UPDATE on AC/DC from BILLBOARD.com…….read it here.
Today’s tip: if you are filing today and sending it in via snail mail, make sure to put more than you think in stamps on it. Wouldn’t it just suck to get it back for insufficient postage? Hey, I gotta rant today. It was brought to my attention that a website that will remain nameless has been using my info without crediting me. That blows. And you know who you are. So man up and do the right thing, yo? Otherwise, I will be sending my boys out, and you definitely do not want that. Seriously. I mean, we all get stories from other places, but we should all be giving credit where credit is due, eh? And printing SPECULATION rather than FACT is also a huge no no. I’ll step off my soapbox now, thank you…..Sometimes it’s feast or famine when it comes to interviews we get for the shows. Take this week, I only thought we’d be doing Mastodon tomorrow (looks like I will be speaking with bassist/singer Troy Sanders instead of my friend Brann, who, unfortunately, is dealing with some family issues. Thoughts and prayers go out to him) and Devour the Day stop in on Thursday. Now Rob Zombie and Chris Cornell have been added. Hey, I am NOT complaining! Very excited actually. Listening to Superunknown right now too! 20th anniversary. Geez. It gets strange when you get to a certain age and 20 years seems like 20 weeks ago sometimes. Time does fly when you are having fun. Hard to believe hardDrive has been around for 18 years this year. That’s a feather in the cap of our Lou Brutus, who listeners are compelled to listen to every week since 1996! So congrats to hardDrive! 18 and ready for college! LOL…..OK on to the real news. This has me very worried, since I first met these guys when I worked for Atlantic Records in the late 70’s. When I write my book some day, I have some great stories going back to the days with Bon Scott. Anyhow, Pulse of Radio, our sister company, reports there are conflicting reports about the future of AC/DC. According to The Australian, a “music industry source” has stated the band has booked six weeks of studio time at a recording facility in Vancouver, beginning on May 1st, to lay down the follow-up to 2008’s Black Ice. That lines up with an interview singer Brian Johnson did in February with a Florida radio station, in which he also named May as the month the band would begin recording. However, Peter Ford, an entertainment reporter for Melbourne radio station 3AW, said yesterday (April 14th) the band was preparing to announce its retirement as soon as this week, adding, “We may not hear them perform or record ever again.” He added founding guitarist Malcolm Young — who has been rumored to be ill for some time — had returned to Australia to “live with his family and for his own personal reasons he may not want to continue with the band.” In the same Florida interview, Johnson did say “one of our boys was pretty ill” — a development that goes back to 2012, when Johnson said at the time the unnamed band member was “getting better” and expected to fully recover. In addition to the plans for recording the band’s 16th studio album, Johnson also said the band was mulling the idea of playing 40 shows in selected cities around the world to celebrate its 40th anniversary. (Now all I can add to this news is the fact that, all of their lives, Mal and Angus have smoked cigarettes, and almost to excess. I remember when I was a smoker, I would grub a cigarette off them and we’d be chatting and I’d watch as they would light one off the previous one they had just finished. Chain smoked like fiends! They did not do drugs. They drank. And they smoked hard core cigarettes. No “lights” for them. No bleached tobacco. European hash hard-ass cigarettes. One after another. Carried cases of them on the road.) But now, over on Blabbermouth, a new updated report has just surfaced that really distresses me. Mark Evans, who says he is the son of original AC/DC singer Dave Evans, tweeted a few hours ago reports of AC/DC‘s imminent retirement announcement are not merely rumors. He added: “Malcolm Young is very sick…. [Malcolm‘s son] Ross Young spoke to my father this morning because the cat got out…. But yes, the band will be finished…. No new shows or music.” **Update #2** — April 15 at 5:20 a.m. EST: Australian journalist Darryl Mason writes on The Orstrahyun “when AC/DC recently reunited in a rehearsal studio, Malcolm Young discovered he had forgotten how to play, due to a brain clot on his brain.” He adds: “AC/DC won’t continue playing and recording without Malcolm. It can’t be done.” Here is a new report I am just seeing at 1:08 PM Eastern from News.com.au. Oh man. I am so sad to hear this. Say a prayer for Malcolm today, please….That’s all I got. Later.