Let There Be Rock: The Story Of AC/DC
Susan Masino
OMNIBUS PRESS Disappointing all-surface, no-depth hagiography.
Given the mileage covered in Mick Wall’s AC/DC biography Hell Ain’t A Bad Place To Be and Jesse Fink’s in-depth tomes The Youngs: The Brothers Who Built AC/DC and Bon: The Last Highway, you’d think that just about everything that needed to be said about this rock’n’roll behemoth had indeed been said. And as if to prove the point comes this book that manages to say very little across some 300 pages.
Originally published in 2006, this updated version – which takes us up to 2019 and the brink of the first new material since Rock Or Bust – is an exercise in tedium. Resolutely failing to nail the band’s enduring popularity, Masino gives absolutely no insights into the behind-the-scenes machinations and who and what they’ve crushed in order to keep the band rolling this far.
This is made all the more infuriating knowing that Masino first encountered AC/DC in 1977 and has been on friendly terms ever since. Consequently, she’s too much of a gushing fan to offer anything resembling critical analysis or dramatic storytelling. Of singer Bon Scott’s death, she writes, with no little understatement: “There have been many rumours and innuendo about what really happened to Bon that night… everything from murder to a heroin overdose.” And that’s your lot. What would be bait to any journalist worth their salt is simply a stone unturned for Masino.
Peppering her text with infantile asides (“God, I miss the Seventies!”), her inability to establish facts is maddening: “Mark Evans was fired from the band… supposedly over personality clashes with Angus”; “Supposedly, Malcolm waited until they got paid before he punched out the promoter.” Pondering AC/DC’s gig at legendary NYC flea pit CBGB, she writes: “I’d love to hear from someone who was in the crowd that night.” Why didn’t she put the request out before writing the book? Or even for this updated version? Elsewhere she says: “If you really listen to John Lee Hooker, you can hear how much his music influenced AC/DC”, but doesn’t give any examples. And for someone who’s spent plenty of time backstage with the band there’s an unforgiveable lack of anecdotes.
Overall, this book manages to ignore the real story behind the story. ■■■■■■■■■■