About Me
this is a ANUGUS YOUNG TRIBUTE page I am NOT ANGUS YOUNG ..Angus McKinnon Young (born March 31, 1955 in Glasgow, Scotland) is a rock guitarist who has been the lead guitarist of Australian hard rock band AC/DC since the group was formed in 1973. Angus is known for his hard-edge blues style lead (and signature vibrato), wild stage energy, and schoolboy clothing style.Angus started playing guitar when he was about five years old. A neighbourhood kid had one and Angus would play with it during visits. He got his own "guitar" by taking a banjo his family had lying around the house and re-stringing it like a guitar. He didn't really get into guitar playing seriously until his early teens. He got his first Gibson SG after seeing it in a friend's catalogue. Until then, he had been playing on an old Hofner guitar he inherited from his brother Malcolm after he got a new Gretsch Jet Firebird. Angus and Malcolm's brother George (of The Easybeats) would give them guitar lessons when he would come home during breaks from touring.Prior to AC/DC, Angus worked a part time job for an Australian soft-core pornographic magazine titled Ribald.Angus Young with AC/DC
Angus Young practiced with his band, AC/DC, which was just developing at the time. He played with his brother Malcolm Young on rhythm guitar, drummer Colin Burgess, Larry Van Kriedt on bass and Dave Evans singing. Angus had developed a trademark 'schoolboy' style in the band. One rumour is that he did not have time to change between his school uniform and band practice, and simply wore the uniform. The truth is, though, that Angus very much disliked being at school and once he had left and was in AC/DC, his sister suggested he wear the uniform as a gimmick. Henceforth, the schoolboy costume became a signature trademark of the entire band.Angus Young is notorious for his wild onstage antics. He entertains audiences with his intense moves and jumps onstage and with his running back and forth across the stage while playing the electric guitar. During live shows, Angus would clamber on singer Bon Scott's shoulders and they would make their way through the audience with smoke streaming from a satchel on his back while he played an extended solo, usually during the song `Rocker'.
Angus Young currently has his own signature model Gibson SG.In later years, Angus performed moves such as his own version of the Duck Walk, which was inspired by his idol Chuck Berry, and his "spasm", during which he throws himself to the ground, kicking, shaking, and spinning in circles, while playing the guitar, of course; both can be seen in the "Who Made Who" video.[2] Angus developed the "spasm" while playing live in a small club in Australia when he tripped over a cable onstage, while playing his solo. He made it into part of his act by having a seizure-like "spasm" onstage to make it seem as part of the act. It has grown ever since. Other gimmicks employed by Angus include his strip act, which is viewable during "Bad Boy Boogie" on the most definitive live concert footage Let There Be Rock (1980). Also viewable in AC/DC DVDs: during "Jailbreak" on Live at Donington DVD, during "Boogie Man" on No Bull, and during "Bad Boy Boogie" on Stiff Upper Lip Live. Sometimes he would use his fingers to perform his devil horns act, whether being on-stage or having his picture taken by some local Paparazzi.Angus Young's energetic guitar style has been an influence on an entire generation of young Hard rock guitarists.[citation needed] His work with AC/DC has been an influence on bands ranging from Guns N' Roses and Def Leppard to newer artists like Jet and You am I. Angus cites his own influences as Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, and other blues/early rock players.[3]"I didn't join a rock band to be famous," he said in 2001, "I joined a rock band to play my guitar."Although Angus Young keeps his private life out of the media it is known that he now lives in Sydney, Australia and Aalten, Netherlands. It is also known that he married his wife Ellen in 1980 right before Bon Scott died.Maxim recently ranked the diminutive Angus (5 feet, 2 inches tall) as tops on their list, "25 Greatest Short Dudes Of All Time," ahead of such notable "short dudes" as Napoleon Bonaparte, Martin Scorsese, and Yoda.[4]Angus is ranked #96 on Rolling Stone Magazine's list of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
Guitars And Style
Angus has used Gibson SGs in various forms (his original and the basis on his current signature model, was a 1968 SG) throughout his career. He is almost never seen with another guitar. However, he owns Telecasters and Gibson Firebirds and ES335s.His amps have been plexi Marshalls: jtm45s, jtm50s, jmp50s and superleads (plus a few Wizard amplifiers). Speaker cabinets have been Marshall 4x12"s (model 1982 and 1960, mostly B models) with Celestion G12H 30watt (on old recordings), Vintage 30s (on newer recordings) and G12M 25watt speakers (on solos/overdubs on newer recordings).Angus's playing style is very straight blues. He plays in the minor pentatonic blues scale. His style is spiced by additional non-blues tricks. He also utilizes touches of Scottish folk in his playing and pull-off apreggios (pull-offs, played one-handed) are a popular trick, appearing in songs such as "Thunderstruck," "Baby, Please Don't Go" and "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" (though in the studio recording of "Thunderstruck", the guitar riff was played with a plectrum or pick.) In 1976, the band recorded an arrangement of the Scottish song "Bonny," retitled "Fling Thing," which has appeared in their stage act over the years. Angus is often said to be one of the most underrated guitar-players in history. He often receives critiscism from the music press as many believe many of AC/DC's songs sound too similar, focusing on the same three chords. However, as Angus stated in an interview with the Atlanta Gazette in 1979;"It's just rock and roll. A lot of times we get criticised for it. A lot of music papers come out with: 'When are they going to stop playing these three chords?' If you believe you shouldn't play just three chords it's pretty silly on their part. To us, the simpler a song is, the better, 'cause it's more in line with what the person on the street is."For the most part, each song has a simple chord progression , a chorus, repeat, a solo, and ends with the chorus one more time, sometimes with a solo played over while Malcolm plays the chorus regularly.
