BEASTIE BOYS
The Mix-Up
Who would have thought that a punk band thrown together for its bass
player's 17th birthday party would evolve into one of the most
influential and groundbreaking successes of its time? Certainly not
the then-teenage Beastie Boys, yet the band's 25-year-and-counting
career has logged 40 million in sales, two Grammy awards, the MTV
Video Vanguard Lifetime Achievement award, four #1 albums--including
the first hip hop album ever to top the Billboard 200, the band's
1986 debut full length, Licensed To Ill, and countless sold out world
tours, magazine covers and TV appearances.
Yet it was in 1981 that Beastie Boys--then consisting of Adam Yauch
(a/k/a MCA) on bass, drummer Kate Schellenbach (later of Luscious
Jackson), guitarist John Berry (of Big Fat Love), and Mike Diamond
(a/k/a Mike D) on the mic--debuted at Yauch's birthday party. By
1982, the band had played its first public gigs opening for the likes
of Bad Brains and Reagan Youth at venues including CBGB, A7, and--by
a hair--Max's Kansas City, where they played on the last night of the
club's existence.
Beastie Boys' debut EP, the Pollywog Stew vinyl 7" was released that
year. Recorded at Jerry Williams' 171A, the same place as Bad Brains'
legendary ROIR sessions, it is also the first ever release on Dave
Parsons' Ratcage Records, a tiny hardcore label operated from an East
Village storefront of the same name. The band's first foray into hip
hop, the Cooky Puss 12" (also on Ratcage), followed in 1983, with
Young & The Useless guitarist Adam Horovitz (a/k/a Adrock) replacing
John Berry. "Cooky Puss" would be the first B Boys record to receive
play at NYC clubs like Danceteria as the band played its first shows
outside the city.
The Mike D/MCA/Adrock Beastie Boys lineup debuted in 1984 with the
"Rock Hard"/"Beastie Groove" 12." Produced by Rick Rubin a/k/a DJ
Double R, hired by the group as their DJ because he owned a bubble
machine, it is the second record to come out on Def Jam. The three
hone their skills opening for the likes of Kurtis Blow, spitting
rhymes from the DJ booth at the legendary Disco Fever, and even
sharing a bill with the Disco Three the night they announce their
name change to the Fat Boys.
The "She's On It"/ "Slow And Low" 12" (the first Def Jam/Columbia
joint release) followed in 1985. Beastie Boys support Madonna on the
entire North American "Virgin Tour." Another 12", "Hold It Now, Hit
It" makes waves at urban radio as the Boys support Run-DMC, Whodini,
LL Cool J and the Timex Social Club on the groundbreaking Raising
Hell tour, where many of those listeners learn that Beastie Boys are
white (giving rise to the quote "I never knew you guys were a bunch
of Joeys."). The "Paul Revere" / "The New Style" 12" hit not long
after.
Licensed To Ill dropped in fall 1986 and became the first Beastie
Boys album--and the first Rap album ever--to go #1. Fueled by "Fight
For Your Right," "No Sleep Til Brooklyn," "Brass Monkey" and "Posse
In Effect," it remained at #1 for seven weeks and simultaneously
reached #2 on the urban chart, becoming the fastest selling debut to
date for Columbia and the first hip hop record to break 5 million.
1989's Paul's Boutique saw Beastie Boys resurface with a new deal
(Capitol), a new home (Los Angeles) and a new array of styles. Produced by Beastie Boys and the Dust
Brothers, Paul's Boutique laid down the blueprint for a generation
of emergent genres and went over the collective head of a nation.
The likes of "Shake Your Rump," "Lookin' Down The Barrel Of A Gun,"
"Car Thief," Shadrach," and the hip hop "suite" "B-Boy Bouillabaisse"
contained lyrical and musical references too plentiful and diverse
for the average mind to compute in one sitting. Nevertheless, Paul's
Boutique elevates Beastie Boys to a new level of critical respect:
thumbs up from Robert Christgau, four stars from Rolling Stone, and
the classic quote hailing it as the "Pet Sounds or Dark Side Of The
Moon of Hip Hop" depending on which magazine you're reading.
Check Your Head (Grand Royal / Capitol), released in 1992, heralded
the return of live instrumentation into the B Boys mix. With Mike D
on drums, Yauch on bass and Adrock on guitar, Check Your Head's
creation would commence in Adam Horovitz's Hollywood apartment before
being temporarily aborted following repeated threats from a
downstairs neighbor. The band then relocated to its own G-Son
studios (with the parquet floor) in Atwater Village, CA. Produced by
the band and Mario Caldato Jr. (who first worked with B Boys as
engineer on Paul's Boutique), Check Your Head would yield a watershed
of new B Boys staples, including "So Whatcha' Want," "Pass The Mic,"
"Gratitude" and "Jimmy James." With the assistance of Keyboard Money
Mark and assorted percussionists, Beastie Boys returned to the
touring circuit and Check Your Head hit double platinum.
By 1993, the G-Son complex constructed for the recording of Check
Your Head had expanded to house the band's record company, Grand
Royal. The label's first independent release, Luscious Jackson's In
Search Of Manny, and the first issue of Grand Royal magazine debuted
that same year. Originally conceived as a newsletter to answer fan
correspondence, the magazine soon took on a life of its own.
Co-edited by Beastie Boys and friends, the Fall/Winter 1993 debut
issue featured a Bruce Lee cover story, original artwork by George
Clinton, interviews with Q-Tip, Coxsone Dodd, Kareem Abdul Jabbar and
more. Subsequent cover subjects include Lee "Scratch" Perry, the
history of the Moog synthesizer, and Miami Bass.
In the summer of 1994, Ill Communication (Grand Royal/Capitol), also
produced by the band and Mario Caldato Jr., entered the charts #1 as
the band was out slaying 'em nationwide on Lollapalooza. The album's
first video, "Sabotage," directed by Spike Jonze, inadvertently gave
rise to international scandal when top honors at the year's MTV Video
Music Awards went to R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts" and Yauch's
intoxicated uncle, Nathanial Hornblower, stormed the Radio City Music
Hall stage in protest. A drained wineskin was later discovered on
the premises.
Royalties from two songs on Ill Communication --"Shambala" and
"Bodhisattva Vow"--were donated to found the Milarepa Fund, a
non-profit organization dedicated to promoting awareness and activism
regarding the injustices perpetrated on native Tibetans by Chinese
occupational government and military forces. In May 1994, Beastie
Boys played three shows--one each in New York, Los Angeles and
Washington DC--donating proceeds to Milarepa. These shows would pave
the way for the Tibetan Freedom Concert series, which would stage
some of the most significant benefit shows of the decade.
Ill Communication was supported by Beastie Boys' first arena
headline tour since the '80s: The Quadraphonic Joystick Action arena
tour, which sold out NYC's Madison Square Garden and Chicago's
Rosemont Horizon in half an hour each, Massachusetts' Worcester
Centrum in approximately 20 minutes, and Detroit's Cobo Arena in
nine. One dollar from each ticket sold on the tour was donated
through Milarepa to local charities in each city on the tour. The
band continued to expand its touring universe with treks through
South America and Southeast Asia. Following the tour's conclusion,
Beastie Boys recorded and released Aglio e Olio through the
independent Grand Royal pipeline.
Consisting of eight songs clocking in at 11 minutes, the EP recalls
the vintage hardcore punk of the band's infancy. Aglio's release is
commemorated by a handful of unannounced club gigs over the following
months.
The first Tibetan Freedom Concert took place June 15 and 16, 1996 at
the Polo Fields in
San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. 100,000 people attend the weekend
event, making it the single biggest benefit concert on U.S. soil
since 1985's Live Aid. Joining Beastie Boys for the historic
weekend: A Tribe Called Quest, Beck, Bjork, Cibo Matto, De La Soul,
Foo Fighters, Fugees, John Lee Hooker, Pavement, Rage Against The
Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, Yoko
Ono and Ima, Buddy Guy, Biz Markie, Skatalites, Richie Havens,
Chaksam-Pa, and guest speakers Tibet House founder Robert Thurman and
Palden Gyatso, a Tibetan monk who endured 33 years of torture and
imprisonment for nonviolent protest.
The same year, The In Sound From Way Out!, originally serviced as an
extremely limited promotional compilation of Beastie Boys
instrumental cuts, was made commercially available through Grand
Royal/Capitol due to popular demand.
A second two-day Tibetan Freedom Concert took place June 7 and 8,
1997 at New York's Randall's Island, featuring Beastie Boys, U2,
Radiohead, Foo Fighters, Rancid, KRS-One, the Patti Smith Group,
Alanis Morissette and a host of others, and was documented on a
three-CD Tibetan Freedom Concert collection released that fall.
Having moved back to NYC, Beastie Boys spent the remainder of the
year working on their studio tan.
One year later, tickets to the third Tibetan Freedom Concert would
sell out within one afternoon. Over 130,000 attend the event over
the course of June 13 & 14, 1998 at Washington DC's RFK Stadium. On
the bill are Beastie Boys, Radiohead, Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam,
R.E.M, Herbie Hancock's Headhunters, Sonic Youth, Luscious Jackson
and a surprise finale' by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, among others.
Barely a month later, Hello Nasty was released (July 14, 1998) on
Grand Royal/Capitol. Spurred by the monster (no pun intended, well,
maybe) success of the "Intergalactic" single and video, the record
clocked first week sales of nearly 700,000 in the U.S. and went
straight in at #1 in England, Germany, Australia, Holland, New
Zealand and Sweden, #2 in Canada and Japan, and Top 10 in Austria,
Switzerland, Ireland, Belgium, Finland, France and Israel. Sick! That
same month, the 360-degree In The Round tour would be unveiled July
31 at Seattle's Key Arena. The tour's turntable stage set put every
attendee in the official "Beastie Boys Winners Circle," offering
unobstructed sightlines from every seat in the house, while a
specially designed circular P.A. gave new dimension to the term
"Surround Sound."
Early in the tour, Beastie Boys made live tracks available for free
download to fans unable to attend the shows-and were blindsided by
their label pulling the tracks down. The struggle to keep the tracks
up on BeastieBoys.com was documented in a Wall Street Journal cover
story-which featured one of those cool little stipple drawings of
Mike D. The rest of the group was insanely jealous and vowed one day
to have their own little drawings as well.
Having closed 1998 by accepting the Video Vanguard lifetime
achievement honor at the MTV Video Music Awards, Beastie Boys rang in
1999 with Artist, Band and/or Record of the Year accolades from the
likes of Rolling Stone, SPIN, The New Yorker and Playboy, among
others. A month later, at the 41st Annual Grammy Awards, the now
quadruple-platinum Hello Nasty took Best Alternative Music
Performance, while "Intergalactic," nailed Best Rap Performance By A
Duo Or Group--the first time an artist has ever won in both Rap and
Alternative categories.
The fourth Tibetan Freedom Concert was the series' most ambitious
undertaking to date.
Over the course of the June 13, 1999 weekend, a lineup of multinational talent
played continuously in East Troy WI, Amsterdam, Tokyo and Sydney, including
Beastie Boys, Radiohead's Thom Yorke, Joe Strummer, Blondie, Run DMC, Luscious
Jackson, and the Cult among others.
1999 would also see "Intergalactic" take Best Hip Hop Video honors
at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards, Beastie Boys and Elvis Costello
"re-enact" Elvis' classic U.S TV debut for Saturday Night Live's 25th
Anniversary extravaganza, backing him on "Radio Radio," and the
release of The Sounds Of Science 2-CD anthology.
In 2000, longtime Beastie Boys visual collaborator Nathanial
Hornblower compiled 18 of the band's videos for an addition to the
Criterion Collection's portfolio of acclaimed and influential cinema.
The 2-disc Beastie Boys DVD Anthology featured alternate audio
remixes and alternate camera angles, making for an nfinite number of
audio/video permutations. STEREO MAN magazine lauded the Anthology
"the benchmark by which all other music DVDs will now be judged." The
set included Hornblower's own "Alive," "Body Movin',"
"Intergalactic," "So Whatcha Want," "Pass The Mic," "Shadrach" and
"Shake Your Rump," as well as candid insights into the bizarre and
lonely world of estranged Criterion producer Ralph Spaulding.
In the wake of September 11, 2001 the Milarepa-organized, Beastie
Boys-headlined NEW YORKERS AGAINST VIOLENCE benefit was staged
October 28 & 29 at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom, generating net
proceeds in excess of $125,000 disbursed to the New York Women's
Foundation Disaster Relief Fund and the New York Association for New
Americans (NYANA) September 11th Fund for New
Americans--organizations chosen for their efforts on behalf of those
affected by the September 11th attacks least likely to receive help
from other sources. The NYAV line-up included the Strokes, the
B-52's, Cibo Matto, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Mos Def, N*E*R*D, Rival
Schools, the Roots, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Saul Williams,
Stretch Armstrong, Afrika Bambaata, and a surprise two-song set by
Moby and Michael Stipe (featuring an impromptu cameo by Bono).
Speakers at the event included Yoko Ono, Ibrahim Ramey of the Muslim
Peace Fellowship, Benjamin Barber of Democracy Collaborative, Yanki
Tshering of NYANA, Miriam Buhl of the NYWF, while surprise intros
came from Jimmy Fallon, Sean Lennon, and others.
Not long after, Beastie Boys completed construction on a recording
studio in downtown Manhattan-Oscilloscope Laboratories (with the
plywood floor)-and began recording new music. In March 2003, Beastie
Boys added their voice to the growing protest against the U.S. war on
Iraq. Not willing to wait until their album is finished to comment on
the America's imminent course toward war, they offer the new track
"In A World Gone Mad" as a free download on Beastieboys.com,
moveon.org, winwithoutwarUS.org, MTV.com, and milarepa.org. That same
year would see the organization of the 9th and10th Tibetan Freedom
Concerts, which Beastie Boys played April 19th at Tokyo's NK Hall and
April 20th at Taipei's Stadium of Song-Hsan District in Taiwan-the
band's first-ever Taipei appearance. En route home, B Boys headlined
the Coachella festival in Indio CA, moving tens of thousands with an
all hip hop set of classics, peppered by the debut of a few new
numbers.
Beastie Boys' sixth studio album, To The 5 Boroughs, released in
summer 2004, was the band's third consecutive #1 debut-and Rolling
Stone magazine's only 5-star review of the year. A minor scandal
would ensue when The New York Times ran an unsolicited review of
Nathanial Hornblower's video for the record's #1 single "Ch-Check It
Out," rubbing the award-winning auteur the wrong way. The Times
ultimately ran Hornblower's rebuttal, in which he declared his
technique "clearly too advanced for (the Times') small way of looking
at it" and demanded that the paper reimburse him for a dead goat.
To The 5 Boroughs was supported by the Challah At Your Boy world
tour-or as the band corrected the media, traveling pageant--supported
by Talib Kweli and Bob Moore's Amazing Mongrels (yes, a live dog
show, hence the pageant appellation).
Tour, pageant, call it what you will. It climaxed with a sold-out
October 9 homecoming at Madison Square Garden, prior to which Beastie
Boys distributed 50 cameras to audience members, who were charged
with capturing the experience of a live musical performance like no
film ever before. Their efforts (and herculean editing sessions)
spawn the feature-length AWESOME; I FUCKIN' SHOT THAT!, which debuted
at Sundance in early 2006 and was released theatrically the same year.
Dateline: June 26, 2007 a/k/a present. Scratch that: the future!
With the release of the all-instrumental The Mix-Up, Beastie Boys
throw listeners a curveball reminder of the one constant throughout
the band's 25-year-and-counting career: reinvention. The Mix-Up
features Diamond, Horovitz and Yauch back on drums, guitar and bass,
with able assistance from Keyboard Money Mark and longtime
percussionist Alfredo Ortiz, as they hit the restart button once
again for another career landmark: Beastie Boys' first ever full
length offering of all-new, all-original instrumental recordings.
Sure to please fans of the instrumental cuts from Check Your Head and
Ill Communication compiled for the cult hit The In Sound From Way
Out!, The Mix-Up finds NYC's favorite sons drawing on one of their
arsenal's primary strengths and pushing it into bold new directions
as they prepare and contemplate their next move.
The complete track listing for The Mix-Up is:
1. B For My Name
2. 14th St. Break
3. Suco De Tangerina
4. The Gala Event
5. Electric Worm
6. Freaky Hijiki
7. Off The Grid
8. The Rat Cage
9. The Melee
10. Dramastically Different *
11. The Cousin Of Death
12. The Kangaroo Rat
* Yes the typo "Dramastically" is intentional. |
