No no - don't go busting a cracker right away. Have you really heard this record all the way through? Not just "You Shook Me All Night Long" but the whole record?

There's funky stuff buried in the record but you'll have to take off your funk blinders first.

1980 saw the release of Prince's DIRTY MIND, Rick James was about to release Street Songs, and AC/DC put out this record. Here's the thing. AC/DC don't use keyboards, no electronic handclaps or drum machines, the lead singer screams at the top of his lungs and the guitar solos sear, so, what part of this is FUNK?

The drums. Go listen to Back in Black - you've probably heard samples on plenty of rap records, listen to the vocals - it's practically rap, sure sure, by a drunk australian dude, but nonetheless, there's so much fat funk behind that drummer you'd have to be paralyzed not to nod your head.

And then there's the lyrics:
- "Let me put my love into you baby, let me cut your cake with my knife"

how much different is that than:
- "I'll give ya head, til you're burning up, head, til you get enough..."

So, we've got a record with grooves and a drummer that drives funk with his bass pedal, lyrics that are dedicated to gettin it on, and guitar solos pulled straight from Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry, just, they're turned up to 10.

I continue to come back to this record over and over with renewed appreciation at how DAMN FUNKY it is. If you have no rock/metal records, I would urge you, come on, check this ONE record out. Get past the huge-balls posturing and the big-hair that took over metal, come check out this band that just liked to groove and rock.

Okay. I'm through. Discuss. But honestly - if you haven't HEARD "Shoot to Thrill" or "Have a Drink On Me", you just don't know what you're missing. You could put the funky drummer loop behind those songs and BAM that shit would be all over the place, again.
[Edited 9/4/05 7:07am]

AC/DC sound too much like a redneck band to me. I've always been put off by their singers, especially Brian Johnson who sounds like he's just been stabbed in his fuckin' balls. I've tried to get into them but their music is just too hillbillyish. But the riff in 'Back in Black' is good.

SEXYMOFO said:

Is it that they SOUND like a redneck band, or that so many rednecks love them that the band has become synonymous with rednecks?

because, oh hell yeah, rednecks love them some AC/DC, but I've heard Prince do a Brian Johnson imitation in Nikki, Bambi, etc...

btw: redneck rock: go listen to Blackfoot, Skynyrd, 38 Special - that's rock by rednecks, for rednecks, uh, about rednecks. AC/DC are from Australia!!

Gday!!! But okay - to each his own, won't discount your opinion.

on a Sunday morning, you're a piece of work

Although the album is a tribute to the real singer of ACDC, Bon Scott, of course it's funky. Every note matters and Angus just lost his mate so he means it, as does the band but then again one could say that they were funky with Sin City or a handful of Bon Scott songs. Oh yeah don't forget the bag pipes which Bon played and took blues rock to another place.

beauhall said:

That's a fuckin' stretch. It's always funny when white artists (or their fans, really) try to cop some sort of black credibility by copping their music as R&B or jazz when it's just a blues rip-off. As it is, the fuckin' thing has already made zillons while their dorkass honky fans throw up barriers to black rock bands like Fishbone Living Colour and Bad Brains (check the boards for INXS:ROCKSTAR for how they came down on Ty).

I listen to plenty of rock and I'm reasonably aware of AC/DC. A number of black rockers have copped their tunes. Living Colour covered "BiB" on their COLLIDE-O-SCOPE album. I don't like the tune much, but if I gotta hear it I wanna hear LC's version.

Basically fuck AC/DC if you tryin' to pump them as funk. They got enuff fans. They gottta come with something more funk-a-fied than that redneck b/s.

(Don't start shyt with me on liking white rock bands, I'm always out to see bands like Primus Allman Brothers Gov't Mule and Velvet Revolver and I've been out to see Eagles, Doobies and even Led Zeppelin. Fuck I've even seen Journey..gawd they sucked).

LC's version of BiB was a steaming pile of brown rockets. Corey was so far out of his range it was horrible, Vernon was trying to go for a world record on notes thrown at an amp. I have all their records EXCEPT for Crap-O-Scope. Black rock is one of my favorite genres, so, piss on you.

beauhall said:

That was the beauty of it. The hysterical screeching and the zillion notes per second. Shit was a riot.



Oh, what the fuck do you know anyway? dork.











In case onlookers are unaware,
We are playfully bashing each other.

oh.. er... yeah yeah... i knew that...

PFunkjazz said:

Look there's no need to use words like Honky ok. People are afraid/surprised by things that do not seem 'normal' to them. There are quite a few Black rockstars out there. Lenny Kravitz, Skin, Howard Jones (Killswitch Engage - (lead singer of a hardcore metal band) to name but a few.

A badass record no doubt.

Just last week I received the Remastered digipack version...



...with extra pics and groovy Black on Black disc.
(my cassette copy just wasn't makin' it anymore )

The band on this release laws down the law on how to be a groovin' rock group.
The tunes are some of the tightest hardest groovin' rock out there.
Producer Mutt Lange may have had something to do with making the record sound this way.


And Angus? Can't say enough about the guy. Just no-frills R&R guitar playing...



...(If I had to start a Classic-Rock group, it'd be Keef on rhythm and Angus on lead.)


A prime example of his no-frills approach is his guitar rig...



...Gibson SG, guitar cord and some Marshall amps. PERIOD!!!

As opposed to a particular "Rock God" ...



...who shall remain nameless.


Add Shake A Leg and Givin' The Dog A Bone to the list of lesser played bone rattling rockers.
Although no reason to do so, in terms of groove, a tune like Girls Got Rhythm could easily fit onto Back In Black


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

SEXYMOFO said:

I'm sure you had a point that was relevant to the topic. I'll keep re-reading 'til I find it.

Hey now PfunkJ, some folks just get a little atwitter when there's a race discussion going on that isn't on a peaceful level playing field without emotion and vengefulness. Before your post about how we're just yawing at each other, I was going to ask why you were so angry about it all.

And to be fair, I never really consider that any of these whiteys stealing from the black man, music-wise. I think that there's those of us who get it, and want to emulate it and add our own stank to the mess.

I'm not talking about Pat Boone's version of Tutti Fruiy, I'm definitely talking about Elvis, K.C., ME, Eminem - these artists aren't looking at black music as a way to make money and keep the black man down - we're hearing shit that simply can't be found on an album by Boston or Foreigner or Nickelback, and we get it, we like it, we want to do it ourselves.

Why is there a rule in place that says "black man's music must stay black, and anybody else who plays something similar is a thief". It's crazy. Who accuses Jimi Hendrix of theivery? he stole Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry's licks and kicked them up a ton, and made a fortune while Muddy laid buried in "old school blues".

Does anyone accuse Prince of stealing from Sly and Stevie? No, when it's within the race, (albeit barely sometimes) everybody pats themselves on the back for another artist gaining exposure.

Anyhow - it's not a heated debate between us, but the whole "black/white music" debate always gets my yams in a clamp. It's just music. And there will always be those musicians/performers who have no talent and will simply emulate whatever is popular at the time, just as there are those incredibly talented artists who can take someone else's music and put a brilliant perspective on it.

In all my years diggin on black music, I have never ever EVER heard a white person discount black rock because it is black. Nobody - NOBODY has ever said to me "Mother's Finest aren't any good because they're black", or "Living Colour? Give me a break, they need to stick to rap" or ANYTHING like that.

However, whenever the black/white music debate comes up, it's always somebody who seems to believe that there's a huge cracker conspiracy to keep black people off of rock stations.

Honestly, I think it's simply a matter of percentages. OF ALL rock bands, maybe less than 1% are black folks. I'm including all walks of rock. So, then, for every black rock band out there, they're facing the exact same hurdles that whitey must face - the sheer volume of crapy bands out there, the bands that are huge but should have given up years ago...

But for some reason, a black rock artist wants to believe that they're unsuccessful, not because of the sheer volume of people trying to get into rock stardom, not because of the millions of artists trying to get a record deal, no, they want to blame the failure on the color of their skin.

I'm not saying it's not out there. I'm 100% positive that the Klan has put a ban on any Lenny Kravitz records at their dances. Not my point. My point is, any and every artist out there, including mohawked Ty on the INXS Rock Star show, faces an impossible mountain to climb, just to get as far as Ty DID get, or Fishbone or 247Spyz, or Super8, or Mother's Finest - these artsts all got VERY far in the music world, but in the end, you still have to remember that they, (black artists in rock and roll) are a tiny tiny percentage, therefore, the number of extremely successful black artists in rock and roll will accordingly be a tiny percentage.

Me, personally, I hate it. I love black rock. LOVE it. But I realize that, until all the R&B artists strap on Les Pauls and plug into a Marshall stack, it's always going to be a very tiny number. Always. Not due to a conspiracy or the white man's hatred, but simply because of the numbers.

The shit bothers me so much that I type until my hands hurt. Look at what you did!!

Moog Taurus Bass Pedals...Delay Units..Wah..Flange...If I didn't know any better, I'd say that gear belonged to Alex Lifeson from Rush.

SPYZFAN1 said:

Click Here and try again.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

If you listen to the drums on some of Lenny Kravitz's funkier tracks, they sound an awful lot like AC/DC - no frills, straight ahead, no unnecessary rolls or showing off. Like John Bonham on "When The Levee Breaks" or anything from Meg White - it either sounds like minimalism, or like they don't know how to do anything else. Either way, it works, and if it isn't funky, it sure rips it off well.

P.S. Michael Bland.
[Edited 9/4/05 12:54pm]

PFunkjazz said:

Look man, I'm neither black or white, I just don't like the use of derogative words when it comes to race ok?

The best pure rhythm guitarist in rock history.

theAudience said:

is it Yngwie Malmsteen

Raine said:

I'm thinking its that guy with the chicken bucket on his head.

Raine said:

We have a winner!

tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431
[Edited 9/5/05 8:37am]