It’s rather pointless to review an AC/DC box set—you either love the band and have the thing already ordered or on your Christmas list, or you’re not going to bother. Since I am nothing if not a sucker for lost causes, I therefore direct this review to the uninitiated—those who might not “get” how a hard rock band can parlay a single, simple equation (4/4 rhythm + cool riff + screaming vocals x songs about sex) into a 35-year career. Please let me explain. Also, since the band is the collective king of the double-entendre, and such wordplay may be a bit confusing, I shall translate the song titles contained herein, so the uninitiated may better grasp of the meat of the music.
AC/DC songs live and die by the riff—that distinctive, distorted, wicked cool Angus Young guitar figure, roughly the aural equivalent of a he-wolf stalking his mate while thinking about all the other mates he’s going to do later on that night, after he and the other he-wolves have a few beers. Young got better at coming up with these riffs over the years, which leaves lacking some of the previously unreleased Bon Scott-era material collected here on Disc 1.
“Poster I Use for Masturbation” (i.e., “Stick Around”), for example, is built around a snoozer; only Scott’s leering vocal keeps the thing interesting. “Leave Me Alone So I Can Masturbate” (”R.I.P. [Rock in Peace]“) bears no riff whatsoever, unless you count the basic I-IV-V blues chords that chug behind the singer. (more…)

This long-distance dedication goes out to
This is a memo written in 1977 to the Canadian management of Rush. If pictures from this period are any indication, Uncle Donnie had taken to sporting a green Mohawk for at least several months that year. -RS
Back in her late-70s,
In 1967, Rick James was just getting out of military prison, having served a year for going AWOL from the Navy, and was pondering a return to music with the 
Had Bon Jovi been killed in a horrific, fiery airplane crash in 1985, we would remember them much differently than we do today. Had they experienced a painful, flesh-melting demise prior to recording 1986’s monster
Uncle Donnie has a soft spot for lost causes, and there are none more lost than Ms. Love. This recent missive outlines his concerns, and his plans to help her rise again. -RS
Built to Spill, There is No Enemy (2009, Warner Bros.)
“It’s always that one song that gets to you. You can hide, but the song comes to find you.”