AC/DC - Black Ice

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(Electric Outlaws Fanzine NO: 21)

With the release of the Bonfire box set, we had people sending us things to do with Bon. We were sent a photocopy of Clinton Walker's Australian Rolling Stone article on Bon Scott. Since it came from a microfiche, parts of the pages were missing, also most of the article appeared later in Walker's book, so we have only transcribed parts of it here, starting with part of the storyline from the film that Walker was going to make about Bon.

Wide shot : The camera pans over the Port Adelaide shipyards. Heat and dust rise under a blazing sun. The camera searches, and finds the bare chested, tattooed figure at work under the hull of a boat, scraping off barnacles. A transistor radio cracles, "Nutbush City Limits". The young man wipes sweat and grime from his forehead, and sternly continues his labour. He knocks off. Outside, he climbs aboard a big Triumph motorcycle, and for the benefit of his workmates, as he takes off, he drops a screeching wheelie, he pulls into a pub.

Later, it is dark, and Bon Scott pulls up outside another pub, now he is clearly drunk, and seeimingly irritated, he is late for a rehearsal. In the basement, a group of musicians greet his arrival with jeers. He tells them to fuck off. The mood, as Bon swigs from a hip flask of Johnnie Walker, only gets worse. The scene erupts when Bon and the band disagree on the tempo af a tune. Bon storms off.

He drunkenly fumbles as he kick starts his bike. He screams off into the night. He curses at the moon. Approaching an intersection, he tries to beat the yellow light. A car turns into his path. He skids into it with an almighty crash.

Both Bon and his bike are left on the road in dismembered heaps. Out of the wreckage, the familiar opening strains of AC/DC's "Jailbreak" rise, and as the song crunches into gear, flashing red and blue lights arrive on the scene.

This was supposed to be the opening scenes of the film that Walker was hoping to make. It looks like he was going to use the time that Bon was in a coma in the hospital to flashback on the earlier part of his life, and when he wakes up, that is when he goes on to join AC/DC. Anyway, that is idle speculation as the film never come to be, as Alberts did not give permission for him to use any of the music that he wanted for it, this was mainly because they did not warm to Walker's approach, and quite possibly if any film is going to be made to do with AC/DC, they would want to be in total controll. Also there are still too many people who would consider such a film too upsetting. So Walker turned his script in to the book "Highway To Hell.

-Nikki Goff

1975 - DIRTY DEEDS AND BIG GROUPIES !
(Electric Outlaws Fanzine NO: 21)

New Year in Australia occurs at the height of Summer. Summer is festival season, and Australia's biggest and most prestigious festival at the time was the Sunbury Festival, which took place outside Melbourne in January. This year Deep Purple had been booked to headline, but they would not confirm, so the organisers contacted Michael Browning to ask whether AC/DC would stand in for them. He jumped at the opportunity. AC/DC still needed a bass palyer at the time, so George Young was called to stand in. Anyway the situation with Deep Purple got ugly, they only decided to do the gig at the last minute. It was decided that AC/DC would go on after Deep Purple. But Deep Purple's management were having nothing of it, AC/DC would effectively be the headliners, and who are they! a bunch of boondoggles! So as Deep Purple went off, their crew started to dismantle the stage. AC/DC and their crew ran to stop them and set up their own gear. A fight broke out, that spread to the audience. That was the end of that festival.

The Australian version of High Voltage and the single Baby Please Don't Go (a cover of the blues standard and an open reference to AC/DC's musical roots) There was a launch party at the Melbourne Hard Rock Cafe (which apparently pre dated the original American one) The countroversy about this album was whether Rob Bailery or George Young laid down the bass tracks. It was also said that Malcolm laid down some of the bass tracks. It was at this point that Mark Evans joined the band.

AC/DC at the time were living in a house on Lansdowne Road in Melbourne which according to all reports was a total den of inquity (and still is, a member of the fan club sought out the address recently and found the house to be occupied by a brothel !) Bon took advantage of a string of female fans and got himself into a whole lotta trouble, being photographed in a compromising situation with one and being arrested for it, being given heroin at a party, and not having a tolerance for it, nearly dying, (apparently he described the experience as like falling through the floor, drowning in it, and then coming round not knowing who or where he was.) Then father of one of his girlfriends decided that he wasn't a suitable mate for his daughter. Bon had retired to his room with her, when the father turned up with a couple of friends, and proceeded to beat him up, knocking some of his teeth out again.

AC/DC played various gigs around Melbourne, supporting other bands, until June when they had a headline gig at the Melbourne Festival Hall, and taking advantage of the event, had the concert filmed. The band then moved to Sydney, and virtually had a recidency at the Sydney Lifesaver Club, which at the time had a reputation for plenty of louche goings on, which apparently Bon took to like a duck to water, doing things like doing unspeakable things to groupies guite shamelessly, in front of an audience for bets and applause.

The band got down to work on their second Australian album, T.N.T. and toured Australia between recording sessions. This is the tour where they were asked to play a major department store in Melbourne and caused a riot. Colin Burgess had to spend some time back on the drum stool, Bon practised jumping into hotel swimming pools from windows and balconies, but the most well known event was his meeting up with the infamous Rosie, of WholeLotta fame.

-Nikki Goff

Unfortunately I've not heard from Nikki for some time now , so I fear the fanclub and fanzine may no longer be active.

Thanks to Jarmo and Pekko at No Nonsense AC/DC Web site.

Fan Club address
ELECTRIC OUTLAWS
c/o Nikki Goff
PO Box 197
Totton
SO40 8HA
England

Thanks to Jarmo & Pekko for the images displayed on this page