In 1984, between the releases of Flick Of The Change and Fly On The Wall, the insatiable thirst in America for all issues AC/DC-related noticed the discharge of ’74 Jailbreak, an EP of classic Bon Scott-era storage rock materials. Jailbreak itself, which had already been launched on the Australian (however not the British or US) model of Soiled Deeds Executed Filth Low-cost was backed up with different materials solely beforehand out there on Antipodean variations of the Excessive Voltage album. The album was a selected deal with for die-hard followers who had been used to listening to the band play these songs – particularly the title observe – dwell.
The album got here out at an attention-grabbing level for the band in America, as AC/DC had been a much bigger dwell draw than ever earlier than and other people had been nonetheless within the historical past of the band. Nevertheless, the latest albums weren’t fairly the draw that Again In Black and For These About To Rock, We Salute You had been when it comes to gross sales.
However at the beginning, ’74 Jailbreak supplied a helpful snapshot of the group’s historical past for individuals who had by no means gotten their arms on the unique Australian releases. Just some months earlier than a number of the tracks that make up this EP had been recorded, the group was a shambolic mess (albeit one with nice potential) with a totally unsuitable, stack-heeled, rhinestone-encrusted, glam rocker frontman within the individual of Dave Evans – not precisely fulfilling the Younger brothers’ imaginative and prescient of uncomplicated, party-friendly, blue-collar rock. These songs reveal what an enormous influence that Bon Scott should have had on the band, provided that a few of them had been recorded simply six weeks after he joined.
In some methods, Bon Scott was a standard Dionysian frontman within the model of Jim Morrison or Ozzy Osbourne – a person so deranged on drink and medicines that he was at instances virtually a legal responsibility. In reality, provided that when Scott joined the band he was a lot older than the remainder of the group, he was already pretty properly practised within the methods of “rest”.
Angus recalled Bon’s routine for getting within the temper for singing after they first met. “For the primary gig, the one rehearsal we had was sitting round an hour earlier than the gig, pulling out each rock’n’roll tune we knew. Once we lastly acquired there, Bon downed about two bottles of bourbon with dope, coke, velocity, and says, ‘Proper, I’m prepared’. And he was, too. He was combating match.”
Regardless of such tales, it’s not often commented on that Scott, within the early days a minimum of, was additionally a galvanising determine. He was in all probability the one that was liable for them getting their shit collectively. The truth that he had already been in bands, recorded songs and been on tour was vital and influential on the opposite, much less skilled members.
On the primary of many events, one of many older Younger brothers, George, and an immigrant Dutchman, Harry Vanda (each of whom had skilled a good quantity of success in Australia with their very own group The Easybeats), would take their positions behind the blending desk. They might be essential to the event of the band and, when both Malcolm or Angus would give you a half-realised riff, George would pound it out for hours on the guitar and generally even on the piano, attempting to refine it as a lot as potential; attempting to boil it down till it was as primitive and highly effective because it could possibly be.
In fact, the title Jailbreak ’74 was extra of a advertising and marketing ploy than anything. It was alleged to be a celebration of 10 years of AC/DC, however anybody who had forked out for the primary two authentic Australian imports would already know that the title observe didn’t see the sunshine of day till the unique Oz urgent of Soiled Deeds Executed Filth Low-cost in 1976. It goes with out saying that Jailbrea’ itself is a basic, and it’s puzzling to see why it took so lengthy to get a worldwide launch. Angus is experimenting with a really stiff however efficient uneven energy chord model, however this obvious simplicity doesn’t hamper the event of the tune construction in any respect.
One of many many bands that Angus and Scott mistrusted for turning into too bloated, too distanced from their viewers, and too obsessive about mythology and different self-inflated bunkum, had been Led Zeppelin, however you possibly can hear their affect right here. Nevertheless, this was the affect of the Zep because the Younger brothers thought they need to have been, reasonably than as they had been. That is the sound of younger, indignant males, demolishing the blues and reassembling its ragged and bloody components right into a warmly overdriven and hook-heavy entire.
Lyrically, the tune attracts from the historical past of the blues provided that the jailhouse, and other people spending time in jail, had been typical topics – however right here the story is given a pre-punk dose of righteous anger. Bon Scott’s narrator is telling the story of a pal who has served 16 years’ time “in hell” for homicide. It will definitely turns into clear that the prisoner was despatched down for killing a much bigger man who made a transfer on his girlfriend/spouse and now they’re about to spring him unfastened.
The lyrical matter makes a gloriously unreconstructed and violent prop to the newly primitivised chordage. However the factor that at all times separated AC/DC from simply being a bunch of thugs with six strings is their appeal and sense of humour. The jailbreak state of affairs – already barely daft – is rendered virtually camp by their use of literal guitar scraping noises to indicate “spotlights!”, “sirens!” and “rifles… firin’!”
Truly recorded in 1974 are You Ain’t Bought A Maintain On Me, Present Enterprise and Soul Stripper, all smoking blues numbers given the pared-down Younger and Younger remedy. The EPs final observe is a blistering cowl of Huge Joe Williams’ Child, Please Don’t Go, the frantic R&B customary that AC/DC made a lot their very own that after they launched it as their first ever single in 1975, it made the High 10 of the Australian nationwide charts. The truth that the band had been enjoying this tune dwell longer helped. Onstage, it was usually the
precursor to some type of onstage insanity; most normally Angus Younger tearing most of his garments off after which driving across the viewers on Scott’s shoulders. There was already confusion of their homeland over the homosexual/bisexual overtones of the title AC/DC, and this quantity of fleshy abandon didn’t assist.
’74 Jailbreak was an attention-grabbing launch. It proved how hungry AC/DC had been at one level, and to older followers it reminded them how uncooked that they had been earlier than they grew to become millionaires.
Initially printed in Traditional Rock & Steel Hammer Current The Story Of AC/DC
