[Today: AC/DC lay down the perfect soundtrack for quitting your job, partying the night away, or both...]
I gave two weeks notice at my lousy job today, and let me tell you, it felt AWESOME! I’ve been working in a creative slaughterhouse (ie, writing copy for a giant software manufacturer) for the last three and a half years, and it was definitely time to move on. Of course, it’s a beautiful Friday in the Bay Area, the birds are singing and the bees are buzzing, so after I dropped my notice I sat through a mind-numbing meeting and then left the office to get an early start on the rest of my life. I grabbed a six pack of beer on the way home, and immediately fired up Highway To Hell when I waltzed through the door at 3pm.
AC/DC was a staple band for me in high-school, and more than almost* every other group that I liked back then, they’ve stuck with me. In my opinion, the Bon Scott version of this group is the best hard rock band of all-time. Their lyrical content is pretty juvenile, but Bon was a belter second-to-none and Malcolm and Angus Young’s riffs were, are, and always will be capital-M Monster. It’s also to their credit that they weren’t serving up the typical wizards&demons metal that’s been so deftly parodied by the likes of Tenacious D.
The title of this album was generally misinterpreted to signify some sort of pact with the dark lord, but in reality it was just the band’s metaphor for the bone-wearying, non-stop grind of touring and promoting their albums. Highway To Hell would turn out to be their breakthrough album, but the group that worked up these songs was frayed and tired, and badly in need of a break.
Fellas, I know the feeling.
Listen: If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It)
*[Prince and INXS are the only other artists I can think of that I play with the same frequency now as I did back then, fyi]
Tags: AC/DC, Highway To Hell, iQuit
15 September 2007 at 8:52 pm |
Word!! Here’s to life sans the bullshit…
Right on, Compadre!!
17 September 2007 at 11:05 am |
Shit! What will I do without your mixes? Congrats, DK! Creative slaughterhouse indeed.
17 September 2007 at 12:06 pm |
Dude – there is no way you could play Prince and INXS with the same frequency as high school unless you have 200 Prince CD’s in your changer. I think you played the Purple Rain tape so much you wore it out. The only groups I remember holding a candle were Culture Club and Robert Palmer.
17 September 2007 at 6:14 pm |
I definitely have NOT owned a Culture Club album in my entire life, so I didn’t hear any more of them than anyone else unfortunate enough to be caught listening to the radio during the 80′s. I did have a Robert Palmer album, but I don’t remember that being a staple by any means.
However, I DO remember a ridiculous amount of Genesis getting played around the house during the 80′s, although I usually wasn’t the one putting the needle down on that. In the retro category, The Beatles, Pink Floyd and The Doors got a fair number of spins. In the “everyone else was doing it too” category I was listening to an embarrassing amount of Bon Jovi, Peter Gabriel, and Dead Or Alive.
I’m pretty sure that my cassette of the Beasties ‘Licensed To Ill’ didn’t leave my car’s tape deck during the last three months of my senior year of high school – although if it did it was to make way for Run-DMC’s ‘Raising Hell’ or Public Enemy’s ‘Yo! Bum Rush The Show’.
You dishonor me with your lurid, baseless Boy George accusations…
17 September 2007 at 7:06 pm |
Boys, boys. Don’t make me come back there.
23 September 2007 at 9:39 pm |
Yes. Highway to Hell is not only AC/DC’s best album, but if stranded on an Island this would be the album out of all music ever made I would hope to have. First heard it back in ’79 when I was just a kid and this album never gets old. Alex.
5 November 2007 at 9:49 am |
[...] month. I celebrated my 38th birthday, the P and I celebrated our third anniversary, and I finally moved on to a new and better job. I also took a couple of weeks off, and during that time I added a number [...]