Video Of The Week: AC/DC

"In Rock we trust, it's Rock or Bust".

As they've done many times over the course of their careers, when AC/DC opted to have that line open the chorus of the title track to their sixteenth album, they meant it; it was the first record without longtime-riff-writer Malcolm Young manning one of the guitars (nephew Stevie Young filled in), and the video also featured Bob Richards (Asia, Shogun, Man) on drums in lieu of Phil Rudd, who was on trial for murder and drug smuggling in New Zealand (the murder charge was dropped, but the drug-related ones led to his being sentenced to eight months of home detention).

Rock Or Bust was the the 14th of 17 AC/DC songs with the work "Rock" in its title; they also have six with "Balls", so you do with that what you want.

And as he'd done many times for the band before, director David Mallet decided to play to the band's strengths for the video: the raw energy of their live shows, the musicianship, the fun they have playing together, and the riffage, filming at Middlesex, England's Island Studios, on its central stage:

It isn't the best AC/DC record, and thus far from their best song. It's still better than a lot of what's out there, both in rock and beyond.

Hail to Rock! In Rock I trust!

Video Of The Week: AC/DC

2017 brought about many more celebrity deaths. Most of the cultural heroes from the 1950s and 1960s have passed, and we're entering the realm where those of the 1970s and 1980s are dying "naturally", i.e. of long-term disease.

In the past few hours, the world lost one of rock music's most impactful talents for the second time in five years when Malcolm Young died; it had already been a sad time when he sat out for 2014's Rock Or Bust tour, replaced by his nephew Stevie Young.

But even during the amazing 2008-2010 Black Ice tour, dementia had already kicked in, eliminating his short-term memory and forcing him to have to re-learn the band's songs every night before going on stage.

It got to the point where he had to be put in a nursing home, where he got and defeated lung cancer, had a pacemaker intalled and saw his verall health decline sharply, leading to his death, on November 18th, 2017, at the age of 64.

AC/DC is a hard-rock/boogie band from Australia who is known to the general public via its towering and charismatic leaders - former singer Bon Scott (1946-1980), second singer Brian Johnson, and of course lead guitarist Angus Young, he of the lightning-fast fingers, Chuck Berry-inspired duck walk and perpetual shoolboy uniform.

The thing is, behind the solos and riffs, what drove AC/DC, what made it what it is, is Malcolm's playing and songwriting. Megadeth's Dave Mustaine once said:

I respect James (Hetfield). I’m a better lead player than he is, but he’s one of the three best rhythm players in the world. (The other two being) Malcolm Young [of AC/DC] and myself. Malcolm kept it basic but brought a whole new style of rhythm playing to the world.

We can take that for what it is - Mustaine's insane, he'll never get over being kicked out of Metallica, and he knows Malcolm Young deserves respect. That wouldn't be my personal top-three, because while Mustaine is very good at all aspects of guitar-playing, his rhythm playing isn't "the best" by any stretch of the imagination and Hetfield's pretty god, but there are better talents and beter innovators out there.

I'm sure Malcolm is in my top-three, but I'd have to take a week or a month to listen to Gene Vincent closely, to see if Eddie Cochran's consistency as good as he is with Summertime Blues, Neil Young, Pete Townshend, Keith Richards, and so many others.

Malcolm is on a rare plain where it's his inner understanding of rock, the way he just feels it inside and gets it out so naturally, that makes him unique. He's a lot like Jack White that way - it's always the perfect sound that comes out, the right chord with the perfect strumming, bombastic or quick-pick attacks.

Here's what I mean, in one of AC/DC's most well-known songs, Thunderstruck. They catch your attention with Angus' mixoldian scale to start with, then the crowd chanting "uh-huh-uh-huh-uh-uh-uhn" and "Thunder!", but it's when Johnson joins in and Malcolm's chord comes in that the track hits you in the chest for the first time. Then, at 1:33, the actual song kick in. That's all Malcolm, as is the pounding first bridge a full minute later:

That's what I mean by how he and rock are just one entity. Take those away and it's a pretty naked song, yet it's so good and in its right place that you only hear it if you're looking for it.

Rest In Peace, Sir.

The video was directed David Mallet, at London's Brixton Academy - like many others he did for the band. He has also directed VH1 specials, Cirque Du Soleil show DVDs, and videos for Sarah Brightman (How Can Heaven Love Me, Music Of The Night), Olivia Newton-John (Take A Chance, Soul Kiss, Culture Shock, Emotional Tangle, Toughen Up, The Right Moment), Culture Club (Mistake #3), Blondie (Hanging On The Telephone, Dreaming, Atomic, The Hardest Part, Union City Blue), Peter Gabriel (Games Without Frontiers), Queen (I Want It All, I Want To Break Free, Radio Ga Ga, Under Pressure, Bicycle Race, Who Wants To Live Forever, Hammer To Fall, Heaven For Everyone), David Bowie (Boys Keep Swinging, DJ, Look Back In Anger, Ashes To Ashes, Let's Dance, Wild is The Wind, China Girl, Cat People (Putting Out Fire), Loving The Alien, Dancing In The Street, Hallo Spaceboy), Freddie Mercury (The Great Pretender, I Was Born To Love You, Made In Heaven, Barcelona), The Pretenders (Talk Of The Town), George Michael (Somebody To Love), Tina Turner (Proud Mary, Addicted To Love), Heart (What About Love), Billy Idol (Eyes Without A Face, To Be A Lover, Catch My Fall, White Wedding), The Boomtown Rats (I Don't Like Mondays) and Def Leppard's Photograph.

Video Of The Week: The Record Company

Sometimes social media does good things, like when Katie Sunshine instagrammed herself hula hooping to The Record Company's Rita Mae Young, caught the band's attention, and became the entire video of the song onto herself:


The Record Company hail from Los Angeles and their blues-based old-school rock comes informed with rap, soul and a bit of country to make the sound I wished The Black Keys would have made if I liked them.

They formed in 2011, have been relatively active since 2013 and are currently touring the U.S. and playing late-night talk shows. I'm curious to hear what the future holds for the trio.

Video Of The Week: The Dead Weather

At long last, The Dead Weather (Alison Mosshart of The Kills on vocals, Jack Lawrence of The Raconteurs and The Greenhornes on ass, Dean Fertita of Queens Of The Stone Age on guitar and a guy named Jack White on drums and vocals) are set to release their third record, Dodge And Burn, at the end of the month.

As with most things Jack White, it happened with one phone call and a couple of days to record two songs in late 2013, the same for two more mid-2014, and 8 more songs this Spring. Crash, bang, boom - 12 songs, one record.

I won't pretend that I Feel Love (Every Million Miles) is the most original track each of these four artists have ever created, but it certainly fits in all of their respective cannons as a groovy, listenable song, etched in blues and hard rock, with just the right amount of lyrics for the right amount of time it lasts.

And the Ian & Copper-directed video has just the right amount of budget to be considered serious and professional while not being over-the-top nor overshadowing Mosshart or the music. You can hear White's voice at times, particularly near the end, but it's all Mosshart walking up a street against a wind machine.

Video Of The Week: Paul Cargnello

Let's get it out of the way: I'm not a huge fan of Paul Cargnello's. His teenage politically-leaning and cliché-filled lyrics when he was in ska band The Vendettas killed it for me for the long run in the late 1990s, and I find a lot of his French-language songs to be cheesy as well.

But people like him, and his music. And that's fine. Not everyone is infallible; there's the Pope, the Dalai Lama, and myself. And I accept the lot of you just the way you are, with all your shortcomings. So keep being yourselves.

That being said, this video for the song Appeal To Me, from his 2014 album The Hardest Part Is You May Never Know, has a great fine blues-rock rock riff, nicely accentuated by a harmonica in the back. Unfortunately, his attempt at writing a sexy song falls way short, particularly with a video featuring nothing but his face and a few awkward spots of missed-emotion lip-synching. But if I blank out the words, the songs definitely falls into the ''2000 Best Imitations of Jack White This Month'' category, and that's something.

So, uh, Keep on Rockin' In The Free World, folks.

Video Of The Week: The White Stripes

I featured The White Stripes for the first time last month, and it's probably time to properly play catch-up. So here's one from their sixth (and final) studio album, Icky Thump. It's unclear if at this point, Jack White (vocals, guitars, keyboards) and Meg White (drums) had already had their falling out or if it was about to happen, but this video, directed by Emmett Malloy and shot in front of the historical Hudson's Bay Company (the first company in North America) buildings in Iqualuit, Nunavut (Canada) shows the former couple's usual possibly-fake-angry faces and complicit smiles that, in retrospect, seem to have been part of a romantic prolonged breakup.

Jack, of course, is often quoted as saying Meg won't return his calls when inquired about a White Stripes reunion, and it's probably a shame for music as a whole, because while Jack's solo band is the best collection of musicians he's ever played with by far (no offense to The Raconteurs and Dead Weather, which I both love) and gives him a broader range of styles to explore, the confines of a two-piece really seemed to stimulate his creative juices. The third WS album (White Blood Cells) was already one of the finest creative pieces in rock history, but his songwriting just kept improving every time.

I have written songs myself that could have used someone with her touch on the drums, her unique metronomic pounding. In the 00s, there were as many mean jokes about Meg's ''lack of talent'' on the drums as there'd been about Ringo Starr in decades previous - and perhaps that's part of the reason why she won't come back - but you could always tell it was her playing that beat. Some have tried to sound like her, but they just can't cut it. It's probably partly due to Jack's obsession with vintage gear both in the studio and to play with, but a Meg beat remains a Meg beat. There are no substitutes, and right now, her absence has created a void - in my musical life, at least.

Video Of The Week: The White Stripes

Eight years in, perhaps it's time to feature one of my favourite bands of all time for the first time, no? The White Stripes were a Detroit-based two-piece consisting of former spouses Jack White (guitar, vocals, keyboards) and Meg White (drums) who restricted themselves to playing 4/4 blues-rock (and dress in red, white and/or black), and yet with every passing album found ways to expand the sound while staying true to its roots, improving the lyrics and delivery each time.

Many times, their videos were directed by master director and borderline-illusionist Michel Gondry, a drummer himself who really understood and had a great gut feeling about how to transpose the beatiness the White Stripes had behind them to video.

One perfect example is this great video for an equally great song (one of two WS numbers I cover live at times myself), Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground (from their 2001 masterpiece White Blood Cells), with projections of good times over post-breakup scenes: