DArcy Gabby - Live wire : Bon Scott : a memoir by three of the people who knew him best

First published in 2015

Copyright Mary Renshaw, John DArcy and Gabby DArcy 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin

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Crows Nest NSW 2065

Australia

Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

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Web: www.allenandunwin.com

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available

from the National Library of Australia

www.trove.nla.gov.au

ISBN 978 1 92526 727 3

eISBN 978 1 92526 822 5

Typeset by Bookhouse, Sydney

Cover design: Luke Causby/Blue Cork

Cover images: Michael Putland, Hulton Archive, Getty Images

For Bon, our friend

By Michael Gudinski

Its funny, before I even knew that Darce, Gab and Mary were putting together this book, Id been thinking a lot about Bon Scott.

Its stating the obvious to say that Bon was a figure of influence. Its amazing the number of international acts, all of different generations, that I bring in to tour Australia who want to go over to Fremantle while theyre here to pay homage to Bon. And with the amount of travelling that I do, Ive seen the Cult of Bon develop and grow over the years, particularly in Europe and the States. Perhaps even more so than here in Australiaand we love the bloke!

What a lot of people dont know is how hugely important Bon has been to me personally. And not the denim-clad, wild-eyed Bon we all know from AC/DC, but the teenybopper-focused co-lead singer of The Valentines in the late sixties. This Bon wore orange frilly shirts and sang bubblegum pop tunes like My Old Mans A Groovy Old Man, which is bizarre when you think about it. Mind you, though, his eyes could still get pretty wild.

As a kid around Caulfield Id already started putting on a few dancesit was easiest during school holidaysand I ended up working for Bill Joseph, who was the manager of The Valentines. Bill was one of Melbournes leading promoters at the time and he had a couple of nightclubs as well, and he took me under his wing.

I was pretty green, had never seen any of the rocknroll lifestyleI was still a virgin and had never seen drugs. I was a clean-cut, straight-down-the-line sort of kid.

The Valentines were scheduled to tour Adelaide and I decided to tag along to get an idea of what actually happened on the road. It wasnt that hard to get permissionId already dropped out of school and been kicked out of home. Nothing couldve prepared me for what ensued, thoughthat first taste of the rocknroll life.

Lets just say it opened my eyes.

I cant remember how we actually got to Adelaide but I do recall having to come home on a bus with the bandwhatever the local equivalent of Greyhound buses was at the time. I wasnt a fan of a road trip at the best of times, and going all the way from Adelaide to Melbourne with a bunch of long-haired yahoos like The Valentines was certainly a colourful and testing time. I wouldnt say it was a particular highlight, but it left an indelible mark. We stayed at the Powells Court Motel, in Adelaide, which would become well known as a place for bands to stay in years to come. I will never forget one night when Bon, after spending some time with a particularly enthusiastic groupie, showed me his bed sheets and started cracking jokes so impressively off colour that I cant bring myself to repeat them now.

I dont think Ive been the same since.

Theres no way I wouldve signed The Valentines if Id had Mushroom Records in the late sixties. They were good, but a product of their time, pumping out bubblegum pop to screaming teenage girls. Ultimately, Bon got sick of the lightweight pop stuff and joined Fraternity, which was a band I really did like. They were a serious musicians group, and gave Bon the cred he needed for the Young brothers to take notice.

I put Bon up as one of the most important music figures this country has produced. If not for a stupid tragedy, he wouldve hit the heights of another tragic figureMichael Hutchence. To continue the theme, he wouldve been Australias Jim Morrison.

Bons death was devastating. He and I had kept in touch through the years as both our lives started to blow up. My, havent you done well for yourself, Bon would joke. To him, I was still the sixteen-year-old kid he tried to get to smoke hash on a trip to Adelaideand shock with his bed sheets. For the record, I never succumbed to his influence and didnt muck up for the entire tour. Bon had a spirit that flowed onto the people he was with and I always enjoyed catching up, even if it did used to leave me a little worse for wear.

One thing Ill never forget about Bon is that cheeky glint in his eye. He could be cocky and a little pushy in his pursuit of a good time, but never aggressive. People seemed to get the wrong impression with the whole denim-vest-and-tattoos thing during the early AC/DC era.

Bon was simply a really decent bloke. He was a blokes bloke, he liked to party, have fun, pull pranks, and he had this amazingly powerful voice. There was a song hed written in The Valentines called Juliette, and if you listen back to it you can hearbehind all the orange and the frillsthe voice that was the key factor in what would take AC/DC from what they were before, to what they would become.

I actually live not too far from where The Valentines shared a flat on Toorak Road in South Yarra, and I still think about Bon and those days when I drive by. Music is big business nowadays, but back then it was a different world. It was liberated and free: dictated by energy and adventure rather than commerce. The usual deal was one band, one roadie and three gigs a day, and a real sense of camaraderie built up around the group and the little community around itpeople like Darce, Gab and Mary. Ive bailed Darce out of jail, given him and Gab a place to have their wedding, and an old business partner of mine managed Marys brothers band. At one stage we all had neighbouring shops in Greville Street, Prahran. These are the people and the times that informed a lot of my early life decisions. If I hadnt taken a four-or five-day trip to Adelaide I might never have got into the music business. Thats how important Bon and these other guys are to me, so you can understand why I still think about them a bit.

Its great that Mary, Gab and Darce are now sharing their memories of a unique time in Australian music and a very special bloke. I hope you enjoy them, they mean a lot to me.

Contents

By Mary, Darce and Gabby

There is no such thing as the definitive Bon Scott book.

Youd need several volumes of Britannica, Angus Young once noted in Rolling Stone, just to chronicle what Bon got up to in one day.

Bon had a lust for life. As his old Valentines bandmate Vince Lovegrove observed, To Bon, success meant one thingmore. More booze, more women, more dope, more energy, more rocknroll... more life! He was a guy who never needed any instructions for how to live his life. He just did it.

Only one man could have written the definitive Bon Scott book, and, sadly, hes no longer with us, though we doubt that the book would have happenedBon would have been too busy living his life to sit down and reflect.