June 29, 1980, Namur, Belgium: four months after Bon Scott’s death, a terrified Geordie sang his first AC/DC show weeks before Back in Black came out. Fans later carved the spot a monument.
Browsing: Music
Their debut was weeks from release when Andrew Wood died at 24. From the grief came Temple of the Dog, Pearl Jam, and Seattle’s great what-if – the band that ended before it began.
George Young misremembered Bon as a piper – he’d been the pipe band’s drummer. So Bon bought bagpipes that afternoon for $479 and learned them mid-session. The true story of rock’s greatest bluff.
Iommi doubted him, critics savaged him, and the voice they all dismissed became one of the most recognisable sounds in music. Why ‘he can’t sing’ was the wrongest verdict in rock.
August 22, 1969: two days after their last recording session, four bearded men, a sheepdog and two donkeys gathered at Tittenhurst Park – and nobody said the word ‘last’.
No songs, no rehearsals, Sid Vicious on drums and twenty minutes of the Lord’s Prayer – how a Sex Pistols superfan seized a stage at the 100 Club in 1976 and outlasted nearly everyone on the bill.
He bought a nightclub for $50,000, borrowed $300,000 from Warner to finish the million-dollar build, and opened the perfect studio on August 26, 1970. He got four weeks with it.
A flat cap, ordinary clothes and a Greek newspaper under his arm – how the most photographed man in rock walked Manhattan unrecognised for twenty years, and what the disappearing act bought him.
Shot alone on a freezing January night because the band stayed indoors, beneath a furrier’s sign fans read as ‘quest’ – the story of 23 Heddon Street and London’s only plaque to a fictional alien.
In 1972 the hottest new star in Britain gave away a hit to save Mott the Hoople and produced Transformer for a written-off Lou Reed – then rebuilt Iggy Pop in 1977. Bowie as rock’s great mechanic.