The Church of AC/DC, part 2

THE SOUND OF BURNING

AC/DC's sound is primarily the sound of two guitars played by brothers Angus and Malcolm Young. Malcolm founded the band in the early 1970s and recruited his younger brother to play lead. The band has seen two vocalists and a number of drummers and bassists in its time, but the one constant has been the Young brothers.

There are a number of famous bands who have had siblings in their line-ups: Earth, Wind, & Fire, Radiohead, Oasis, The Black Crowes, The Kinks, Van Halen, Heart, Iggy and the Stooges, The Replacements, The Beach Boys, The Bee Gees, The Allman Brothers, Creedance Clearwater Revival, The Jackson Five, Pantera, The Breeders, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Stone Temple Pilots, Kings of Leon, My Chemical Romance, and more. I suspect it is the closeness - or in some cases the antagonism - between the siblings that makes them play well together.

AC/DC's guitar sound is shaped by the use of vintage guitars and amplifiers without effects added to the signal loop that would water down the tone. Angus devotedly uses the Marshall JTM45, the same amp popularlized by Eric Clapton's early recordings, which has been called the "holy grail" of guitar amplifiers. These amps achieve distorted tones not through effects pedals, but by turning the volume up to the point at which the signal overloads the circuit. This is natural, organic distortion, which responds to a player's dynamics. It's the sound of the filaments in the tubes being overdriven. It's the sound of things burning, and it is a rich, warm, natural sound.

There's another "burning" element to the band's sound, and that's the voice of the singer. Brian Johnson similarly pushes his voice beyond normal to the point of distortion. When he sings, you are listening to something being destroyed. Like the filaments in the amplifiers, a resource is being expended in order to create a sound.

AC/DC is often described as writing "power chord" riffs, that is, chords played in a set hand position that can be moved around the neck of the instrument. But actually they use open chords, played at the bottom of the neck, which make use of open, ringing strings. The sound between the two is quite different. Power chords sound thinner, but open chords sound "wider." The sound of open strings on a guitar maximizes what a guitar sounds like. It's the truest, least obstructed use of a guitar's resonance.

Angus' lead playing is mainly blues-based. While his schoolboy uniform gives him the image of an irreverant juvenile, his lead playing is actually tasteful, melodic, and phrased. He always plays to the song, rather than use the song as a vehicle for a solo. His vibrato is refined and his note bending is well-intonated, yet it does not sacrifice any rawness. He often allows for a natural voicing of the amplifier's tendancies, rather than try to erase all accidental noises and mispicking. And unlike other elite rock guitarists like Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page who have lost the edginess in their studio work in recent years, Angus has continued to put blistering solos to tape.

The Church of AC/DC

INTRODUCTION

There's no occassion for writing this, other than I have given a lot of thought to this band - probably more than is deserved - and now that I have a blog, I can put it all down in one place.

The subject is AC/DC. For a long time after I first heard them, I thought they were a joke: stupidly macho, boringly simplistic, and musically out of touch and old-fashioned when compared to other 80s hard rock groups like Metallica. My first impressions weren't completely inaccurate. A lot of the great rock bands like The Beatles or Led Zeppelin showcased their brilliance in the compelling variety of music they created. There are many groups who have been more musically artistic. Several bands have stronger lyrics, better individual talent, or pushed themselves to grow one album to the next. But when you talk about fundamental rock and roll - pure, primal rocking out - I submit to you that no one does it better than AC/DC.

AC/DC doesn't have ballads. They don't vary their instrumentation. They don't update their sound, follow trends, or change their musical direction. Their drummer plays the same simple 4/4 beat in nearly every song (yet I can't think of any drummer who makes that beat sound better, or who plays it with more care and concentration). In each and every song, they are purely and simply about rocking out. And usually, they hit the mark.

AC/DC has been accused of writing the same song over and over, and they have admitted to it. But isn't that what most artists try? Whether a musician, a novelist, or a director, many auteurs have a singular kind of artistic intent, and try to perfect that intent in every instance of their work. AC/DC's intent happens to be the Platonic form of rock.

AN EAR-OPENING EXPERIENCE

I can mark the exact hour and day when my opinion of AC/DC changed. My friend Mike and I were in a record store when 100 tickets to AC/DC's upcoming show in Charlotte were released early. Being a fan, Mike insisted we buy them since it was guaranteed we'd get great seats, and I figured I might as well go if I could see a famous band up close. We were second in line and got seats in the middle of the second row. It was cool, but I didn't have any expectations I would enjoy the concert beyond having great seats.

It was January 13, 1996 when AC/DC played the Charlotte Coliseum on their "Ballbreaker" tour. Mike and I sat at the very front of a 20,000 seat audience. I can remember how amazing all those people looked behind us, virtually the same view the band would have as they're playing. After the opening band finished, there was a huge set piece with a wrecking ball that knocked over the stoned facade of a building, and AC/DC walked out on stage. The drummer clicked four slow quarter notes on the high hat, and the band started playing "Back in Black."

I was 18 years old in 1996. I'd seen a few concerts, and have seen many since. I played electric guitar and, at the time, was a passionate fan of shredder guitarists (guys who were very technically proficient on the instrument, but usually not good songwriters) mainly because I thought classical music was better than anything, and erroneously thought all music should aspire to the same level. As a result, I wasn't into bands whom I thought were simple rock bands. But when these guys came out on stage and started playing their simple rock songs, an involuntary smile crossed my face. I was witnessing soulfully played rock and roll in its purest form, and it got me. The band delivered a divine groove with sincerety and warmth. They weren't about showboating, or trying to impress, or enjoying their own superstardom. They were about rock and roll. I could see it up close, on their faces. They loved playing this stuff, and it was contagious. They were endearing in their shamelessness. It was sincerely delivered, and a whole lot of fun.

I stood the entire show. Even though I didn't own any of their albums, I somehow knew every song. The setlist was a crowd-pleasing collection of their greatest hits. There was no egotistical posturing, no self-indulgent performances of obscure tracks. The band had a blue collar attitude that they were supposed to put on a show for the ticket-buying audience. I realized that what I thought were stupidly macho lyrics were really just tongue-in-cheek irreverant fun. What I had believed were boring riffs communicated clearly and mightily when played at a high volume. And what I'd considered old-fashioned, out of touch music was really bluesy, universally familiar, and irresistibly timeless songwriting. AC/DC was a feel-good groove band whose drummer smoked cigarettes as he played.

After the show, I was in a bliss. I hated to admit to myself that this was a better show than the Metallica concert I'd seen just a few months ago. Metallica was my favorite band at the time, but I'd just been introduced to a band whom I'd eventually come to love and respect much more. And it was all because I happened to be in the right record store at the right time.

In future posts on this topic, I'm going to go a little academic on AC/DC and start analyzing them...

The Last Great Film I Saw Was...

It Might Get Loud, 2009, dir. Davis Guggenheim.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1229360/

It Might Get Loud celebrates the glory of rock guitar by gathering three generations of players - Jimmy Page, the Edge, and Jack White - to talk music and jam. In lesser hands, this documentary might have become self-indulgent and meandering, but Guggenheim organizes the footage of their backstories, jam session, and live performances so well that it's an absolute dream for fans of rock guitar.

Unlike other music documentaries, we hear the stories behind the music directly from the artists themselves. We watch as The Edge rediscovers a 4-track demo of Where the Streets Have No Name. We see Page giddily play air guitar along with one of his favorite songs, "Rumble." We go from Page speaking about his predilection for dark and light contrasts to a balls-out performance of "Stairway to Heaven."

The guitars sound incredible, and the music is mixed really well. Seeing newly-mixed concert footage of Led Zeppelin in a movie theater alone is worth the price of admission. But the careful editing keeps the film moving forward, and provides philosophical contrasts and commonalities by switching off between the three subjects. Jimmy Page steals the show as the vanguard of rock, comfortable in his old age to happily open up and storytell. Jack White can become tiresome because he's constantly putting forth an image of himself, but that may be because of his youth and the fact that unlike the other two, he has yet to carve out his own artistic legacy (he spends most of his time talking about influences and whom he tries to imitate). But even he is unable to contain his joy as he watches Jimmy Page play the riff to "Whole Lotta Love," one of the film's priceless moments. The powerful and selective use of concert footage, the thoughtful organization of artistic philosophies, and the spontaneous moments of a rock union make for a great documentary, and it's a tribute to the skill of the filmmakers to take this material and create something insightful, entertaining, and new.