The obscure 1981 compilation album Brown Bags to Stardom was the result of a contest established the previous year by Honolulu radio station KIKI. 200+ Hawaiian high school acts competed for a spot on the LP, with nineteen ending up on the record. The highlights of Brown Bags to Stardom are the ramshackle contributions from teen rock bands Black Rose, and Brain Damage (Ha! Love the name!). “Rockin’ Roller” by Black Rose could pass for an AC/DC song—bonus points for the defiant lyrics about the contest—and is the vocalist a girl or just a very young boy? Brain Damage’s entry is an AC/DC song, a snotty, perfectly chaotic version of “Highway to Hell.” Sooooo great. 
 

Those are KIKI DJs—not very mature-looking teens—on the cover.

I first got wind of these winning tracks via WFMU’s Beware of the Blog. In his post, DJ Tony Coulter nailed it when he referred to Brain Damage’s AC/DC cover as “wonderfully shambolic.”
 

 
After it was mothballed for a period, the annual Brown Bags to Stardom contest was revived as a music video challenge (KIKI is no longer involved), with divisions for elementary, middle, and high school kids.
 

The current logo.

Below is a July 21st, 1979, clip of AC/DC ripping through a live version of the title track from Highway to Hell, which was just about to be released. The performance was part of the “Monsters of Rock” show that took place on the third “Day on the Green” festival held that year at the Oakland Coliseum.