Greg’s Story

If you plug away, blogging every day about a particular subject, sooner or later you strike gold. Today this happened to me.

My mum mentioned to a guy at her work that her son was doing a project about Bon Scott. As seems to happen fairly regularly in Perth, her colleague, Greg, casually replied that he “had nearly met Bon” one time back in the 1970s. He began to tell her the story, but mum’s eyes glazed over. Her grasp of the phenomenon of Bon is fairly weak, to say the least. But she passed on the website address, and Greg promptly wrote up this great tale, which I am proud to present in its entirety here. Thanks Greg.

I didn’t quite meet Bon Scott but for a brief moment I came within his aural orbit.

In the mid to late 70’s I was between bands and I’d hooked up with a singer/guitarist from Manchester to do a few gigs around Perth. As a singer he was ok. As a guitarist he was less than ok. As a bullshit artist he was supreme.

He’d advertised for a bassist and I replied. In doing so I inquired about his background.

I was pretty impressed when he told me that he’d been in Jethro Tull. I was very impressed that he’d been in Them with Van Morrison. I started to smell a rat when he told me he’d co – wrote some Rolling Stone hits with Mick and Keith. Then he told me that he’d also been the road manager for the Beatles……by now the rat was very smelly indeed and was putting on weight. His list of musical credits knew no limits and I gathered he’d played darts with everyone who was anyone in the 60’s and 70’s and slept with their girlfriends.

Of course it was all fictional nonsense….. but he was one of those likeable rogues with whom there was never a dull moment and always plenty of funny ones…..except when he’d try to impress people with who he knew and what he’d done because in reality he knew no one and had done nothing. The problem was that he did have a bit of charisma and many unfortunate souls believed his stories and would queue up to shout him a round or two. Just to make matters a bit worse he’d often introduce me as the bassist from Fleetwood Mac or the Hollies or the Kinks or whatever band popped into his reality dormant mind at the time.

…..and so one Saturday afternoon we were setting up to play that night at the Bluenote Tavern and I went to the mezzanine section to see the manager and in doing so I noticed a very familiar face. Bon Scott himself!! The place was fairly empty and he was there quietly sitting and talking with some acquaintance.

I went back to continue setting up and told Mr. Fantasybrain who I’d just seen.

He became immediately starstruck agog, dropped a microphone on his foot and said “where where where ???” and made an immediate bolt to the spot I indicated. Of course I knew he would and so I positioned myself to where I could discretely overhear the inevitable tirade of fanciful twaddle.

Yes he told Bon that he’d played with Jethro Tull , Van Morrison , Fleetwood Mac, The Bluesbreakers, hadn’t caught up with Joni Mitchell for a while, had thoroughly enjoyed working with Clint Eastwood on The Good The Bad The Ugly, hoped his mate Eric Clapton would win a Grammy someday ’cause gee he’s really come along great since we played together, …..etc etc ad infinitum

I recall Bon Scott listening patiently ( but with growing impatience ) for a while before abruptly interrupting to hint rather angrily “Fuck off ….. you bullshitting wanker ”

A few minutes later I caught up with him to ask how his chat with Bon Scott went and he replied “yeah we got on pretty well……… he’s a bit of a hard nosed bastard though” and couldn’t work out what I thought was so funny.

Bon Scott was not one to call a spade an earth inverting implement and I liked him all the more for it …..and long may he live.

5 thoughts on “Greg’s Story”

  1. Wow Greg
    what a great storyteller you are!
    I am very impressed with your rhetoric!
    One of the best efforts on this blog. I laughed and laughed.
    Long may Bob Scott live indeed.A straight talker just like you!

  2. Who is Bob Scott anyway ? Hey greg , Love ya work. Tell the one about the guy you met who reckoned he was in THEM; except he doesn’t appear in any of the publicity photos.

  3. G’day Ian – same fellow – I dont make a habit of going around and meeting sundry coves who are of the misguided belief they were in THEM – but if there are anymore claimants outhere…. don’t hesitate to get in touch. If enough of them get together they could form a band and call it THEY ( or THOSE ) – featuring Trucker or Mack Morrison.

  4. Would have loved to have been a fly on the wall (not really a pun intended since its post Bon) to hear Bon let fly on that dude. Especially what he said after Mr. Fantasybrain scuttled away.

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