ACCA DACCA WEEK….AC/DC/High Voltage(Australian Version)

YO! Geoff and Sarca faithfull Arena Rock readers have requested a AC/DC week of my ramblings…..Lets Do this!

So your probably asking yourself (than again maybe not) what’s with the Australian Version? Why not  sez I….my Blog, my rules..hahaha. Seriously though since we and by that I mean North Americans have heard the other version of High Voltage with Its A Long Way To the Top,Rock N Roll Singer,Live Wire etc I thought it would be fun to mix it up a bit and fellow reader Destroyer Of Harmony lives Down Under so why the hell not!

1975 and AC/DC consists of the Young Brothers(Angus and Malcolm) Bon Scott(RIP) Tony Currenti on drums and even Angus and Malcolm’s older brother George adds bass to the album.

IN THE BEGINNING ……..

BABY PLEASE DONT GO- Angus and Malcolm along with drums set off this Big Joe Wiliams cover out of the gate quick! We all heard this tune a million times by other artists but AC/DC load up with a  bunch of riffing guitars driving bass and drums and Bons barroom rasp vocal and the guys rock this song! I’m sure if this was played in the bar with a jukebox it would short out! This song cooks and welcome to the world AC/DC!

SHES GOT BALLS- Malcolm and Angus start off with great opening along with Bon man what can say “My Lady’s Got Balls!” Also I loved these guys backing vocals they sound more street gangish than anything! No polish for these fellers! Angus lays down a neat little tightly wound solo! Great song !

LITTLE LOVER-Ahh Tony the drummer slows the pace down and Angus and company play around a little with a slower tempo and Bon goes into stortyteller mode! Bon a master lyricist and if you follow AC/DC you know what I’m talking about! The chorus is that barrom late night after hours slop drunk sleaze ball riff and Angus plays it like there’s no tomorrow. Love the guitar crunch after the vocals say…Little Loooooooover!

STICK AROUND-mid tempo rock tune with Bon leading  the charge. This is a great tune. This version does not have the crazy heavy boogie rock that would come later. Stick Around is AC/DC mixed with a shot of Blues doused in rock!

SOUL STRIPPER- ha….love the title and the song is good! This is the fellas finding there groove! There niche so to speak and man what a niche they have had like for 40 years! Soul Stripper as well I think may be one of the few if only AC/DC tune Bon never wrote lyrics for! Take a bow Ang and Mal! Love the pace of this tune….

YOU AINT GOT A HOLD ON ME- Single time! Ha! Perhaps but a good track never the less! The boys are playing a bit of the game here and can Ya Blame them!

LOVE SONG- the guitars of the Young brothers are  in sync and this is a slower type of tune but still packs a little ooomph! It’s kinda funny to look at the track listing of this album and Acdc has a song called Love Song! Ha….of course my introduction to AC/DC writing love songs was Any of the numerous songs off of Back In Black.

SHOW BUSINESS- This song reminds me of a Chuck Bery tune as it’s just AC/DC knowing the end of the album is near and it’s time to do a boogie work Blues send off as  Angus rocks out this  track out on his Gibson SG Guitar!

IN CONCLUSION- This is a great beginning to the work of AC/DC. Of course you had here in Canada a different version of High Voltage. On import you could get some songs from High Voltage called TNT and of course this version of High Voltage! In other words AC/DC issued three different versions of High Voltage and if my memory serves me correct I think Muc had all three back in the early 80s or he had two I dunno Muc help me out….but yeah you could get TNT album and the Australian copy of High Voltage here in Tbay back in 1981 but you would be paying for it…..

Check Back Wednesday Folks!