I'm with Doc on this one, never wrote them off, and I'm still puzzled by this loss. It did affect me more than I've ever could've imagined. There will never be another Beastie Boys record with all 3 of them. And the fact that they were a musical and all things thereof companion for 3/4 of my life does not make it any easier. I found a nice quote that imho really has a point: "On Friday we all lost someone in common, something we should continue to reflect on by spending a little more time intentionally being young. No sleep till." - Jack Hamilton
I think the last LP was something of a return to form, even if that form was a retread of classic Beasties Boy style - and as Doc says, always something interesting going on, and I always wanted them to do something good, as it always seemed a bit more personal with the Beasties. Like everybody else, grew up with them, one of the few bands I actually wanted to, if not be in, then hang out with.
I like what Dorian Lynskey writes here: "They made it look as if nobody could ask for more than to make a living for 30 years by playing music and being funny with your best friends."
Hot Sauce Commitee got joints. the album before is hard to get through.
I "gave up" on them after Pauls Boutique but really enjoyed that DVD they came out w all their videos and shit.
I loved the BB tribute at the VH1 Hip Hop Hall of Fame.
The Mix-Up was a good record as well. And that's part of why I would never have written them off 100% ... you never knew what they'd put out next. They could've put out another proper hardcore album (like Aglio e Olio), more instrumentals, or maybe something entirely new. They were three tasteful, talented and fun people who enjoyed making music together, period.
It does seem strange to use the past tense when two of them are still alive and healthy, but who can actually imagine another release under the name Beastie Boys? So while all of the emotional outpouring should be about Adam Yauch the man, it's fair to say that the Beastie Boys as a group died with him ... so all of the Beastie Boys eulogizing is understandable.
am I the only one who finds questlove's blog entries so hard to read?
Just this past weekend I pulled out of our storage unit a box of old magazines, and was reminded of questlove's column in Rap Pages, which I'd completely forgotten about (fucking DJ Spooky had a column in that shit, too!). I was subsequently reminded that as aggravating as dude's online presence may be, he was somehow even harder to take in print.
kind of touching to see all the beastie tributes cropping up.
james said:
rootlesscosmo said:
am I the only one who finds questlove's blog entries so hard to read?
Just this past weekend I pulled out of our storage unit a box of old magazines, and was reminded of questlove's column in Rap Pages, which I'd completely forgotten about (fucking DJ Spooky had a column in that shit, too!). I was subsequently reminded that as aggravating as dude's online presence may be, he was somehow even harder to take in print.
yeah, not to distract from the real purpose of this thraed, i too find find questlove's persona in interviews, reviews, etc. to be intolerable. the strange thing is that i'm not sure why. he is a great drummer whom i really admire for his musical talent, he is often well-informed and he doesn't strike me as being arrogant or whatever. what is it about him or his writing that is just so grating and nauseating?
kind of touching to see all the beastie tributes cropping up.
james said:
rootlesscosmo said:
am I the only one who finds questlove's blog entries so hard to read?
Just this past weekend I pulled out of our storage unit a box of old magazines, and was reminded of questlove's column in Rap Pages, which I'd completely forgotten about (fucking DJ Spooky had a column in that shit, too!). I was subsequently reminded that as aggravating as dude's online presence may be, he was somehow even harder to take in print.
yeah, not to distract from the real purpose of this thraed, i too find find questlove's persona in interviews, reviews, etc. to be intolerable. the strange thing is that i'm not sure why. he is a great drummer whom i really admire for his musical talent, he is often well-informed and he doesn't strike me as being arrogant or whatever. what is it about him or his writing that is just so grating and nauseating?
yeah I dunno. obv a talented dude and has always been cool the times I've met him. but his writing, yeah.
First, let me say that a couple times today I took great joy in bumping the aformentioned "A Year And A Day" at top volume while thinking about the beatiful simplicity of its construction (drums from "Ebony Jam," guitar from "That Lady," scratches from "High Powered Rap," free-associative solo fusillade from Yauch, boom, done), the sublimely bugged circumstances of its creation (Yauch in a darkened studio, spinning on an office chair and rapping through an army-surplus helicopter pilot's helmet that had been wired to the sound board), and its perfect overall realization, its presence. Man, still such an important record for me.
That said:
mannybolone said:
I have to say, I've been fascinated with the responses to Yauch's death. I guess I'm surprised I'm NOT more affected by it. Obviously, I think it's a bummer, esp. given his age but while I think the BBs were incredibly important, they were never actually that formative to me. So, in that regard, I think Guru's passing - and definitely MJ's - were more personally impactful. This isn't, at all, to question why other people were so moved by Yauch. I totally get it even if I don't, personally, "get it."
I think I know what you mean.
The Beastie Boys actually were very formative for me, but even so, it's been a long time since they've put out anything that really mattered to me on a level deeper than being a diffusely pleasant reminder that somewhere out there the Beastie Boys were still doing their thing. I think this is the case for a lot of people, and it's been interesting to see Yauch's death become the occasion less for memorializing his particular contributions than for a kind of public funeral for the Beastie Boys.
I'm not trying to be cruel, but it really does seem like there's this widespread catharsis from people finally getting to openly say goodbye to a well-loved group that, privately, they'd long since written off.
You know, the Beastie Boys made some music that I really like. And I have a lot of respect for their genuine enthusiasm for lesser-known musicians and artists, and the way that they used their fame to draw attention to those artists. But I never really felt that their music was my music. So I was a little surprised at just how hard this hit me. I think because they were so huge when I was in elementary school and then again, but in a very different way, when I was in high school. They were just part of the fabric of that era and were so important to so many people who I knew (There was a whole little crew of dudes at my high school in suburban Atlanta who, embarrassingly, called themselves "the Brooklyn Dust Posse" and had a Beasties cover group). So it feels like a part of my own youth slipping away and that time receding further into the past.
First, let me say that a couple times today I took great joy in bumping the aformentioned "A Year And A Day" at top volume while thinking about the beatiful simplicity of its construction (drums from "Ebony Jam," guitar from "That Lady," scratches from "High Powered Rap," free-associative solo fusillade from Yauch, boom, done), the sublimely bugged circumstances of its creation (Yauch in a darkened studio, spinning on an office chair and rapping through an army-surplus helicopter pilot's helmet that had been wired to the sound board), and its perfect overall realization, its presence. Man, still such an important record for me.
That said:
mannybolone said:
I have to say, I've been fascinated with the responses to Yauch's death. I guess I'm surprised I'm NOT more affected by it. Obviously, I think it's a bummer, esp. given his age but while I think the BBs were incredibly important, they were never actually that formative to me. So, in that regard, I think Guru's passing - and definitely MJ's - were more personally impactful. This isn't, at all, to question why other people were so moved by Yauch. I totally get it even if I don't, personally, "get it."
I think I know what you mean.
The Beastie Boys actually were very formative for me, but even so, it's been a long time since they've put out anything that really mattered to me on a level deeper than being a diffusely pleasant reminder that somewhere out there the Beastie Boys were still doing their thing. I think this is the case for a lot of people, and it's been interesting to see Yauch's death become the occasion less for memorializing his particular contributions than for a kind of public funeral for the Beastie Boys.
I'm not trying to be cruel, but it really does seem like there's this widespread catharsis from people finally getting to openly say goodbye to a well-loved group that, privately, they'd long since written off.
You know, the Beastie Boys made some music that I really like. And I have a lot of respect for their genuine enthusiasm for lesser-known musicians and artists, and the way that they used their fame to draw attention to those artists. But I never really felt that their music was my music. So I was a little surprised at just how hard this hit me. I think because they were so huge when I was in elementary school and then again, but in a very different way, when I was in high school. They were just part of the fabric of that era and were so important to so many people who I knew (There was a whole little crew of dudes at my high school in suburban Atlanta who, embarrassingly, called themselves "the Brooklyn Dust Posse" and had a Beasties cover group). So it feels like a part of my own youth slipping away and that time receding further into the past.
I think it is compounded by the fact that he didn't flame out in some rock star overdose bullshit. Watching someone like MCA die a slow death from cancer seems to bring our own mortality to the forefront.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
One of the things that's struck me over the last few days is the realisation that Yauch's death has hit music fans of all stripes, and not just those for whom the Beasties were always ostensibly rappers. But for all the stylistic twists and turns they took, they never stopped being rappers as far as I'm concerned. I don't want to say they transcended rap, because that implies that rap is a lesser form of expression and, apart from that idea being obvious bullshit, I don't think there's ever been a point where it seemed they did rap music out of a sense of duty in any event. But what they did do was to vastly increase the range of possibilities for both the music and the people who made it.
That some of the directions they pointed in - rock-rap, stoner funk - turned out to be dead-ends had more to do with a lack of imagination on the part of the people who followed those paths than with the ideas themselves. Irrespective of whether or not their perception of rap chimed with yours at any given point - and there were times where I kind of wanted them to flip the script just a little from the Run-DMC/Schoolly D style they seemed to prefer - rap has always been at the heart of what they did. They were never the kind of white boys to come out of the gate rapping, only to switch to pop, indie rock or techno, never to return, once they realised that was where the big money was. In their own sweet way, they stayed true to the game and, as corny and played-out an expression as "keeping it real" has become, there's something much more real about the way someone like Yauch lived his life than there is about some of the "ballin' on a long-term lease" motherfuckers out there right now.
i have hesitated to reply to this thread because i have been so so sad these past few days. it stings so much.
it's really healing to read everyones thoughts, feelings and tributes to both mca and the beastie boys in general. i hope that his family and the 2 living bboys are deriving some healing from that too. they deserve every bit of homage and love that comes their way.
everyone has such personal stories about how these guys are woven into their lives in one way or another. how they were once larger than life to them. we are all so lucky to have lived through times like that because life doesn't really work like that anymore. the beastie boys were childhood idols of mine like all of us here and as you have all mentioned, their contributions big and small are starting to become evident now in the wake of adam yauchs death.
i could go on and on but as a kid they were like cool big brothers (even as a girl) that looked out for you from a distance and they made a huge impact on what i desired from life and my tastes. they were the first people who seemed to embrace metal, hip hop, disco, reggae all with equal enthusiasm and it opened a lot of doors for me musically and esthetically early on. i was fascinated with yauch as a little girl -he was much older but his family lived near us when we were in brooklyn heights and my aunt coco was one of his teachers.
as an adult, long after i'd stopped checking for their music as much, i was fortunate to work with them and get to hang and i can say that they were as sweet, fun, laid back, funny and cool as i imagined them to be when i was a kid. to be asked to work with them will stand as one of the greatest apex's of my life. they are and were full of integrity and goodness. i spent the least amount of time with yauch but i admired him the most. his diverse pursuits in his life still inspire me to this day to explore seemingly unrelated endeavors for the sole purpose of living a varied and full life of diversified interests. "going to the limits of my ultimate destiny". i came back to those words many times. his lyrics parented me on occasion, that's how influential their music was in their heyday. i definitely didn't love their music nearly as much in recent years but it doesn't stop their influence from being ongoing. too many stories to share.
he was too young and so proactive with his time on earth, it's very sad. and i really feel for tenzin, i was her age when i lost my dad and it's really rough, still is. you are just coming into a peer-ship at 13/14.
i keep thinking of how life is truly fragile and that health should never be taken for granted. yauchs legendary and prophetic words from a year and a day keep ringing in my head:
Seen a glimpse from ahead and I don't think it's gonna last
And you can bet your ass
For people who didn't know MCA personally, sharing private beastie boy mind garden memories is their way of mourning a seminal influence on their childhood. However, this article published yesterday was egregiously self aggrandizing.
I wanted to wait a few days before posting anything in this thread and let things kind of settle in. When License to Ill came out I was 9. There was a 16 year old girl named Veronica who live upstairs in my apartment building, and she would look after my sister and I frequently. One night she brought down this record with a PLANE CRASH on the cover and played it loud in my living room. I was amazed at the art on the gatefold. Veronica explained to me that it was a cigarette and that pretty much blew my mind. I remember hearing something that i hadn't really heard before. I remember "Hard Times" and The Fat Boys, but this was something different. I asked my grandmother to buy me the album for Christmas.
The following Halloween, after playing the record incessantly for almost a year, my friends Micah and Jamie joined me in dressing a 10 year old versions of the trio. We actually rhymed along with Paul Revere for Jamie's parents. I got the tape of Paul's Boutique when it came out, but I don't think my ears were ready for what was on that record. It wasn't until college that I REALLY rediscovered it.
AK and I have spent the past couple days going backwards through the discography. Some of which, I had barely scratched. Last night we drove home from Philly and listened to License to Ill in the car. I haven't had that much fun on a road trip in a long time. I wonder how many people just like us, are driving around, rhyming along with MCA. That's the best tribute I can imagine.
could they hang with run and ll rhyming in the office? no. i think were able to write songs tho. true they hadn't completly come into thier own asthetic yet (rick being the reason led zepp/rock breaks was used) but they wrote the bulk of the album. to my knowledge run wrote two songs on a 13 song album.
could they hang with run and ll rhyming in the office? no. i think were able to write songs tho. true they hadn't completly come into thier own asthetic yet (rick being the reason led zepp/rock breaks was used) but they wrote the bulk of the album. to my knowledge run wrote two songs on a 13 song album.
Paul Revere was so visual... "MCA was with it, and he's my ace, so I grabbed the piano player and punched him in the face."
Comments
I like what Dorian Lynskey writes here: "They made it look as if nobody could ask for more than to make a living for 30 years by playing music and being funny with your best friends."
I "gave up" on them after Pauls Boutique but really enjoyed that DVD they came out w all their videos and shit.
I loved the BB tribute at the VH1 Hip Hop Hall of Fame.
It does seem strange to use the past tense when two of them are still alive and healthy, but who can actually imagine another release under the name Beastie Boys? So while all of the emotional outpouring should be about Adam Yauch the man, it's fair to say that the Beastie Boys as a group died with him ... so all of the Beastie Boys eulogizing is understandable.
http://www.heavy.com/music/mixtape/2012/04/mick-boogie-beastie-boys-grand-royal/
It was for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
I think the later career move to bring Mix Master Mike in as the DJ was awesome. He killed it.
That mix gets a pretty heavy rotation on my ipod. Very dope
yeah, not to distract from the real purpose of this thraed, i too find find questlove's persona in interviews, reviews, etc. to be intolerable. the strange thing is that i'm not sure why. he is a great drummer whom i really admire for his musical talent, he is often well-informed and he doesn't strike me as being arrogant or whatever. what is it about him or his writing that is just so grating and nauseating?
yeah I dunno. obv a talented dude and has always been cool the times I've met him. but his writing, yeah.
/derail
"that's the most incredible thing I've ever felt!"
http://www.mediafire.com/?sw068upeqcdsaa1
You know, the Beastie Boys made some music that I really like. And I have a lot of respect for their genuine enthusiasm for lesser-known musicians and artists, and the way that they used their fame to draw attention to those artists. But I never really felt that their music was my music. So I was a little surprised at just how hard this hit me. I think because they were so huge when I was in elementary school and then again, but in a very different way, when I was in high school. They were just part of the fabric of that era and were so important to so many people who I knew (There was a whole little crew of dudes at my high school in suburban Atlanta who, embarrassingly, called themselves "the Brooklyn Dust Posse" and had a Beasties cover group). So it feels like a part of my own youth slipping away and that time receding further into the past.
I think it is compounded by the fact that he didn't flame out in some rock star overdose bullshit. Watching someone like MCA die a slow death from cancer seems to bring our own mortality to the forefront.
That some of the directions they pointed in - rock-rap, stoner funk - turned out to be dead-ends had more to do with a lack of imagination on the part of the people who followed those paths than with the ideas themselves. Irrespective of whether or not their perception of rap chimed with yours at any given point - and there were times where I kind of wanted them to flip the script just a little from the Run-DMC/Schoolly D style they seemed to prefer - rap has always been at the heart of what they did. They were never the kind of white boys to come out of the gate rapping, only to switch to pop, indie rock or techno, never to return, once they realised that was where the big money was. In their own sweet way, they stayed true to the game and, as corny and played-out an expression as "keeping it real" has become, there's something much more real about the way someone like Yauch lived his life than there is about some of the "ballin' on a long-term lease" motherfuckers out there right now.
They were never that skillful in the first place to really stay on top of emerging rap styles to stay "relevant".
They knew their strengths and polished what they had.
I think Run had someone right his lyrics for Down With The King.
After Run Dmc wrote their first album i dont see them recruiting 'ghost' writers to keep up with the Joneses.
I do.
it's really healing to read everyones thoughts, feelings and tributes to both mca and the beastie boys in general. i hope that his family and the 2 living bboys are deriving some healing from that too. they deserve every bit of homage and love that comes their way.
everyone has such personal stories about how these guys are woven into their lives in one way or another. how they were once larger than life to them. we are all so lucky to have lived through times like that because life doesn't really work like that anymore. the beastie boys were childhood idols of mine like all of us here and as you have all mentioned, their contributions big and small are starting to become evident now in the wake of adam yauchs death.
i could go on and on but as a kid they were like cool big brothers (even as a girl) that looked out for you from a distance and they made a huge impact on what i desired from life and my tastes. they were the first people who seemed to embrace metal, hip hop, disco, reggae all with equal enthusiasm and it opened a lot of doors for me musically and esthetically early on. i was fascinated with yauch as a little girl -he was much older but his family lived near us when we were in brooklyn heights and my aunt coco was one of his teachers.
as an adult, long after i'd stopped checking for their music as much, i was fortunate to work with them and get to hang and i can say that they were as sweet, fun, laid back, funny and cool as i imagined them to be when i was a kid. to be asked to work with them will stand as one of the greatest apex's of my life. they are and were full of integrity and goodness. i spent the least amount of time with yauch but i admired him the most. his diverse pursuits in his life still inspire me to this day to explore seemingly unrelated endeavors for the sole purpose of living a varied and full life of diversified interests. "going to the limits of my ultimate destiny". i came back to those words many times. his lyrics parented me on occasion, that's how influential their music was in their heyday. i definitely didn't love their music nearly as much in recent years but it doesn't stop their influence from being ongoing. too many stories to share.
he was too young and so proactive with his time on earth, it's very sad. and i really feel for tenzin, i was her age when i lost my dad and it's really rough, still is. you are just coming into a peer-ship at 13/14.
i keep thinking of how life is truly fragile and that health should never be taken for granted. yauchs legendary and prophetic words from a year and a day keep ringing in my head:
Seen a glimpse from ahead and I don't think it's gonna last
And you can bet your ass
run was hot at the time but it wasn't like they couldn't write for themselves.
I wanted to wait a few days before posting anything in this thread and let things kind of settle in. When License to Ill came out I was 9. There was a 16 year old girl named Veronica who live upstairs in my apartment building, and she would look after my sister and I frequently. One night she brought down this record with a PLANE CRASH on the cover and played it loud in my living room. I was amazed at the art on the gatefold. Veronica explained to me that it was a cigarette and that pretty much blew my mind. I remember hearing something that i hadn't really heard before. I remember "Hard Times" and The Fat Boys, but this was something different. I asked my grandmother to buy me the album for Christmas.
The following Halloween, after playing the record incessantly for almost a year, my friends Micah and Jamie joined me in dressing a 10 year old versions of the trio. We actually rhymed along with Paul Revere for Jamie's parents. I got the tape of Paul's Boutique when it came out, but I don't think my ears were ready for what was on that record. It wasn't until college that I REALLY rediscovered it.
AK and I have spent the past couple days going backwards through the discography. Some of which, I had barely scratched. Last night we drove home from Philly and listened to License to Ill in the car. I haven't had that much fun on a road trip in a long time. I wonder how many people just like us, are driving around, rhyming along with MCA. That's the best tribute I can imagine.
I just dont see them when first dealing with Russell/Rick being able to freestyle w/ Run, LL, and whomever else was around Def Jam at the time.
You think they had extensive rhyme books in '85?
I was under the impression that they were fooling around w rap and then got molded by Russ and them.