Malcolm Young, the founder along with his brother, of the globally successful Australian rock ‘n’ roll band AC/DC died today.
Of dementia. His family said that.
So far, all of the news stories report dementia as a cause or contributor to Young’s death but don’t describe it beyond that.
I wish they would because I have Lewy Body dementia, the second leading type of dementia behind Alzheimer’s.
I was diagnosed at age 56 more than a year ago. With Lewy the life expectancy averages 5 to 7 years after diagnosis.
Young was 64.
I am doing three things with this blog www.myvinylcountdown.com
- I am shouting for more funding for research, for more awareness of Lewy. Some believe the 1.4 million number often used to describe how many are affected now is vastly understated. Some whom are diagnosed with Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s may actually have Lewy body dementia and there are some treatments for these diseases that are contraindicated for another and could be life-threatening. OK, believe it or not that’s one thing. Two more.
- Staying alive is important to me — but with my faculties intact. Right now I struggle to write this because my fingers don’t glide along the keys like they used to. It’s part of the disease which affects me physically as well as mentally. I have set up this blog to review my 678 records (vinyl) that I have collected over the years. This has been a way to stay connected to my past and remember my love of music and music collecting. I look forward to trying to post every day, if not more. Be sure to check out the About Me page, and click on the post’s title if you want to comment.
- Now third is having fun. I want to chronicle and laugh about things I still remember. My music, my basketball, my family, my years in the news business. That’s fun for me and hopefully will tie into my second rationale.
So I’m not really a fan of AC/DC.
I don’t own an AC/DC album. Of course I know their music as did every teen (male?) in the late 70s with a car radio (w/power booster and 6X9’s in the back). My younger brother whom I’ve mentioned before in these blogs had the album ‘Back in Black,’ if not more. I always thought AC/DC was like asking for a drink of water and receiving a firehose to the face. Some folks like that.
But I did have some records that have a degree of separation connection to the band.
Malcolm’s younger brother was in the band, Angus (the guy in shorts). But his older brother, George Young, along with friend Harry Vanda were founders of the Easybeats, sort of the Australian Beatles. And they were good. Really good, way back when. Friday On My Mind was an international hit.
They later, Vanda and Young, formed Flash and the Pan and they were good and weird. Very weird.
George, who also produced a number of AC/DC albums, died only about a month ago. I haven’t seen a cause of death reported. I have albums — which I will review as I have been in alphabetical order — of Flash and the Pan and the Easybeats.
The Easybeats video that follows is an old favorite of mine. Stay with it until the end and you’ll know what I mean when I say I hope he has kneepads on.
There’s also a good documentary on Australian rock from the Easybeats to AC/DC.