Lucas – Page 8 – Bon Scott Blog

A Bon Scott Blog Giveaway!

bon scott project cassette tape

This is the Bon Scott Project “cassette cover”. It’s basically a jazzed-up exhibition invitation card.

Here are a few pictures of the insert once you fold it out (click on ’em to see bigger):

[Kudos to James and Robyn from the Fremantle Arts Centre for the design work…]

If you’re lucky, you might have received one of these handsome fellows in the post courtesy of the Fremantle Arts Centre (if not, it might still be wending it’s way through your country’s undoubtedly ancient mail distribution system).

Sad to say, these collectable little beauties have run out now, so there’s not really any point emailing me to ask for more. Sorry ’bout that folks!

However, if you HAVE received one, here’s your chance to get a bonus limited edition CUSTOM DUBBED CASSETTE TAPE to whack inside your case! (For there is nothing more tragic than a case without a tape).

Yes, that’s right, I’m producing a small run of Bon-Scott-Blog Old-Skool-Mix-Tapes™!

The tape features songs which either :

(a). inspired Bon; or
(b). were inspired by Bon.

And the song selection is based on some not very thorough research I’ve done in the last few months… In mix-tape tradition, the contents will remain a mystery until it arrives in the post!

(The dubbing process takes a while – and believe me, it aint easy to find blank tapes in the shops any more. So while the tapes are laboriously spooling away, I’m still open to suggestions – any particular songs you reckon should be included on my Bon Scott Influences/Influenced Mix Tape?)

Here’s the deal:

I’ll send you a mix-tape, in exchange for a photo YOU take of YOURSELF with the Bon Scott Project cassette case you just received in the mail!

(Or if you were unfortunate enough to miss out on getting one of these cassette cases, don’t despair! Be inventive… take some equivalent shot. I dunno, something which shows that its really you, that you dig Bon, and which also includes some reference to the place where you come from. Preference will be given to pictures which are amusing/saucy/poignant etc…)

How does that all sound?

Email me your entries (jpg or whatever) together with your postal address, and I’ll get a tape out to ya!

lucas[at]bonscottblog[dot]com

Or – if you don’t have a digital camera, you can post your old-skool photo (or better still, a mix-tape of your design!) to –

The Bon Scott Blogger’s Mix Tape Extravaganza
c/- Fremantle Arts Centre
PO Box 891
Fremantle
Western Australia 6959

Remember there won’t be many of these issued, get in quick!

A sign from somewhere east of Adelaide?

ben scott's sign

Regular readers of this blog may remember Ben Scott, the unsubstantiated but loveable lovechild of Bon. He’s hell-bent on accessing Scott-the-elder’s DNA, that elusive double helix which, he is certain, will perfectly match his own – thus unlocking the key to his true identity once and for all.

I first met and interviewed Ben at the cemetery, and since that time he’s become one of my most loyal readers, unleashing a barrage of CAPITALISED COMMENT CAMEOS, which perhaps, reveal traces of the great comic street poet which runs in his veins.

You may also have followed this brief flurry of excitement a month or so back, when it looked like BON OR BUST might finally bear fruit – Ben and I began plotting a cross-nullabor journey from Melbourne to Perth.

But alas, Ben had enrolled in a metallurgy course at MOORABIN TAFE and it did not come to pass.

(Furthermore, read this account of our even-more-recent, heart-fluttering near miss! Sigh…)

Anyway, here I am in Fremantle. I arrived a fortnight ago, transported on the wings of a mighty jetplane. But undeterred, and fiercely determined to get to the exhibition by ribbon-cutting-time next week, Ben is making the great pilgrimage alone.

Or rather – not alone!

His new Ford Falcon is chock-full-o fans (and/or backpackers), and they’re barrelling across the desert as I type.

The photograph above popped into my in-box from Ben’s satellite phone sometime this afternoon, with no accompanying explanation, except for the following cryptic sentence:

“MY SECOND ATTEMPT… THE FIRST CONTAINED SPELLING ERRORS… HA!”

Is Ben trying to squeeze in even more passengers, in a vain attempt to bring the price-per-passage down?

Or has his trusty Falcon burst a valve? Is his precious exhibit-bound cargo standing en-masse by the side of the highway, trying to hitch a ride, patiently waiting while he fixes his grammatical errors?

Ben Scott, where are you?

A Ghostly Apparition!

apparition of Bon Scott

A ghostly apparition (albeit a rather zany one) of Bon Scott has been spotted under “the new bridge” in Fremantle.

I raced down on my bike to shoot the above snap. The apparition seems to glow in the dark. When I went back the next day, I took some closer shots:

bon scott apparition daylight

Maybe it’s painted with luminescent paint? Here’s another day shot:

apparition daytime

If you wanna go check it out, here’s the location on google maps.

ABC Jailbreak

Alex Sloan (this fine lady with a GSOH to my left) interviewed me this morning on ABC Radio Canberra.

Somehow she’d gotten the idea that I was a “die-hard fan”. I had to let her down lightly. Not that I’m not a fan of Bon and AC/DC (I AM!) but I think you have to earn your “die-hard” status.

It takes years and years of dedication, not just six months at the tiller of a leaky blog…

Anyway, I had fun chatting with Alex. Before I came on air, she played Jailbreak. I was sitting in a sound-proof booth in the Perth studio, and WOW! It was like I’d never heard that song before.

Maybe it was the hi-fidelity ABC headphones, or the ungodly early hour of the morning, but Jailbreak brought tears to my eyes.

Jailbreak tells the story of a fella who’s been chucked in the slammer after shooting a man who was “fooling with his lady”:

Bullets started flying everywhere
And people started to scream
Big man lying on the ground
With a hole in his body
Where his life had been

Towards the end of Jailbreak, our anti-hero, the unfortunate victim of injustice, manages to escape from prison. Against the odds, and despite the spotlights and sirens, he makes it out…

At this point, there is a break in the song itself. All goes quiet. It seems like this unbearable silence will never end. One breath, two breaths, three breaths… (Has the song finished? Is the record stuck?)

And then, just when you think it’ll never come back, Bon’s voice bitterly spits out these words:

“…WITH A BULLET IN HIS BACK!.”

Ah, brilliant stuff… As I mentioned to Alex on air, I reckon Johnny Cash himself would have been proud to have written Jailbreak.

Anyhow, if you’d like to listen to the interview, here it is!

(It’s about 15 minutes long, and the file is a 4MB Mp3. For some reason, the volume is a bit low, please let me know if it’s too quiet to hear properly…)

The Billy Weston Slideshow

ava and friends

On Saturday night we returned to Billy Weston’s Pool Hall, to put on a slideshow for the fans.

Bec and I first went there a month or so ago to photograph Ava and her buddies: Rocket, Dope, Grubb, George, Mick the Noise, Thommo, Cabby and Melanie. The above is one of the super shots Bec took that day.

Thommo (aka Danny, the fella on the left of the above shot) who helps to run the Pool Hall, invited us to “come back any time”. So we decided to gather together a bunch of shots we’ve taken of Bon Scott Fans and beam ’em up on the big screen.
Continue reading “The Billy Weston Slideshow”

The West Online Features Bon Scott Project

The West Australian Newspaper has done an online feature on the Bon Scott Project! Check it out here.

I wrote a lil blog post for them, which is here.

You can submit photos of yourself to the West Online, in your getup as “best dressed Bon fan”, and be in the running to win tickets to the launch of the Bon Scott Exhibition at the Fremantle Arts Centre! Get to it…

The Age Shall Not Weary Him…

rennie ellis shot of bon
[archival photo of Bon on stage, as published in Melbourne’s Age Newspaper today, by Rennie Ellis]

(Apologies for the terrible pun.) Rock-guru Patrick Donovan has written about Bon Scott, and this humble lil blog, in the Age Newspaper today. (Thanks Andrew for the heads-up!)

Read his article here.

That amazing photo above is by Rennie Ellis, a legendary Aussie photographer. Look at the adoration on the faces of those cuties in the front row!

I’ll be posting up some more shots from the Rennie Ellis archive soon. They are amazing, and most of them haven’t been published before! Watch this space.

PS: here’s a scan of the article as it appeared in the real newspaper (Thanks Gabby n Darcy for sending it thru!)

Here Come the Artists! (Part 2)

[Stuart Bailey with his custom silk-screened Bon Scott Posters…]

Before I left Sydney, I got to hang out with Stuart Bailey, one of the artists whose work will be featured in the upcoming Bon Scott Project exhibition. His studio is a kooky set of fibro rooms above a defunct shop on Parramatta Road. I went along with Jennifer, a photographer who was planning to taking some shots of Stuart.

As an artist, Stuart has long been interested in the subcultures of rock and punk. In a recent performance, he and some friends did a version of Straight Edge by Seminal New York hardcore band Minor Threat. With Lagerphones. (If you don’t know what a lagerphone is, you’re probably not an Aussie reader. Never mind. You can catch up here.)
Continue reading “Here Come the Artists! (Part 2)”

THE INAUGURAL WEST COAST BON SCOTT FANS SLIDESHOW!

[fans pose for Bec at the Billy Weston Pool Hall. Click on the image to see a bigger size…]

To say a big THANKS to all the fans we have met, photographed, or written about, photographer Bec Dagnall and I are putting on a slideshow night at the Billy Weston Pool Hall in Scarborough.

Bec and I have taken hundreds of shots during our time working on the Bon Scott Project. Only a small amount of them can be featured in the exhibition at the Fremantle Arts Centre, so we decided to bung ’em all on a DVD and beam them up on the big screen!

FREE ENTRY! ALL ARE WELCOME! KIDS WELCOME TOO!

It’ll be a meeting of the tribes…

The details:

The Slides: running from 8pm onwards (but you can show up earlier to have drinks, the pool hall is open all day!) If you have more pictures you’d like to include in the show, email them to me [lucas@bonscott.blog] or bring along a CD with them on the night! The whole thing will be really informal, we’ll just have the pictures on a loop, no need to sit down and politely clap or anything. But hooting, cheering, and the shouting of drinks are of course most welcome!

The Drinks: Danny from Billy Weston is providing special priced drinks!

The Address:
Billy Weston Pool and Snooker
64 Scarborough Beach Rd
Scarborough
(08) 9245-3939

Bec will have her snazzy camera on hand, so if you haven’t had your special Bon Scott photoshoot yet, maybe now is the time. To arrange it, call her on 0404973126 or just show up in your finest Bon regalia.

Here Come the Artists!

eli smith with his painting

With less than three weeks to go til the Bon Scott Project Exhibition, the artists in the show are applying the finishing touches to their artworks. On Friday, Jasmin and I jumped in the car and headed out to the suburbs to meet Eli Smith. Eli is working on an oil painting of Bon. In the picture above, you can see Eli testing out an ornate gold frame for the piece.
Continue reading “Here Come the Artists!”