expected this to happen.  So when I read about the Trainwrecks, the lightbulb in my head went off.  Quite recently I was reading the forum on Freedom Stompboxes, and someone in another country wanted to make a Thunderfunk clone since they could not import one.  Several people said "wow, that looks really simple, should be no problem if you know what you're doing".  Again, the same thing said about Ken's Trainwrecks.

I find Dave's work really awesome, and the whole story behind all his pedigrees to be interesting to read.  The whole Aoucstic 360 story, the entire drama filled life of the Amp BH420 legacy, to the birth of the Thunderfunk as a sort of very complex yet very simplified amp making it among the top bass amps in existence.

Thanks to Dave's own website, http://www.thunderfunk.com/, the Trainwreck Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trainwreck_Circuits, and Talkbass.com for all the info.

ACDC: The Mutt Lange Albums

Here we come at last, after over a month of listening to ACDC albums, in order, repeatedly, I get to the end of the Mutt Lange produced albums.  Three albums, 2 singers, and enough classic hits to fill a best of album release themselves.  Some of the most iconic rock songs of all time on are this list:

Back in Black
Highway to Hell
For Those About to Rock
Shook Me All Night Long
Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution

Those Five songs alone would be enough to make a rock band millionaires for life and immortals in glory.  This is only the tip of the ice berg of this era.

Looked at sequentially, I think you can see the influence of Lange in the band quite well.  The first album they did had much more of the original ACDC feel to it, and not just because Bon Scott was still with them.  There's some genuine rock and roll mixed in with the pioneering Hard Rock sound coming through.  It is with Back in Black and Brian Johnson's introduction that we leave a lot of the Rock and Roll behind, and are full in to Hard Rock that will exemplify the successful albums and songs from here on out.  If there is a low point, we see it in the 3rd and last album, which is still a great selling, and overall good album.

Let's talk about that 3rd album, as its the one I have heard the least of.  I read that they went to France and had troubles with the technical side of their first chosen recording space.  That kind of things leads to tension and resentment in most cases.  They ended up scrapping things and heading to a place outside Paris.  I think the band was feeling the strain, and it probably lead to them parting ways with Lange.  Lange, himself, was a very busy man at this time.  The #1 album before and after "Those About to Rock"'s #1 stint was produced by Lange as well.  He was establishing what would be almost as huge a stint with Def Leppard, and would produce The Car's hit album: Heartbeat City.

Then, after the release, the band embarked on this huge, multi-million dollar stadium tour of the United States.  The stage had the now famous canons, the Hell's Bell, and enough pyro to wage a war.  It was a hard, fast, and physically draining tour.  After all of this ACDC decided they needed a change, and did a few stripped down, less successful, albums in the manner of their earlier career(of which I have not really listened to them yet, and I'm actually excited to be doing that soon).

For Those About To Rock has really great songs, but its hard to follow up the greatest selling rock album of all time.  I think what was most missing was some Angus solos.  Almost all the songs are pounding, head banging, driven songs, but they lack the "break" in the energy for a Angus soaked solo that is memorable.  The production is there... in a big way.  There's lots of overdubbing, lots of backtracks with chorus and echo effects, Lange is probably the strongest sound in the band outside of Brian Johnson with this album.  If Giving the Dog a Bone from Back in Black, or Touch Too Much from Highway To Hell were among your favorites, then you have an entire album of these kinds of songs in For Those About to Rock.

It is one of the greatest stints in music between a band and a producer, and it was one of the greatest eras of rock that influenced the genre's most popular albums for a decade after, and home guitarists for decades since, and it was great to listen to.  I feel like I hit a peak, but I know there are several hits that I have not gotten to yet, and I know the newest album as of this writing was freakin' awesome.

 So on I go through the albums.

Hand Wired Amps: Convincing myself

There are several trends which are very hot right now in the Guitar amp world(much different than the bass amp world, believe me).  The big names are scrambling to make cost effective versions of both of these trends.  One of the trends is the "lunch box" tube amp.  Lunch box amps are very small compared to what people think of when they think of tube amps.  They are also low wattage designs meant to sound like their big brothers at much lower volumes.  People realized you do not need 100 watts... like ever, unless you're pro-touring venues without PA support.  This is not the trend this post is about. (pictured: a lunch box amp compared to its big brother, with almost 50 pounds weight difference)

Hand wired is another trend.  It has been around longer, though a lot of it was due to boutique snobbery.  A lot players rejected it because it is SO cost prohibitive.  Nowadays  though, with the realization that you can live fine with sub-30 watt guitar amps, some more cost effective hand wired amps are coming to market, putting in reach of people that are reasonable, and not gear-snobs themselves.  Let's start with the easiest way to explain what they are; Visually.

That is a printed circuit board, a marvel of 20th century tech.  It is clean, easily mass produced, and works really well.  Its the familiar green board you see on almost all electronics these days, from the cheap 2 dollar radio to the expensive $1000 smart phone.  What could possibly suck about it?  As you can see, those components are TINY.  Also, they are linked by the printed circuits.  If something burns out, you have a risk of it burning parts of the board out, severing more connections and generally making a mess of things.  Also, you need someone familiar with the workings of circuit boards to get any repairs done, and that's a more rare kind of specialist.  Many times you scrap the whole board and start over with a fresh new one, which is not cheap compared to how cheap the manufacture cost is.

That is a hand wired 18 watt Marshall clone.  Look at it for a bit.  Notice how things are connected with mostly wires and how things are larger, and you can tell individual parts from one another.  The cost to manufacture this sort of hardware is at the higher end of amp manufacturing spectrums.  You need someone that knows what they are doing, and they have to do each piece by hand.  The benefit to consumers is that you do not need a degree in electrical engineering to work on them.  This is hobby level stuff and there are many "do it yourself" home kits for these kinds of amps.  Many vacuum cleaner repairment would know enough about electrical work to be able to work on these amps.

That is the benefit that is starting to convince me that I may want to go this route.  I despise having to send something in for repair work.  I hate negotiating prices, I hate the moving target that is an estimate, and I hate that I can't really tell the quality of the workmanship.  Hand wired amps allow for all of that to be in the open.  Whatever they use to fix the thing can be readily bought online, and easily price matched.  Its the same components that go into anything electronic of this type.  Also, it is not inconceivable that I would be able to do the repair work myself eventually.

The reality check is that its not 100% positives.

While Hand Wired is said to be more reliable, what they mean is that an amp tech can have it repaired and fixed faster.  If you're going to be moving around with the amp, chances are a PCB amp will be more reliable due to literally less wiring.  Hand wired amps are typically heavier too, while being less complex.  You can get certain bells and whistles added that more "modern" designs have, but it will cost you.  Cost is another one.  For what is "basic" in today's amp world, you will be paying over $1000, and that's just a head; no speakers.  I have gotten used to digital reverb in my amp head.  I could use a pedal, sure, but that means I would want an effects loop now too.  Those are all cost added luxuries to hand wired amps.

I can see why people like hand wired amps, and I can also see why they are way more expensive.  In the end though, since I'm not keen on owning a million different amplifiers, I think I need something a bit more modern.  Its just a bonus that means it also comes out cheaper.  I may be spoiled, but I want my emulated lines out, I want my built in digital reverb, and an effects loop is almost mandatory.  I have never been one for being a "60's cave man".  On the bass side of things I tend to stay top of tech in the class.  The guitarist of me has given in to the fact that I need tubes, but the bassist in me won't let me give up what I'm used to.

Bon Scott: Retrospective

I am at the end of an era.  I have made it through multiple listenings of the Bon Scott ACDC era.  I've made a playlist of my favorite songs from this era and listened to it almost daily.

Bon Scott was every bit the rock and roll singer he sung about being.  I do not doubt his authenticity in leading the kind of life that is reflected in his songs.  These songs are sung from experience, a kind of life that by all accounts the entire band lived during this era.  The music of the band in the earlier days was very Chuck Berry inspired, but toward the end started branching into harder blues and Little Richard energy.  The latter part, I can only assume was Bon Scott gaining more influence in the band.  Bon Scott's rock and roll hero was Little Richard.  Scott's screeching howl makes more sense when you think about this fact.

My favorites that feature Bon prominently are the ones where he gets "real" with us.  I like "Its a Long Way to the Top", "Ain't No Fun", and "Let There Be Rock".  I also like the songs where he stretches his singing ability a bit, like "Highway to Hell", "If you Want Blood", "Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be", and "Rock and Roll Damnation".  Finally, I can't forget his sleaziest, most witty songs "Big Balls"  "Whole Lotta Rosie" and "The Jack".

Bon was also every bit as sleazy and dirty as I had heard growing up.  He does not disappoint, coming up with very smart ass and very nasty word play in his lyrics.  There is no making a saint out of Bon Scott, and that unapologetic attitude just makes him that much more a rock and roll legend.  The thing is, there are a couple of songs where he seems to bare his soul a bit.  An early example is "Its a Long Way to the Top", but the best example of this is "Ride On", and I feel like he was growing to have some maturity to him by then.  Like with all life cut short, I have to wonder what we missed out on when he left.

Growing up, without the internet around, I heard all sorts of stories about how Brian Johnson became the new lead singer of ACDC after Bon's death.  I had heard that he was a cab driver for them, and the band liked the way he yelled.  I speculated later that he probably was not a cab driver like we think, but was just driving them around from a studio or gig they both had taken part in.  There are some more less credible stories as well.  The truth, I found out, was that it was Bon that picked him.  One night Bon came back from watching a show, and told the band about this singer he had just seen.  He told the band that this singer really howled on stage, got on the floor and tore up on stage.  He told the band that this singer really had "it", he had that Little Richard mentality, he really knew what rock and roll was about.  It just so happened, that was the night that Brian Johnson got appendicitis and he was genuinely howling in pain.  Anyway, after the band realized that Bon would want them to go on after him, and continue being a band, the first name that came to Malcolm and Angus' mind was Brian Johnson, because they felt he had been given the "ok" by Scott all those years ago.