The SmarK DVD Rant for AC/DC – Family Jewels –

The SmarK DVD Rant for AC/DC – Family Jewels

– A collection of videos from a band not known for, you know, making videos seems like kind of a strange choice when you think about it. On the other hand, the presentation is certainly very much out of the AC/DC playbook — no extras, no bullshit, just one disc of Bon Scott and one disc of Brian Johnson. While taken apart the videos don’t reveal much about the band, it’s actually an interesting chronology of the band’s slow rise with Bon, sudden explosion with Brian, and then decline again in the 80s.

Personally, I had only heard “You Shook Me All Night Long” on the radio as a young’un, and then only vaguely knew of them until their career resurrection in 1990 with “The Razor’s Edge”, at which point I got into my heavy metal phase and never looked back. Now I have their entire catalog on CD, have been to see them twice, and can hold my own in arguments about whether “Back in Black” or “Highway to Hell” rocks harder with the best of them.

(Psst — the answer is “Back in Black”, which has no weak tracks)

The Film

It’s kind of hard to find TOO much to say about their minimalist videos, but I’ll give it a go.

Disc One

– “Baby Please Don’t Go”. We start on an Australian TV show in the 70s with the boys doing the standard recently covered by Aerosmith. Notable for Bon Scott dressed up as a very ugly schoolgirl, showing that he could outweird Angus even on his worst day. The video quality and sound are surprisingly clean here. Angus was about 15 when this was made, and wasn’t quite his usual frenetic self yet.

– “Show Business”. From their debut album, High Voltage, this is more of a straight ahead blues banger, showing their early live show in the days before the stadiums. The video quality is dark and grainy, as you’d expect.

– “High Voltage”. Another one from the same set, but overdubbed with the studio recording and cut with some crowd noise mixed into it. I really wish Brian did this one these days, because it’s the first classic AC/DC song and still rocks hard today. The cutting is also very much in the style that would define their performance videos years later.

– “It’s a Long Way to the Top”. The first real AC/DC single, and another classic right out of the bag. It’s got BAGPIPES, what more do you want? Really, this is Bon’s version of “Turn the Page” or “Wanted Dead or Alive”, as every rock star has to do a self-indulgent song about how tough it is to be a rock star. The difference here is that this one still manages to kick ass. The video sees the band playing on the back of a truck to promote an upcoming concert, complete with bagpipers. Mixing is all over the place here, as the song fades back and forth through the speakers, probably due to the age of the clip.

– “TNT”. Back to the TV show again, for another monster anthem. Bon is a little more normally-dressed this time and Angus has started developing the “schoolboy from hell” image we all know. Weird hearing this one done in what is essentially a pop setting, with little girls bopping along.

– “Jailbreak”. First actual video of the collection. There’s tons of dirt and noise on the print, but it looks better than anytime Muchmusic has played it in the past 20 years. The guys are playing outside a prison here and setting off pyro, vaguely following the storyline, which ends with Bon Scott’s “death” at the hands of the other band members.

– “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap”. Bon’s lyrical brilliance really starts to show here, with a narrative about a low-rent “problem solver” wonderfully mixed with a grimy riff from Angus. It’s another TV performance, as they’re getting pretty big now. They’re also clearly doing a recorded instrumental performance, with Bon singing over top of that and screwing up the words quite badly. He botches the entire second verse, in fact, and gets interrupted by fans rushing the stage in the third verse. You just don’t think of AC/DC as pop idols these days. In fact, I think Brian Johnson is more likely to get rushed by drunken 40 year olds than teen girls nowadays.

– “Dog Eat Dog”. Another cheaply made performance clip from Australian TV, and a pretty generic song at that. Never seen it before, though, so that’s cool.

– “Let There Be Rock”. More AC/DC excess done on the cheap, as an increasingly long-haired Bon Scott preaches from his pulpit while Angus portrays the angel. Yeah, right. This one has pretty much become the guitar solo portion of their live show. Of course the video looks like it was shot in an afternoon for $1.50, which is probably was. It’s mainly long shots of Bon preaching intercut with Angus playing, with some “high tech” gimmicky editing added later on. Never really liked this song as such.

– “Rock N Roll Damnation”. Back to the live format for a super-funky dance number (by AC/DC standards), although basically the same song as “It’s a Long Way to the Top”. But hey, like Bret Michaels once said, just keep rewriting the same song until it stops going #1.

– “Sin City”. Another TV clip, in mono, and widescreen (!). By this time they’re really starting to look like AC/DC, as Cliff has taken over on bass, leaving only their Spinal Tap-ish crew of revolving drummers over the years.

– “Riff Raff”. Another generic rocker live performance.

– “Fling Thing/Rocker”. Another live shot, as now audiences have started the “An-Gus!” chant between songs, which persists to this day. “Fling Thing” is a brief instrumental intro to “Rocker”, which is a balls-out boogie. Sound is REALLY bad here, though. Slight change in the arrangement as well from the studio version, as the original is more of a dance song and this is more punkish. Frenetic Angus action at its best, though.

– “Whole Lotta Rosie”. A true anthem, although later live versions are far more definitive and skullcrushing than this one. You really need a 100,000 person crowd for this one to be its most effective. Again, mono sound here, but very clean. This is from a concert shot at a college, and thus the teen girls in the front row have started to give way to the more traditional greasy, disillusioned headbanging dudes.

– “Shot Down in Flames”. Welcome to the Age of Mutt. Suddenly the bass and drums are RIGHT THERE and the singing is much cleaner. This was a single from “Highway to Hell”, my second-favorite AC/DC album ever, and the dramatic shift in production quality for the album is very obvious here. It’s another performance video, of course.

– “Walk All Over You”. Another “live” video, although the music is clearly from the studio version, what with the complex multi-tracked vocals and all. Typically solid Mutt singalong chorus and breakneck tempo changes.

– “Touch Too Much”. Bon Scott at his most commercial and lyrically brilliant, with a song that sounds like something off a Def Leppard album. Could anyone else but Bon Scott have written “She had the body of Venus, with arms” and gotten away with it? I LOVE this song, needless to say, and it really showed that Bon was going in very cool places as a songwriter before he died.

– “If You Want Blood (You Got It)”. Another killer Mutt song, that really proved to be the precursor to the Brian version of AC/DC, with Malcolm’s driving rhythm guitar and fist-pounding chorus. The title of course is a play on the famous blues song “If you want love, you got it”.

– “Girl’s Got Rhythm”. Back to TV now, from a Spanish TV show, although the backing track is the album version. Another great Mutt production.

– “Highway to Hell”. Disc one closes out with Bon’s swan song to the industry, another one about life on the road and one of the greatest rock songs ever written. It also has one of the best choruses. This version was taped just 10 days before Bon choked to death on his own vomit after a night of partying, showing that his concerns as voiced in the song weren’t that far off.

Disc Two

– “Hell’s Bells”. Like this needs an introduction. The all-time classic headbanger, quasi-satanic enough to piss off any concerned parent while simultaneously being filthy and subversive for totally different reasons, which made AC/DC heavier than f*ck and introduced us to Brian Johnson. “Back in Black” was basically an entire album about raunchy sex and how great it is to be a rock n roll star, which was in sharp contract to Bon complaining about how hard it was. A low-key performance video, to say the least, it introduces Brian’s trademark hat and growl.

– “Back in Black”. Another performance video from the same session, and another anthem. In fact, the first few videos all appear to have been shot in one afternoon. On the other hand, the album sold 20 million copies, so who am I to argue? This is pretty much one of the greatest headbanger guitar riffs ever written by Angus, with the chugging rhythm section giving this one a classic groove. Mutt Lange was truly in his glory with this album. Most gangsta rapper punks wish they could put forth the kind of “f*ck you” attitude that this song has. I still don’t like the fade at the end, though.

– “What You Do For Money Honey”. I didn’t even know that this one was a single, because “Shoot to Thrill” has since become the de facto album track played by rock radio over the years. But as songs about gold-digging whores go, this is pretty much the definitive one. There’s just no weak tracks on “Back in Black”, case closed. Another of the same performance videos as the first two. Angus also writes the greatest bridges ever, I just want it noted.

– “Rock N Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution”. The closer from “Back in Black”, and we’re still in the same studio. First in a neverending series of songs from Brian about how terrific it is to be a rock star. He definitely brought a different lyrical sensibility to the group, for sure.

– “Let’s Get It Up”. One last album with Mutt to follow up “Back in Black”, as they had the impressive task of following the biggest hard rock album ever to that point. A live video this time, in mono. Very catchy Mutt song, although the muddy mix on this version doesn’t work with the chorus very well.

– “For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)”. Once they came out with this one, you knew it would close every show from then on. A menacing riff introduces it and cannon firing into the audience close it. Back then only a couple of them, although by the time I saw them in 2001 it was up to an entire barrage of cannon fire. The live video is especially useful here, showing fans what to expect from the tour (ie, EXPLOSIONS!). Same concert as “Let’s Get It Up”, so it’s still mono. The song itself is a totally meaningless “rock is great” opus, serving only to give the stagehands a reason to fire the guns. And that’s why they RULE.

– “Flick of the Switch”. Onto the period where they really started putting it in cruise control, creatively speaking. Whereas other bands of the same period (Van Halen and the other granddaddies of the hair metal revolution immediately come to mind) were getting more experimental and synthy with their music to keep up with the times, AC/DC stubbornly clung to the same chugging guitar riffs and silly choruses. Time would show who was right, of course, but it was still a pretty daring choice on their part. Anyway, this is a performance video, set in an empty warehouse for whatever reason, and it’s basically a rewrite of “Let’s Get It Up”.

– “Nervous Shakedown”. More from the same session, another so-so song from the bad period. The riff is basically “Back in Black”, but this one kind of grows on you.

– “Fly On the Wall / Danger / Sink the Pink / Stand Up / Shake Your Foundations”. This is probably the best example showing why they DIDN’T want to change, as they somehow got talked into making a “mini-movie”, thus moving into the MTV era with uncertainty. This would actually be their first “real” video, and it’s a weird concept with a cartoon fly and an anonymous bar, where an unknown AC/DC plays for a small crowd of weirdos that gradually increases. “Fly On the Wall” features a noisy photographer trying to get pictures of the band, and the song is very bad and disjointed. Second song is “Danger”, another clunker, as the photographer tries to find their hotel room and catches various characters from the bar cheating. The next is “Sink the Pink”, the first single, video, and first good song in this set. Theme this time is a female pool shark cleaning up on the patrons. And dancing. Moving along, “Stand Up” sees uptight yuppies coming into the bar and looking very dated at that, while the fly freaks out on peppers and people dance. Badly. Great guitar work from Angus, but there’s no song to go with it. And finally, “Shake Your Foundations” redeems things somewhat, with a great booming chorus that lends itself very well to live shows. And even the yuppies are partying to this one. This whole set shows in clear detail why they kept their other videos SIMPLE. Sadly, their chops are so righteous that they bring the bar down at the end, lest any other groups attempt to make this sort of thing.

– “Who Made Who”. From the “Maximum Overdrive” soundtrack, this was the first step in the resurrection of the band, as the soundtrack (championed by Stephen King) collected the best moments of the band from the 80s and combined it with a brilliant new song. The concept for the video is that an army of Anguses are being cloned to ROCK THE WORLD. This one has one of the all-time great basslines, but it’s structured differently than most of their stuff, almost like a pop song, and really needed another verse and a more aggressive solo. The live version kills the studio one.

– “You Shook Me All Night Long”. This is the video for the 1986 re-release, not the original performance version. It’s also their biggest hit, best song, and pinnacle of their career. It’s because of this song that Mutt gets to live in Switzerland with Shania and “Back in Black” sold so damn many units.

– “Heatseeker”. They’re right into the video thing now, honing the “rabid crowd of teenagers” performance act while a missile travels the world. They do this one at an even FASTER pace live, if that’s possible. Total headbanging bliss.

– “That’s The Way I Wanna Rock N Roll”. Now we’re back into the arena rock videos with another vacuous song about rock and how it’s just swell, thanks. There’s also some sort of plot involving Angus coming to life out of people’s posters and rocking them.

– “Thunderstruck”. And then, in 1990, something wondrous happened, as they brought in monster drummer Chris Slade, and suddenly became cool again. All it took was writing a great anthem for a whole new generation of greasy teens to bang their heads to and a grunt-along intro. The video, another performance one, is a slightly creepy concert with row upon row of identically dressed mullets in caged balconies pumping their fists. This one took them from the cheesy 80s videos and turned them back into heavy metal icons again.

– “Moneytalks”. Just to show they’d been saving it up for a while, they hit another one out of the park with the second single from “The Razor’s Edge”, with another live-favorite singalong chorus and gimmicky “Angus dollars” dropping from the rafters.

– “Are You Ready”. And we finish with, surprise, another performance video with a very Mutt-ish feel to it. Slade just beats the shit out of the drums here.

Sadly, contractual issues leave this one stranded in 1990, because they changed record labels before recording “Ballbreaker” and continuing their comeback. Still, for the definitive record of their output in the 70s and 80s, this is all you could ask for.

The Video

As mentioned throughout the review, it ranges from dirty and dark at worst to brilliant and colorful at the end, with the DVD obviously limited by the original source quality. Most of it at least looks better than on TV, so that’s about all you can ask from it.

The Audio

Again, depends on which video you’re watching. There’s everything from muddy mono in the 70s to crisp and clear Dolby 2.0 stereo for the “Razor’s Edge” stuff. When it’s good, it’s very good however, bringing out all the guitars and heavy bass in impressive fashion and demanding to be cranked.

The Extras

Extras? What extras? You get a discography and nothing else.

The Ratings

The Film: ****
The Video: **
The Audio: **1/2
The Extras: 1/2*