Some might say I have an unhealthy love for 70s (and 80s) rock. In fact, I have an unhealthy and somewhat inexplicable love for all 70s music from AC/DC to Abba. Well, I don’t think it is all that inexpicable because it was the music that I listened to as a little kid. No, my parents did not buy me the latest Black Sabbath or AC/DC or even Abba when I was 7 years old (I could only wish for such a fortunate childhood) but my best friend did have 3 teenage sisters and we were merciless about breaking into their rooms where we would, among other travesties, listen to thier records. We were pirates before we even knew of such a concept, wanting the music that was locked away by “evil” big sisters.

We also listented to music during thier truly massive parties they held on the rooftops of thier house. Parents dead asleep, we would invite ourselves, discretely sneaking out of bed to hide under a table and enjoy the tunes and gossip about all of the boys, romances, and drunkards till we could not hold our little eyes open.. During our own slumber parties (less alcohol and more screaming) we would stage our own rock concerts, screaming our hearts delight because at 2 am in the far corners of her house no one could hear us. It was a child’s dream.

So whenever I hear music from that era, it really strikes this chord of illicit fun. And frankly there is no one that strikes a chord like AC/DC. Born the same great year of my own birth, 1973, AC/DC has seen many incarnations, the Young brothers a steady state of outrageousness. AC/DC did not acquire the master of the melodic and metabolic shrill, Brian Johnson, till 1980 and it is he who I think lit an already fired AC/DC, on fire.

Today, for some odd reason, I heard 3 AC/DC songs on the radio in the span of 3 hours while running otherwise really borning errands in Chicago. Cutting into my boredom it brought me back to that “state.” What can I say, I love AC/DC… Among other things, I think I finally realized why I like them so much and it is all Brian Johnson’s voice. I mean, listen to the guy, he is one shrilling machine, a maniac of the the scream. But despite the shrill, despte the fact that part of you thinks, “lord, that is the most shrilly, annoying sound in the world, I am not supposed to like that voice” you nonetheless fall deeply for it (or at least I do). It is that disjuncture, in other words inexplicable attraction, which makes AC/DC what it is, rockin…