Youngs : The Brothers Who Built Ac/Dc (9781466865204) by Jesse Fink

are so important to me. I used tons of acoustic guitars, just thrashing it, distorted acoustic guitars— chunka chunk chunk —and I still play the ‘Good Times’ version without Jimmy’s and Michael’s vocal in the studio, all the time, just to listen to it. The way Jon Farriss comes out of that drum fill in that first verse, it’s unfuckingbelievable .”
    The best result, though, for Opitz, INXS and Barnes, beyond making a damn fine record and reaping the royalties that would flow from it, was getting a seal of approval from the notoriously po-faced George Young himself.
    â€œAt the time I was recording Hoodoo Gurus’ Blow Your Cool at Alberts, and with great dread and trepidation I took an acetate over in the morning before I started the sessions to play it to George and Harry,” remembers Opitz. “In the past I’d played them David Bowie’s cover version or Rod Stewart’s cover version or whoever’s cover version of Easybeats songs, and they’d go, ‘Nah, that’s crap, that’s crap, that’s crap. No, it’s crap . That’s fucking shit .’ So I took my cover version to them and both of them were sitting in Fifa Riccobono’s office and they said, ‘Oh, g’day, mate.’ And I’m very sheepish. So they’re treating me as such, lounging back, looking at me. ‘ Yeah , what do you want?’ I said: ‘I’ve got this cover version of INXS and Jimmy Barnes.’ I played it to George and Harry and I sat with them, played it once, and they went, as if they were unimpressed, ‘ Mnnn mnnn .’ And I said, ‘Well, I’ll just leave my copy with you.’
    â€œAt eight o’clock that night, I was doing a guitar overdub with my engineer, Allan Wright, and in through the door stumbles a very drunken George. I never saw George pissed, at all, ever in my life before that time. He goes past Allan and shoves his hand in my face. ‘I just want to shake your hand. It’s the best fucking recording of any of our covers. Ever! ’”
    *   *   *
    Nearly 50 years after laying down the song’s original vocals for The Easybeats, Stevie Wright remains nonplussed.
    â€œI liked our version,” he wheezes, his body and voice, if not his mind, paying a heavy price for all those years lost to heroin and alcohol addiction. “It’s now become a standard rock ’n’ roll song. If you can’t cut your teeth on that, you shouldn’t be playing rock ’n’ roll.”
    Ahmet Ertegun is dead. Mark Opitz continues to produce music and get checks in the mail but his heyday is behind him. Jimmy Barnes is still performing, though his voice has diminished. INXS, the greatest band to come out of Australia since AC/DC , is no more, having called it a day in late 2012 after conspicuously failing to quickly record an album of new songs with a new singer when their charismatic frontman unexpectedly passed away.
    George Young, of course, made sure his two younger brothers didn’t make that mistake. As always, he was far too clever by half.

 
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    STEVIE WRIGHT
    â€œEvie” (1974)
    The Youngs get a bad rap from some people who’ve come into their orbit. There’s no denying it. But if you wanted an example of how kind and selfless they can be, there’s no looking past George Young and what he did for two members of The Easybeats who were dealing with personal tragedy.
    The first recipient of George’s kindness was Harry Vanda. In 1966, just 20, newly married and the father of a baby boy, he’d come home and found that his young wife, Pamela, had overdosed on sleeping pills.
    â€œWhen The Easybeats went on their very first tour of England, Harry’s wife committed suicide the night before,” says Mark Opitz. “And George put his arm around him and said, ‘Don’t worry, son, you’re with me.’ And