06 Bon Scott - Pre AC/DC part2
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This article is from the AC/DC FAQ, by Phil Rose acdcfaq@yahoo.com with numerous contributions by others.
06 Bon Scott - Pre AC/DC part2
[Thanks to Doug Fierro <fierro@uts.amdahl.com>]
I ran across a CD recently titled "Bon Scott- The early Years
1968-1972" and of course I had to buy it. This is a CD, not vinyl
(more info about it below)
I don't know how many of you hear stuff from The Valentines, Bon
Scott's first big band in Australia, but it sounds NOTHING like
AC/DC. The music is categorized as "bubble-gum" 60s music, which is
right about on mark. Stumbling across the music on this CD is like
digging up old pictures of your parents wearing hideous clothing
when they were younger. The music from Fraternity is better though.
The CD contains two written pieces, the second posted by Steve Rhoads
here a while ago. It also has an interview of Bon Scott by David Day
from 5KA in Adelaide, Australia (any Oz natives know if that station
still exists?); Bon was pretty drunk and it wasn't a long interview
anyway.
Liner notes by Glenn A. Baker
I encountered Bon Scott a number of times during the 70's and each
meeting served to increase my incredulity that performer's public
image could be so at odds with his real personality. Bon really was a
sweet man. He was warm, friendly and uncommonly funny. He did not
breathe fire, pluck wings off flies or eat children whole. And while
his daunting stage persona of lacivious leers and blood curdling howls
was by no means fraudulent, it was most certainly a professional cloak
that could be worn at convenient moments.
When Bon had replaced Dave Evans as leader of AC/DC at the end of
1974, he was already a bona-fide Oz Rock veteran, with two stints in
prominent hit bands under his belt. In one he had been a fluffy,
gossamered pop idol, in the other a cosmic, hirsute, heavily
philosophical hippie. By the time he climbed into working class denim
he must have been suffering no small identity crisis. Yet he was
never anything less than convincing in any of his musical roles.
A rough'n'tumble Scotsman, Bon first came to prominence in Perth's
hottest 60's pop sensations, The Valentines. Like Adelaide's
Twilights, the band fronted two lead singers - Bon and Vince Lovegrove
(later manager of the Divinyls)- and was adept in the manipulation of
screaming teenies. After some rudimentary recordings for Perth's
Clarion label in 1967-68, The Valentines moved base to Melbourne where
they joinged the Zoot and New Dream as frontrunners in a bubblegum pop
boom.
Yet, although there was an undeniable chirping commerciality about the
Valentines Melbourne recordings, there was also a solid, rocking base
which rendered them appealing and more than credible. The band cut
six tracks for Ron Tudor's June Productions, which were leased to the
Philips label. Two of those six (which constitute side one of this
record) - Harry Vanda & George Young's "My Old Man's A Groovy Old Man"
and the original Juliette- became moderate national hits. The latter
was an early example of Bon's strong, expressive voice.
At the dawn of the 70's rock music was becoming inexorably 'heavy' and
the days of bands like the Valentines were obviously numbered. Not
even a heavily-publicised drug bust could rescue the band's limp
image. By the middle of 1970 it was all over and Bon was in Sydney
putting together a new band with remnants of Levi Smith's Clefs.
Fraternity was a quantum leap for the adaptable singer, who grew a
beard, donned leather sandals and no doubt developed a taste for brown
rice.
Offered management and financial support by businessman Hamis Henry,
Fraternity moved to South Australia where, as Vince Lovegrove reported
in Go-Set magazine in June 1971, the lived "like no other band in
Australia, in a house in the hills 17 miles from Adelaide. It's
surrounded by seven acres of bushland. They're from everything but
nature. What a buzz! Once a week they come into the city to have a
meeting with their management and collect their pay. They only leave
their pad to play gigs.
"Bon Scott, vocalist, recorder and timbala player, is constantly in a
dream world of his own but he's having a ball. He says: 'The point
is, the dollar sign is not the ultimate. We want to try and help each
other develop and live. So that the thing inside of us, whether it be
creative or not, is satisfied. Something makes us tick and it's up to
people to satisfy that something. We are satisfying ourselves and
others by creating an environment."
Fraternity took their environment back to Sydney at regular intervals.
Although well received live, their cosmic recordings on the Adelaide
independent label Sweet Peach (notably the album Livestock) made
little impact. Guitarist John Robinson wrote the brooding Seasons of
Change for them but it was the version by his own band, Blackfeather,
which cracked the charts.
Even their unexpected win of the all-important Hoadley's National
Battle Of The Sounds in 1971 failed to assist their chart fortunes.
"Fraternity came on and nearly rocked themselves off stage and half
the audience nearly rocked themselves onto the stage" reported Go-Set
of the Grand Final. "Superb harmonica and superb vocals by that guy
out of the old Valentines. What's his name again?...oh you know him."
Fraternity left Sweet Peach late in 1971, cut some singles for the
independent Raven label (no relationship to this fine imprint) and
then put down a second album. The powerful Flaming Galah was a whole
different kettle of fish. The metaphysical meanderings had largely
been replaced by solid, thumping rock and Bon Scott was able to give a
hint of the sort of tempest he would command in AC/DC a couple of
years later.
During 1972, Fraternity took advantage of their Battle of the Sounds
prize and travelled to London. From there they worked in Britain and
Europe, although little is known about this time. Shortly after the
band's return to Adelaide in 1973, Bon suffered severe injuries in a
motorcycle accident. Fraternity continued on with a new formation
that happened to include John 'Swanee' Swan and his brother Jimmy
Barnes, but that's another story.
By 1974, Bon was healed and healthy, and working in Sydney as an
occasional roadie for AC/DC, an interesting new band formed by Angus
and Malcolm Young, junior siblings of Easybeat George Young, the man
who had penned three tracks recorded by The Valentines in the 60's.
When the band's vocalist went off to form Rabbit, widely experienced
Bon seemed the logical replacement.
From the first day that Bon trod the boards with AC/DC, there was not
the slightest cloud of suspicion that the outfit would not turn the
world upside down with their rib-crushing, blood curdling, brain
damaging, skin blistering, no bullshit rock'n'roll. Throughout the
next five years. AC/DC's vision of rock to fight, fuck and drink by,
survived unscathed. Single handedly they led an international
renaissance of power rock, though none of their copyists ever aspired
to even a hint of the awesome global popularity that Acca Dacca
commanded (indeed still do) among working class kids.
Bon failed to survive his own indulgent life-style. He was found dead
in a parked car, after a bout of drinking, on February 20, 1980. His
seeming indestructability was, like much of the rock lifestyle, a
myth. Nobody who ever knew him will easily forget him.
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