Here's an A-to-Z primer for those about to rock
Here's a guide to the career of AC/DC, in a format that will help the group's youngest fans remember their alphabet:

A is for Australia, where the parents of the band's guitarists, Angus and Malcolm Young, emigrated in 1963. AC/DC performed its first show in 1973 at a club in downtown Sydney.

B is for Bon Scott, who joined the band a few months later. Something between a growl and a shriek, Scott's voice becomes the band's trademark.

C is for ``Can I Sit Next to You?'' the band's debut single, released in Australia in July 1974.

D is for ``drunk himself to death,'' the official 1980 coroner's verdict on Bon Scott, who expired in a friend's car after a night on the town.

E is for earplugs, which aren't a bad idea at an AC/DC show.

F is for 1981's ``For Those About to Rock (We Salute You),'' the band's first No. 1 hit in the U.S.

G is for Gibson SG guitar: Angus Young has been playing the same instrument since he was 15.

H is for 1979's ``Highway to Hell,'' the group's first million-selling album.

I is for 1978's ``If You Want Blood, You Got It,'' the band's first live album.

J is for Brian Johnson, the gifted shrieker who joined the band three months after Scott's death.

K is for Stephen King, who used AC/DC's songs as the soundtrack to his awful 1986 directorial debut, ``Maximum Overdrive.'' King asked that theater managers turn the volume way up for the opening number, ``Who Made Who.''

L is for ``Lock Up Your Daughters,'' the poetic title of the band's first headlining tour of Britain in 1976.

M is for former upstate New York resident Robert John ``Mutt'' Lange, who produced AC/DC's classic 1980 album ``Back in Black'' and is now married to Shania Twain.

N is for ``nine lives,'' which the narrator of the hit title track to ``Back in Black'' has, in addition to cat's eyes (although he's ``abusin' every one of them and runnin' wild'').

O is for ``Omigod, they're charging $65 for a ticket!''

P is for political philosophy: ``They used to exchange opera and ballet companies (during the Cold War),'' Brian Johnson told a crowd at a 1991 concert in Moscow, ``but it takes rock and roll to make no more Cold War.''

Q is for quiet † something that you definitely won't hear at the Pepsi Arena on Monday.

R is for Rhil Rudd, the drummer who fuels the thunder.

S is for ``socially maladjusted,'' the Australian Army's reason for rejecting Bon Scott from service.

T is for ``T.N.T.,'' one of AC/DC's first powerhouse anthems.

U is for schoolboy uniform, which Angus Young continues to perform in despite the fact that he's 42 years old.

V is for Vanilla Ice, the rapper sued in 1992 for sampling from AC/DC's hit ``Rags to Riches'' on his ``Extremely Live'' album. (That's right † a Vanilla Ice live album.)

W is for ``The World's Heaviest Rock,'' the subtitle to Martin Huxley's 1996 biography of the band.

X is presumptive rating of the mental movie that many AC/DC songs are meant to engender in the band's adolescent male fans, e.g. 1995's none-too-subtle ``Cover You in Oil.''

Y is for ``You Shook Me All Night Long,'' the 1980 hit that two decades of frat-party DJs have turned to when they need to kick things up a notch.

Z is for ZZ Top, a band that was also big in the '80s. (OK, we hit the wall. So sue us.)

-- adapted from ``The Encyclopedia of Rock Lives'' by Greg Haymes, Mark McGuire and Casey Seiler

Source of article http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyKey=57399&category=E

Stiff Upper Lip Tour Special