Dirty Deeds: My Life Inside and Outside of AC/DC

by Mark Evans

A few days after his 19th birthday, rock and roll lover and bass player Mark Evans wandered into his local to check out the band - and his life would never be the same again. Two days later he was playing his first show as bass player with AC/DC; within a week he was on Countdown, rocking out next to wildman Bon Scott, who was dressed as a pigtailed, cigarette-smoking schoolgirl - and waving a mallet - and Angus who was - of course - decked out as a schoolboy. And all for the princely wage of $60 a week!

Then came nearly being burnt alive on the video shoot for 'Jailbreak', and working with legends Vanda and Young on the massive album TNT, on which Mark's take-no-prisoners basslines anchored such immortal hits as 'TNT' and 'It's a Long Way To the Top'. Within a year, the band had relocated to London and were on the road to rock 'n' roll stardom, living the life of rock gods and making the most of all that had to offer. Until the tragic death of his good friend Bon Scott changed everything.

Dirty Deeds is the first book about AC/DC written from the inside, by an insider - which is gold for any AC/DC fan. It is an honest, gripping, sometimes laugh-out-loud account of a band that lived fast, played hard and broke every one of the rules - before they broke all the records. It is also a revealing and frank memoir of a man who's had to contend with everything life has thrown at him - a rough-as-guts upbringing, lucky breaks and soaring highs, as well as terrible personal tragedy and loss. The hard lessons Mark has learned along the way will inspire any reader.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction, Memoir, Autobiography

310 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Big Pete · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're fed up with the paranoid conspiracy of Jesse Fink and want a more personal look at Acca Dacca than the hardback coffee table works, this is the book for you. I'm tempted to give it a 4 because Mark writes with plenty of heart and a total lack of self-pity, it's marvellously entertaining, and it just zips by. Essential for AC/DC fans, it's proper look into the workings of the band, their travels and their personalities during the 70s without voyeuristic feel or from a third-party perspective. However, as bassist, Mark's look into the songwriting process was largely as an observer. His early life is very compelling and a great, atmospheric glimpse of Old Melbourne, and his tales of life after the Seedies are both humorous - even after leaving the band, poor old Geezer Butler couldn't escape the larrikin cheering - and tragic. Definitely recommended.

[Fraser Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has a lot more references to threesomes than I remember from when I first read it in 2012. Shoulda called it "How Much I Fucked in the 70's" by Mark Evans.
Joking aside, Evans knows what the audience is here for and two-thirds of his memoir covers the two year period he was the bass player for AC/DC. Coming back to this book after more than a decade brought me a warm nostalgia, but also made me sadder than I was expecting. This is partially because I've now experienced some of the same kinds of grief that Evans has in the intervening years and can relate to his stories better. But also some of it stems from the fact the ways in which AC/DC (my favourite band) has also changed in that time. Evans' recollections of the adventures he shared with Malcolm Young now carry a tinge of saddness in light of the fact that Malcolm is now no longer with us. This was an element already present thanks to the lengths at which Evans talks about the late, great Bon Scott, but now even more so.
Evans, if not subtle in his self-aggrandisement at times, is also honest about the ways his own mistakes cost him the chance at super-stardom. His story is moving and poignant, albeit in a slightly blunt fashion.

[Peter Carroll · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been a massive AC/DC fan since the very early eighties. They are my fave band and the band that converted me from a pop fan to a rocker. Over the years I have read countless interviews and a few biographies. However, this book was written by the original bass player who was sacked in 1977 and I had long been curious to hear why he might have gone, and how he would feel about it.

The book is ok. The narrative style is not particularly engaging. There were fewer interesting revelations than I'd hoped for and overall, it got a bit repetitive and bogged down. To be fair to the author, he was very young when the main action took place (losing his dream job at the grand old age of 21) and seemed to spend a lot of his time out of his face on drink!

I did admire his magnanimity and generally positive outlook. He was accepting and philosophical about his sacking rather than bitter and resentful. He'd also faced some personal tragedy but was trying to remain upbeat about life.

Ultimately, he seems a likeable character but his life inside AC/DC was a bit short to reveal much and outside AC/DC was not remarkable enough to grip me.

Not a bad book but probably only of interest to AC/DC anoraks and super-fans.

[Shaunc · Rating 3 out of 5]

The great thing about Mark Evan's recounting of his time in AC/DC is that there no pretensions about being other than his memories of toughing it out during AC/DC's early years. While the rise of AC/DC is well documented this is a great insider's account showing that it was indeed a long...well, you know how the song goes.

Also of interest is Mark Evan's life after AC/DC which included some interesting bands but nothing obviously matching the ride with AC/DC. He also opens up about having to cope with the death of his daughter and how he has dealt with it with the same no bullshit approach as the rest of the book. It makes this part of the book all the more moving.

I've met Mark Evans when he had the residency with Dave Tice at the Bridge Hotel in Balmain. I'm sure he doesn't remember the meeting and I barely remember it myself. But what little I do remember that he was a very unassuming bloke and enjoyed his music. And that comes across in the book which is a great read and does sheds some new light on AC/Dc's history. Oh, and there are a couple of hilarious Bon anecdotes as you would expect.

[Mark Busuttil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dirty Reads Done Dirt Cheap!

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

nice insight for every acdc fan when adcd was still hot rocking with Bon...

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but brief time spent with early AC/DC.

[Chris C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I honestly didn't get around to reading this book for a year or two thinking it would be bad and boring, but I was wrong. Evans did a great job on this autobiography. He totally changed how I had looked at his time in the band. I thought they were all mates who played together, lived together and drank together but it wasn't really like that. While Phil, Evans and Malcolm would go out to the pubs, Angus would stay at home and practice guitar non-stop and Bon would be a ghost. Bon would basically turn up to do what he had to do and then would disappear himself. I guess it's coz he was so much older and had his own scene going on. There were quite a few interesting things in the book and I found it to be a good page-turner. Recommended for anyone who likes the Bon era and let's face it, no one else who was in the band at that time is going to write a similar tome.

[Paul Cranch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book!! Not only does Mark share his life story before and after AC/DC, it includes some fascinating insights while in the band. The highs and lows of the rough and tumble early years. The relentless touring of pubs and clubs across Australia and the UK. Inside the studio with the Young brothers, including George. The promoters the roadies the fans the Bon Scott anecdotes The tea the cigarettes balls of hash and Scotch!!!. There are some ripper yarns in there. At the end though I was in tears. What a roller coaster ride. A must read for any AC/DC fan, an honest and heartfelt account. Thanks for sharing your story Mark

[Todd Charlton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mark Evans spent two fierce years gigging and recording with AC/DC. 1975 t0 1977 were among the most intense, the busiest of the band. He was thrown out as far as I can tell because as Malcolm said, they needed a base player who can sing...
Phil Rudd was turning green when Mark was told the news at a band meeting, Angus said nothing and Bon told him not to leave London.
The book is full of great stories and wonderful humour and Mark gets philosophical at the end. I won't say why, it doesn't seem right after just reading it.
Mark if you're out there, thanks for the ride. I might have to look up Clive James now.

[Mick Maye · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a fan off AC/DC and saw them plenty of times before they went overseas. This book actually exploded some of the myths or unknowns to me. The control exerted on the band and the story of the Young brothers. I don't want to say much more than I found this book fascinating for someone who saw the band grow up and didn't realise the machinations of how it functioned.

[Elso · Rating 4 out of 5]

My very first Vinyl record was an AC/DC album - TNT.
I still listen to Aussie music on a weekly basis. For most fans of AC/DC they would be aware of the tragic day that Bon Scott passed. With Dirty Deeds Mark (AC/DC's first bass man) relives the early days from inside the band and gives a real feel of what it was like to be part of one of the biggest rock bans in the world.

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[K Bond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read if you enjoyed any of the 80s bands

[Suzanne Orbell Meyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVE ANYTHING ON AC/DC IN THE BON SCOTT ERA, SO WELL WORTH THE READ TO ME.

[Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought this was a great book, one of those rare ones where I don't think you necessarily have to be an AC/DC fan to enjoy .. . .

[Craig Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating insight into AC/DC’s early years.
Mark Evans and the band packed a lot of living into a short period.
Acca Dacca fans will love it.

[Fiona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Apart from the AC/DC early history, it's packed full of venues and names that anyone who has spent time in Melbourne, Sydney (or London) will relate to.

The author, Mark Evans, is the guy who plays bass on the back of the flat-bed truck in that iconic video, going down Swanston Street. You have to feel for him as his sackIng looms closer. He spends his first year with the band playing every pub and club across Melbourne & Sydney with a punishing line up of gigs. Then they move to England and start as unknowns and do it all over again...before heading to Europe to repeat the effort again. To say it seems unfair that Evans was sacked at that point is an understatement.

The sheer, unrelenting grind and workload of constant touring took its toll. There's a poignant description of a night in Germany where the only thing that stopped him taking his own life was a badly jammed hotel window (an eerie throwback image to scenes at the start of the book in the council flats in Melbourne.)

You can't help but admire the magnanimous way Evans talks about his sacking and incidents that may have contributed to it during his time with the band.

Loved the book as well for the personal tale at either end. His account of growing up in Melbourne's council flats & pubs is brutal, confirming stories I'd heard from my parents' generation and put down to being tall tales at times. The satisfaction of his more recent life in Sydney is marred all over again by personal tragedy with the death of his daughter. A great read, especially for locals in Melbourne/Sydney who can relate to all the pubs and clubs and the sheer hard work & craziness of their long way to the top.

[Valentina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did. It was indeed a pleasant surprise when I found this book while looking for something to read. It certainly caught my attention and had to buy it instantly and I don't regret it at all. The aesthetic and visual presentation is a nice touch and I appreciate the writing style, it's well-narrated, and I felt like Mark Evans was talking to me and telling me all of his stories while quietly sitting beside me. I laughed at the anecdotes he tells with a vivid and clear memory and felt true heartbreak at his emotions and personal losses he kindly decided to share with us. A great read indeed!

[Marc Pressley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book will be of more interest to fans of AC/DC than the broader reading public. I found the story to be generally engaging, with some interesting insights into a band that I've listened to since Back in Black was first released. And as a bass player myself, I was always curious about that "first bass player" that Cliff Williams replaced. It's a story that spends 80% of its time in the days before 1980, but there are a few poignant stories from his later life.

[Kevin Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. I enjoyed Marks's honesty. Seems like had he took his role in the band more seriously he might not have been replaced. Cliff's backup vocals are a big boost to their sound on highway to hell and on though, so perhaps for that reason, it would have happened regardless.

[Andy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reads like a primer in toxic masculinity.

[Tommy Schenker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This might just be my favorite book about AC/DC. Mostly because it's written by someone who was in the band at the time when I was most interested in them. Those early years with Bon. Mark talks a lot about his life after AC/DC and I do wish that there was more about the AC/DC years. But still, I really liked the book.

[Darrell Reimer · Rating 3 out of 5]

“I started to sense all was not well with me and the band. It was like the old story about a poker game: if you can't work out who the sucker is after the first few hands, well, it's probably you.”

Mark Evans, Dirty Deeds: My Life Inside/Outside AC/DC

I'm wracking my brains, trying to locate my motivation for reading — and finishing — this book. I thought I was pretty much through with rock 'n' roll memoirs. Anyone who's read a few knows they are all remarkable — until they aren't. There is usually a point in these books when it becomes clear to the reader that the ego behind the words has ballooned into a state that no longer recognizes the common parameters of human existence. They remain savvy enough about commerce (and selling themselves) but have lost perspective on just about everything else.

Mark Evans' story is somewhat distinctive: he got in on the ground floor of AC/DC, shortly after Bon Scott took over as singer/lyricist, just as the Young brothers' “experimental phase” was winding down and their “formula to success” phase was winding up. Evans picked up the bass and, together with Malcolm Young, held down the low end while Angus and Bon did all the jumping around — in countless dodgy venues, all over Australia, then eventually in Europe.

The sound and the show generated international acclaim and success — everywhere but in the U.S. The plan was to book a studio and throw everything they had at the reel-to-reel, then hit American shores and tour the album until the wheels fell off the bus. There was just one order of business the band wanted to take care of first: shit-can Evans, and send him home.

So Evans returned to Australia, holding down the corner table of his favourite pub in the hardscrabble neighbourhood of his youth, while Highway To Hell shot his now-former mates to global rock star status.

There were, naturally, legal battles that ensued, during which Evans kept mum about his time and dealings with the band. Rock journalists looking for insight into those years had to content themselves with interviews with friends and roadies, one of whom summed up the scene as, “Mark was too nice a guy to survive that lot.”

The book goes some distance to confirm that observation. With an out of court settlement behind him, Evans emerges with typical Australian candour. He manages to be both blunt and magnanimous, self-effacing and rowdy, even into his senior years. He's frank about his errors in judgement, including a lengthy scene when he went too far taking the piss out of Angus. Evans doesn't seem to hold any grudges, though — he gives it up to Cliff Williams for holding down his former job for over 30 years, and shrugs with modest disappointment at being recused from the band's induction to the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.

Far and away the most moving segments of Evans' memoir are its bookends: a near-Dickensian childhood marked by deprivation and heartbreak; and the late-in-life death of his first-born, so many years after Evans had settled down into a mostly “normal” life.

As for the middle, well, it's a rock memoir. There is Dionysian excess, to be sure, but in the wake of mind-boggling (and stomach churning) revelations like The Dirt or The Long Road Out Of Hell, Evans' “booze and birds” recollections are quite prim. As for the other band members, Bon remains something of a cipher, albeit of the Advanced Alcoholic variety. Drummer Phil Rudd comes across as an introvert who toed a fine line around the Young brothers. And no wonder: when it comes to near-feral control of an entertainment property, the Youngs put Col. Tom Parker to shame. Anyone outside their extended family skates on very thin ice indeed.*

Evans learned this lesson the hard way, which is really the final word on his experience with that group. That he's able to relate it with such charm and good humour is Evans' own final testament — and the critical element that kept me reading to conclusion.

*Witness current singer Brian Johnson's “memoir,” a book not about music, but about cars.

[Rafaey Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

For hardcore fans, the insider account of the band, their personalities, those little stories and moments--incredible! The non-band parts are way less interesting and typical memoir stuff. Hard to relate to him when his own senseless behavior (like getting drunk at the bar instead of showing up to rehearsal, or making a conscious effort to annoy Angus just for fun) is what led to him being kicked out.

[David Ward · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dirty Deeds: My Life Inside and Outside of AC/DC by Mark Evans (Bazillion Points 2011)(780.92) is a rehash of AC/DC's later years by one of the band's bass players. He has lots of stories, but none of them are any good, and none of them are really about the band. Did the Angus or Malcolm Young (or even Bon Scott) ever write a memoir? My rating: 2/10, finished 6/26/12.

[Duncan Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yet another ghost written rock bio (can none of these musicians write?), but this is by far the most interesting book on AC/DC I've read, by someone who actually lived through it ... at least until 1977.

We feel for Mark Evans over his sacking from the band, after he made the mistake of getting offside with the Young brothers.

[Danya · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not a big fan of bios, but this one was interesting to say the least. Very interesting experiences - couldn't imagine the emotions involved with losing a child, or being excluded from a band you love. Good to see the book wasn't over polished in the editing.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though Mark's time in AC/DC was short (just 3 years), he was part of the lineup that ultimately propelled AC/DC to fame. He was let go just before they became a success, but without him who knows where AC/DC may have ended up.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

You don't really hear much about Mark Evans of AC/DC and after reading this you can see why. He tells his simple story in a way to keep you reading but this book is strictly for AC/DC fans. Don't except any major relevations about the band and his relationship with the band members.

[Barry Simiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book, a real insight into the workings of one of Australua and indeed the worlds most endearing bands. This is original stuff, the hard yards to just moments before they broke thru into rock and roll royalty. A good read.