Thoroughly Angus

High Voltage: The Life of Angus Young, AC/DCs Last Man Standing – Jeff Apter – (Chicago Review Press)

There has always been something working man, lunch bucket about the band AC/DC. This is a band of guys who pull on their work boots, one foot at a time and climb up on the rock ‘n’ roll assembly line to crack out raucous hard rocking fist pumping anthems.

Veteran music author Jeff Apter serves up a thorough, in depth portrait of the band’s hard working, affable leader and guitar slinger Angus Young and his band of brothers (literally) and merry men, AC/DC in his latest, High Voltage: The Life of Angus Young, AC/DCs Last Man Standing.

The stories Apter details in the book are at once familiar, but serves as great reminders of the highly charged tales about the band's rise, near fall following the death of original lead singer Bon Scott and the Phoenix-like resurrection to even greater heights with the addition of vocalist Brian Johnson. He strings together bits and pieces from the band’s evolution and that of Young’s development of his onstage, bad, schoolboy persona.

I had all but forgotten about the band being connected to the so-called Nightstalker serial murderer/rapist, Richard Ramirez because he claimed AC/DC was his favorite band and that he was somehow inspired by the band’s song Night Prowler. Naturally there was outrage on the part of the media, a rarity way back in 1979, and more than a bit of confusion on the part of Angus and company for being roped into a case they had absolutely nothing to do with.

While the writing is a little loose, to the point of being sloppy at times, High Voltage, serves as a perfect vehicle for the Angus Young/AC/DC story; just the right mix of raw, rough and rowdy.