AC/DC

AC/DC are an Australian hard rock band, formed in November 1973 by brothers Malcolm and Angus Young, who continued as members until Malcolm's illness and departure in 2014. Commonly referred to as a hard rock or blues rock band, they are also considered pioneers of heavy metal and are sometimes classified as such, though they have always dubbed their music as simply "rock and roll".

AC/DC underwent several line-up changes before releasing their first album, High Voltage, on 17 February 1975; Malcolm and Angus were the only original members left in the band. Membership subsequently stabilised until bassist Mark Evans was replaced by Cliff Williams in 1977 for the album Powerage. Within months of recording the album Highway to Hell, lead singer and co-songwriter Bon Scott died on 19 February 1980 after a night of heavy alcohol consumption. The group considered disbanding, but buoyed by support from Scott's parents, decided to continue and set about finding a new vocalist. Ex-Geordie singer Brian Johnson was auditioned and selected to replace Scott. Later that year, the band released the new album, Back in Black, which was made as a tribute to Bon Scott. The album launched them to new heights of success and became their all-time best-seller.

War of Currents

The War of Currents (sometimes, War of the Currents or Battle of Currents) was a series of events surrounding the introduction of competing electric power transmission systems in the late 1880s and early 1890s including commercial competition, a debate over electrical safety, and a media/propaganda campaign that grew out of it, with the main players being the direct current (DC) based Edison Electric Light Company and the alternating current (AC) based Westinghouse Electric Company. It took place during the introduction and rapid expansion of the alternating current standard (already in use and advocated by several US and European companies) and its eventual adoption over the direct current distribution system. Three aspects have been conflated together into the "war": open competition involving large electric companies and their developing systems, a general fear in the public's mind of death by accidental electrocution from high voltage AC leading to a debate over its safety and regulation, and the debate and behind the scene maneuvers associated with the introduction of the electric chair.

AC/DC (video)

AC/DC, released only in Australia in 1989, is a video album from the Australian hard rock band AC/DC. In March 2005 all nine tracks were issued on the DVD compilation, Family Jewels.

Track listing

Personnel

Hard Times

Hard Times – For These Times (commonly known as Hard Times) is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book appraises English society and highlights the social and economic pressures of the times.

Background

Hard Times is unusual in several respects. It is by far the shortest of Dickens' novels, barely a quarter of the length of those written immediately before and after it. Also, unlike all but one of his other novels, Hard Times has neither a preface nor illustrations. Moreover, it is his only novel not to have scenes set in London. Instead the story is set in the fictitious Victorian industrial Coketown, a generic Northern English mill-town, in some ways similar to Manchester, though smaller. Coketown may be partially based on 19th-century Preston.

One of Dickens's reasons for writing Hard Times was that sales of his weekly periodical, Household Words, were low, and it was hoped the novel's publication in instalments would boost circulation – as indeed proved to be the case. Since publication it has received a mixed response from critics. Critics such as George Bernard Shaw and Thomas Macaulay have mainly focused on Dickens's treatment of trade unions and his post–Industrial Revolution pessimism regarding the divide between capitalist mill owners and undervalued workers during the Victorian era. F. R. Leavis, a great admirer of the book, included it--but not Dickens' work as a whole--as part of his Great Tradition of English novels.

Hard Times (1975 film)

Hard Times is a 1975 film starring Charles Bronson as Chaney, a drifter who travels to Louisiana during the Great Depression and begins competing in illegal bare-knuckled boxing matches. The movie was Walter Hill's directorial debut.

Plot

Chaney (Charles Bronson), a mysterious, down-on-his luck drifter during the Great Depression, arrives in town in the boxcar of a freight train. He comes upon a bare-knuckled street fight run by gamblers. After the bout, he approaches one of the fight's organizers, the fast-talking "Speed" (James Coburn), and asks Speed to set up a fight. Betting his few dollars on himself, Chaney wins with a single punch.

Speed wants to become Chaney's manager. They travel to New Orleans, where Speed intends to enter Chaney against local fighters at long odds. Chaney takes a cheap sleeping room. At a diner, he meets Lucy Simpson (Jill Ireland), a lonely woman whose husband is in prison. They begin an uneasy affair.

Chaney cautions Speed that he wants to make a little money to "fill a few in-betweens," and then move on. Speed recruits a cutman, the medical school dropout Poe (Strother Martin). An opium addict ("a dyed in the wool hophead") Poe is relieved when Chaney accepts him.

Hard Times (James Taylor song)

"Hard Times" is a song written by James Taylor. It first appeared on his 1981 album Dad Loves His Work. It was also released as a single, as the follow up to the Top-20 hit "Her Town Too." It did not perform as well as its predecessor, reaching #72 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #23 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. The single's b-side, "Summer's Here," performed similarly on the Adult Contemporary chart, peaking at #25.

Hard Times

Like several other songs from Dad Loves His Work, "Hard Times" was influenced by the impending breakup of Taylor's marriage to Carly Simon. Fans heard the song as a message that the marriage was about to end. According to Rolling Stone Magazine critic Don Shewey, it "explores marriage on the rocks." The lyrics describe the difficulty for an "angry man" and a "hungry woman" to stay together. They lament the way the pair hurt each other.

Allmusic critic William Ruhlmann regarded both "Hard Times" and "Summer's Here" among the better songs on Dad Loves His Work, helping Taylor bounce back from his previous "spotty" album Flag.Musician, Player, and Listener described it as sounding "more personal - especially as regards marital problems - than anything [Taylor] committed to wax in years." Web critic David Bertrand Wilson called it a "charming low-key tune."Michigan Daily critic Ari Roth stated that "Hard Times" "assert[s] a dependency and will to achievement that Taylor has never previously articulated." Michael Hochandel of Schenectady Gazette reported that "Hard Times" received as much applause in 1981 live performances as Taylor's classics.