Ronald Belford Scott, known to the world as Bon Scott, emigrated with his family from Scotland to Australia in 1956 at age 10. He found two fellow Scottish immigrants in the Young brothers, Malcolm and Angus, joined the band they’d started, AC/DC (known as “Acca Dacca” in Australia), and conquered the world, touring and blowing people’s minds (not to mention ears) from 1974 until his messy death from alcohol in 1980.
All that the average rock fan may well know. But the Experience Music Project’s “AC/DC: Australia’s Family Jewels” exhibit, running through September 29th, shows a few sides of Bon most won’t know. He played drums in the Fremantle Scots Pipe Band of Fremantle, Australia—where his remains now lie—but he never actually mastered the bagpipes he whipped out for one of the band’s signature tunes, “It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock And Roll).” Before AC/DC he sang for a band and played recorder for a band called Fraternity, which later changed their name to Fang.
Bon was a voracious letter writer, showing a warmth and gentle affection in his correspondence that belies his reputation as a sweaty, hard-drinking midnight lover. But, yes, he did have a tattoo just over his groin area, depicting two swallows.
I asked the exhibit’s curator, Tim Fisher of the Arts Centre Melbourne, if Bon ever went so far as to show a live audience that particular tattoo. Fisher chuckles and opines, “I think he came close a few times.”
Fisher, as an Aussie, has plenty of personal history with his country’s biggest rock and rollers. But he’s a curator with plenty of professional experience, so he brings a thoroughness to his labor of love.
Angus Young’s famous schoolboy outfit—the man has now spent 38 years onstage in knee pants—underwent several transmutations, most of them guided by his sister Margaret Young, who ran them off on the family’s sewing machine. Up close, the Frankensteinian stitching, as well as some wear and tear, is evident, but it feels personal, even private, to sense Bon and the brothers (various rhythm sections have wandered in and out of the lineup) as early strivers, not yet high rollers. It also points up Angus’ tiny frame—subtract the pedestals, and he stands about five-foot-two.
Fisher went to a great deal of trouble to dig up early photographs, many presented in their original proportions, showing the band at early, candid, often backstage, moments. He also righteously identifies the original photographers whenever possible, although one sequence of the band in an open-air coliseum remains anonymous. Fisher laments that he isn’t even sure where and when the photos come from, although the presence of a huge Confederate flag strongly hints at the Deep South.
One case in particular holds a local interest: It holds the trench coat of AC/DC fanatic Josh Smith, a resident of West Seattle. He’s festooned it with every AC/DC button known to personkind. The coat weights twenty-odd pounds and the weight of the buttons has caused it to stretch several inches. For AC/DC, still in business almost forty years, this is the depth, or at least the weight, of the love.
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