RIP Adam Yauch/MCA of the Beastie Boys

:-(

Gutted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLyBL2cYXmo

Fucking hell and salute and RIP

This stings, a lot. Was just rocking Check Your Head yesterday for the first time in a long time. RIP

Really sad.

Oh shit, wow. RIP.

film/video work underrated imho

wow, unexpected. oddly i just put paul's boutique on my phone this morning after not hearing it for a couple of years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ksapf6YUug

! Aw. RIP

He did so many great things. Oscilloscope is a great little indie film label. RIP.

fuck cancer for reals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rDklqPG5pU

fucking cancer, man

WOW.

I had no idea he was still sick.

rest in peace

jesus

this feels so strange

R.I.P.

I just saw this on Twitter. Holy fucking shit. Dude was only five years older than I am. :(

fucking cancer

good work Adam RIP

Very, very sad about this.

This is horrible, fuck this

RIP -- hitting home, really. Makes me feel old, makes me miss being in HS. Ugh.

terrible news. RIP :/

way too young

so weird

yeah it's rare that celebrity death reminds me of my own mortality but holy fuck, MCA?

^^ this. fuck.

Horrible, horrible, horrible

well, this blows. RIP

directed by MCA:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0Y87LNw26U

damn this sucks. he always seemed like the best rapper/coolest dude in the group.

:(

i have not heard uh, anything since hello nasty i think but the beasties were staple listening pretty much everywhere in high school and are thus hardwired somewhere in the fog of adolescent nostalgia. RIP :(

fucking gutted by this for real, just...love this guy

rip dude, you were the coolest

wife is in tears, feeling v bummed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB0NM6reiRE

WTF horrible horrible. It was supposed to be such a minor 'whew good thing we caught this in time' tumor at the time. How can we fucking kill cancer?

it was like three years from this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7CH3M7cECI

RIP

rip

oh man, looking at recent pictures is just the saddest fucking thing
love to this guy and his fam

Ooh, fuckin' hell, did not expect that. Licence to Ill is going on right away.

i had no idea he was even sick. really surprised and saddened. rip

I am so bummed!!!

urgh. really thought he had beat cancer? RIP.

really want to cry a lot about this tbh

I actually just called a friend who is probably the biggest B Boys fan I know and left her a message saying I'm thinking of her which sounds so weird and lame but I know she's going to be devastated.

So so sad.

I missed the story from last month that he wouldn't be able to attend the RRHOF induction, which I guess would've at least been a strong indicator that something like this was around the corner. As it is, though, I feel like I've been slapped with a flounder.

gotta road trip this afternoon -- think it's gonna be 3 hours of Beasties now

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

i haven't listened to the b boys on the regular in many years but man they really have meant a lot of me. mca owned, then and forever imo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DOMxm0o12c

Gah, too soon. RIP

Genuinely horrible, and like everyone I know on facebook/twitter is just overflowing with earnest grief. This is the most unexpected and tragic music death news in a long time. Gutted.

Cookie Puss <3

RIP.

So sad, I just read the 33 1/3 Paul's Boutique album a couple weeks ago and was reflecting on how wonderful and unique these guys are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfyMv5mG_Z8

aw shit, no way. love you man, we shared a name.

rest in peace beastie dude!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03PdIMEnwXY

don't know how to express how i feel here, I can't think of ANY musician's death that hit me this way

those videos of them playing basketball as old men seem extra sad to me now :(

Wow, this just seems shocking to me. I didn't even know he was ill. RIP.

xhuxk on Facebook just now, with a link to this: "RIP MCA. i still owe you one."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=laQLHlIBUmg

(Yep, that's him.)

Me: MCA from the Beastie Boys just died!
Coworker #1: Which one was he?
Coworker #2: The white one.
RIP, MCA.

RIP

(part of) a p big formative influence on stuff I listen(ed) to... prolly more than anyone who's died for a looooooooong time tbh

Oh dag. :(

its making me smile to see my facebook and twitter light up with outpourings of love. also, four different people in my office now have beastie boys tunes playing on youtube

you know chuck put a voodoo hex on those guys years ago...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laQLHlIBUmg

i'm not BLAMING chuck, just saying...

Kate: A co-worker heard be on the phone and came over all concerned and was like OMG I'm so sorry was that a friend of yours?!

Ned: xhuxk is the one getting pranked?!

RIP

i have to listen to other things for work but i want to be blasting 'paul's boutique' so bad right now

ENBB -- yup.

Here's xhuxk's piece:

http://beatpatrol.wordpress.com/2009/04/03/chuck-eddy-lay-it-down-clowns-the-beastie-boys-take-over-1987/

man, RIP

that prank clip is awesome, them giggling and hightailing it away, fkn priceless

cranking License to Ill, imma roll through the whole discography fuckit

seriously, blasting paul's boutique neighbors hate check your heard queued up

Massive suckage.

Just found out. Oh man... One of the most inspirational people in music for me

This is really making me depressed. I feel like we are all living in cancer's world.

this really is the worst thing.

http://i48.tinypic.com/2qsnmle.jpg

oh fuck now I'm really gonna cry

As I just muttered on FB: Sudden realization of a moment I'd almost forgotten -- I had seen the Beastie Boys once live, Lollapalooza 1994. Person I was with said I was dancing like a crazy idiot during "Sabotage" in particular. And you know what? All good with that, because MCA murdered that bassline and then some. So RIP indeed.

omg that photo!

Isn't it great?

you know a band are truly all encompassingly loved when even Duran Duran are posting an rip message.

saw them at the Greek in Berkeley abt 5 years ago, the whole crowd acapella sang Paul Revere and it was hands down one of the best concert moments of my life

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvMoD70aMJw

Not a great quality video, but still awesome.

Good lord what a sobering downer. RIP

Hornblower
http://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net/photos/full/573186348.jpg?key=500365&Expires=1336155121&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIYVGSUJFNRFZBBTA&Signature=XYKirnXQBhDwev7bkxIvJUxsQssYN3AcRGVYydXwISqja-aDDi1qZgYe-RMmzoLprDlRUrTVhTNnKHobxCNPHfFMB12mjQlpsh7hpGzP~oMlzdLJyWW7dnMzQ7gq7q~IelJNjQq5JVDzEmHcMm0X3wfJC8FRheWrZxOI5aILXwg_

baby MCA @ 1:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-oRGkaotl8

mca was the best, hope you're having fun in whatever passes for buddhist heaven, you soundtracked a lot of my life

'so whatcha want' was the first single I ever bought, and hello nasty was one of the first albums I ever bought.

My favorite Beast. rip

just thinking back to the days when my freshman dorm was covered with two of those gigantic 6' x 4' posters. one from the "Sabotage" set and the other from an Ill Communication promo shoot, with a Check Your Head regular size poster bridging the two. wish i had the pics scanned in now.

"So Whatcha Want" was our outgoing answering machine message that year

Happy rebirth Adam!!!

rimbaud108 9 minutes ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64lWVE3Tg2A

RIP cool dude.

Besides the jams, seemed like a good model of how to be a grown-up rock star.

i wore my aloha mr hand Beasties shirt til it fell off me in rags

RIP, Adam.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Gutted.

also a great model of how to evolve as a human being while being able reconcile and own your past.

My wife's very upset about this, and I am too. It's essential to remember just how important Licensed To Ill was in the world of '86, it pulled everything apart and then stuck its giddy tongue out. I saw them at Glasgow Barrowlands in '87 and they were phenomenal even (or especially) then.

Even though this is Britain, I remember just how down everyone was after Kurt died, and how Ill Communication in '94 was sort of a "I Want To Hold Your Hand"-type transformative moment, lifting everyone's spirits again and definitely on the side of life. Which makes Adam's passing all the sadder; Christ, he was only seven months younger than me and like a lot of other people I thought he'd beaten the cancer.

All I can advise to everyone today/tonight is: find all the Beastie Boys music in your house and play it proudly.

Farewell to a crucial figure and, I'm sure, a splendid fellow.

I'd never thought about Ill Communication's massive transatlantic success that way, Marcello, and it makes sense.

If you're cranking Paul's Boutique, this comes highly recommended (they recorded this commentary for the re-release, it's great)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzYqeVkTxT4

In 1999, Beastie Adam Horovitz wrote a letter to Time Out New York apologizing for their youthful indiscretions on that first album, saying he wanted to "formally apologize to the entire gay and lesbian community for the shitty and ignorant things we said on our first record. There are no excuses. But time has healed our stupidity. … We hope that you’ll accept this long overdue apology."

^^always thought this was a nice move by the beasties and really reflected how all of them grew as ppl over time

exactly!! hard to think of many artists willing to actually say this on the record

yeah mad respect for that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDuiAiC6c3E

;_;

yeah this was one of his great moments too

I want to say a little something that's long overdue
the disrespect to women has got to be through
to all the mothers and sisters and the wives and friends
I want to offer my love and respect to the end

and now it's the end

DANCIN AROUND LIKE YOU THINK YOU JANET JACK SON

RIP. Fond memories from both "CookiePuss " days on through to the Tibet benefit shows

What the..?

Shit.

I slept in his bed once, and barfed in his mom's commode (he wasn't there). RIP duder.

! remy

ha just saw that beasties + elvis costello snl thing, somehow i never knew about that

Damn, way too young.

Fuck cancer. RIP dude

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3idyiGk8H1rqkji8o1_500.jpg

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3idyiGk8H1rqkji8o1_500.jpg

damn, man.

Oh damn, break my heart a little more why don't you.

goddamnit, fuck I'm at work

http://sportsmedia.ign.com/sports/image/article/868/868378/nba-jam-a-retrospective-20080421033459570.jpg

jeez that picture made me cry a little bit in my office

horrible unintentionally funny xpost

oh jeez Edward that pic ;_;

Oh damn, break my heart a little more why don't you.

^^^

Shit shit shit. From all appearances one of the nicest guys in rock & roll, and a real booster for his favorite bands to boot. I grew up with the Beastie Boys - how come I never went to see them? Just so sad.

I know that pic is total </3 and it feels goofy to talk about a pic capturing the soul of a man but there it is

yup

not goofy

that picture is really heartbreaking. sad for him, but also for his family. his daughter's only 14? horrible.

Unbelievable. How sad.

damn this sucks.

nothing to add but RIP and hell yeah gonna crank it up when I get home from work.

I have a vivid memory of walking around the streets in the Castro (on a visit to a friend) after Ill Communication came out, listening to a tape of it over and over on my Walkman.

Oh damn, break my heart a little more why don't you.

^^^

― Roger Barfing (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, May 4, 2012 11:38 AM (17 minutes ago)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Playing Paul's Boutique in office as quietly as possible, trying not to look at that picture again.

i'm actually surprised at how sad this is making me but now i'm trying to keep it together at my desk. dammit.

terrible, and very sad. rip.

jeez, this is bumming me out in a major way. I dropped after hello nasty but all their records up to and including that one were on seriously heavy rotation all throughout my high school years. and he seemed like a good dude too. rip.

Statement released:

http://www.beastieboys.com/

Very sad. I remember seeing them first on the bill at one of those Def Jam shows, back in '86 or so. They weren't very well known back then, and they were getting booed pretty much from the moment they hit the stage. (And this was at a very large venue.) Still, they were falling over themselves laughing, MCA most of all. I recall getting a weird sense of, I don't know, freedom, watching this. I think about it every time I have to speak in front of a large group of people. I still aspire to have that kind of "fuck all y'all" confidence. I guess it was a pretty meaningful moment for me. RIP, MCA. Way too soon.

He seems like a pretty good model for how to live a life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kdThLmS4Ig

Listening to this mix right now: http://soundcloud.com/dj-format-c-1/beastie-boys-mix-by-dj-format-c

RIP MCA. I'm gonna bump Licensed To Ill like 3 times tonight. This dude was the best and the world is a little worse without him.

good TV moment at 2:45....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB-ya6gBI4w

aside from the music, I think the Beasties in general were really ground zero for a certain cool R&B/jazz/classic/punk axis collector mentality...like dudes that dug bad brains and old R&B and early hip hop and sonic youth etc...sorta the wax poetics mag aesthetic...i couldn't imagine, say, numero group existing w/o them

Kinda pisses me off that the three of 'em will never have a chance to actually do this, just walk down the street years and years on and swap stories:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_J7ROcRhsO4/Tgux7ShM-4I/AAAAAAAAAtQ/AyyqJpqerGI/s1600/MUDD07.jpg

awww

^^^yeah those getups are what I was thinking of when I ref'd the b-ball video upthread

http://gizmodo.com/5907730/deceased-beastie-boy-adam-mca-yauch-is-every-single-twitter-trending-topic-right-now

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2012/05/remembering-grand-royal-beastie-boys-brief-brilliant-magazine/51944/

M*tt, these were great

they were, yeah

I was 16 and at this summer college program when Paul's Boutique came out and I remember walking to the record store the day it was released, buying it and bringing it back to play in our dorm's common room and being floored by it. I was expecting another goofy, fun Licensed to Ill and instead it was this incredible other thing.

License To Ill was the first "real" tape I ever bought back in 7th grade, and Paul's Boutique was the first record that I ever remember looking forward to. Check Your Head came out right before I graduated high school, and Ill Communication came out during a particular decadent era of my college life and I have really fond memories of all of these eras. I saw them once at an outside venue in Pontiac, Michigan with L7 and House of Pain (lol 90s), and technically I saw one song from them at Lollapalooza in 1994 before I got kicked out.

Anyway this is pretty sad because unlike other recent big music deaths he seemed like a legit decent person who would probably still do some interesting shit later in life instead holing up and becoming a drugged out / crazy recluse.

Oh shit, I still have issues of Grand Royal at my parents' house somewhere.

I have a couple issues of Grand Royal stashed somewhere. So classic.

I think I still have my faded circa-'98 Beastie Boys shirt somewhere at home. Going to try to dig it out to wear when I'm out with friends tonight.

really ground zero for a certain cool R&B/jazz/classic/punk axis collector mentality

yeah, I'd go further and say they were an archetype for how pretty much every music hipster/geek operates today. Like, is pitchfork quite the same site in a world where the beastie boys didn't exist? It's not like they were the first people to ever be way into all kinds of music, or even all kinds of *cool* music, but nobody really pulled off an aristic statement pulling all of that knowledge and love in like paul's boutique, or their 90s records. I think this is part of why MCA dying means something to me, despite not having listened to the BBs records in years. I *feel* a part of whatever generation guys like him belonged to /blogging

artistic, duh

yeah dominique that's definitely what i was trying to get at, said better

jeez that picture made me cry a little bit in my office

― l0u1s j0rdan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, May 4, 2012 2:37 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Don't want to be at work right now.

An incomplete and off the top of my head ramble from the past hour:

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/heardmentality/2012/05/adam_yauch_dead_mca_beastie_boys.php

Wow. Shit.

Some friends of mine and I went to see the hip-hop exhibit at the Brooklyn Academy of Music some years back. It was springtime and there was no one there but us and Yauch, who was alone and perusing the exhibit quietly. On the way out, we found it striking that the Lubavitcher Jews went straight toward him and not toward us, who were about as Jewish looking as it gets. There was a brief moment that felt very "one of us ..." as we looked over our shoulders to see them proffering him a lulav and etrog, likely oblivious to who he was.

This is a sad.

with certain musicians their own overwhelming fannishness informs their music, thurston moore and the beasties come to mind

xp to dominique and matt

The time between Licensed to Ill and Paul's Boutique took forever. And when PB sounded nothing like LtI, I was a little disappointed at first. But the more I listened to it, the more I got into it, the more I could hear that beer-drinking frat rappers were moving them and us forward into a new direction…

I think I heard the first side of Check Your Head every morning for six months my freshman year in the dorm. Though I got sick of it, I still taped the CD longbox up on my cinderblock wall.

ha, that's a good jewish twist on the celebrities-just-like-us meme xp

Didn't have quite the same agewise impact on me cuz when I was in college all I was hearing was "Cookie Puss," but I bought the first 4 albums (Paul's Boutique on cassette) and my best friend claims they copped some of their behavior from watching him at parties at Bard. (saw them at L'looza 94 too)

also heavy Jerry Lewis influence obv

TRAGIC
RIP

in high school, for my friend's birthday i made a mix cassette tape where i laboriously compiled not songs but clips of our fav bboys lines. i would never do this now, so it's too bad that this mix is lost forever, on a lone cassette tape out there somewhere...

Just finding out about this now--big surprise, even though I knew there had been health issues. It was so exciting when they went #1 with their first album; as key a moment as Nevermind grabbing #1. (Who'd did they knock out--Peter Cetera? Jennifer Rush?) I had interviewed them a few months prior, and they were so funny and so obscene, I wrote it up under a pseudonym--I was still passing on my writing to my parents, and I didn't want my mother to read it.

didn't he found that distributor oscilloscope. because they do some great stuff. ditto grand royal magazine (RIP).

i admit i've never been an unqualified fan of the BB but they all seem(ed) like interesting, likable dudes.

sorry to hear this, RIP.

when i was 10 or 11 licensed to ill came out and i didn't like it that much and completely missed the boat on paul's boutique, but i picked up check your head on a whim and it didn't leave my car's cassette deck for months. definitely a game-changer for me w/r/t how i listened to music, it led me into soul-jazz and funk and all sorts of good shit. ill communication and hello nasty had similar lengthy runs in my car. this is really unexpected, i thought he had kicked it. i guess i haven't been paying attention. damn shame.

really ground zero for a certain cool R&B/jazz/classic/punk axis
this is otm -- i know i discovered a bunch of random things via the beasties ... jimmy smith's root down, for one, which led to a big dive into that kinda organ stuff.

yeah, ditto on that.

i guess when i was in h.s. i was somehow on this precious deep soul tip and i thought of the BBs fans who were just being exposed to this deep vein of black music as johnny-come-latelys. but that has a lot to do with h.s. social politics and now i totally get how they could be an awesome gateway drug.

precious = precocious

maybe precious too.

(Who'd did they knock out--Peter Cetera? Jennifer Rush?)

In the US, it was Bon Jovi.

ha, i'm probably a johnny come lately. to some extent, listening to paul's boutique made me realize the vast depths of american music -- almost as much as, say, the anthology of american folk music. i might've ended up liking the source material more than the beastie boys, but gotta give them their due in getting me there!

Here's an interesting thought: was Yauch the first of his peers (hip-hop, alt-rock, whatever) to let himself go dramatically grey?

I had a cassette dupe of "License to Ill" on one side and "Invisible Touch" on the other. I used to listen to it on a boom box on canoe trips down the Brandywine River.

Maybe they weren't alone in this, but they were also central to a huge rekindling of interest in Led Zeppelin (outside of just classic-rock stations) when they sampled "The Ocean"; Schoolly-D and others followed in short order, and it went from there.

In the US, it was Bon Jovi.

― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Friday, May 4, 2012 3:20 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the later collab, "beastie jovi," was pretty great IIRC.

Eh, the Zep stuff was Rick Rubin's doing.

listening to the audio commentary vid for 'check your head', pretty great (from a production nerd standpoint anyway). still love how integrated the samples + live instrumentation is on that record, massive drum sound too. apparently yauch was the one who came up with the led zep-style cardboard tunnel for the kick drum.

bboys were just one musical vector of a number for me but they specifically unearthed a few dope artists/beats i dunno how long it would've taken me to find otherwise

I'm sure that's true, but of the thousands of teenagers who may have been found out about Led Zeppelin via Licensed to Ill, my guess is that they almost gave credit to the Beastie Boys rather than Rick Rubin (if they even knew who he was). (xpost)

(drop the "been")

things the Beastie Boys introduced me to:

Idris Muhammad
Lee "Scratch" Perry
Wild Style
Black Oak Arkansas
Kool Moe Dee vs. Busy Bee
Eddie Harris
The Turtles

remember this being a total HOLY SHIT moment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC-gRQh_pFw

From Tim Sommer.

Here's an interesting thought: was Yauch the first of his peers (hip-hop, alt-rock, whatever) to let himself go dramatically grey?

Toss up between him and Lee Ranaldo?

things the Beastie Boys introduced me to:

Idris Muhammad
Lee "Scratch" Perry
Wild Style
Black Oak Arkansas
Kool Moe Dee vs. Busy Bee
Eddie Harris
The Turtles

add The Meters to that list for me

i think yauch was super gray back when lee was just getting some salt and pepper (xpost)

I thought he was getting better. Fuck this shit.

yeah i hadn't been following what was going on but when they finally released the album i assumed he was gonna be okay! so sad. i didn't even realize he missed the HOF induction last month.

i lost my grandmother a few weeks ago, and have felt really numb to celebrity passings since, but feel really sad about MCA. he seemed like such a decent, hilarious and talented guy, and was always my favourite beastie boy. they were the exact definition of cool to me at a certain age, and probably still now - i started wearing puma suedes because of them, and lookit i'm wearing a pair right now. and they pointed me in the direction of so much amazing music. SO much. a decade or so ago, backstage in glasgow, i got to meet him and even held his baby for a few minutes, and he was as cool as you could ever have wanted him to be.

after he didn't make it to the rock and roll hall of fame a month or so back, i feared the worst. such a shame. listen to those beastie commentaries if you haven't already. they are awesome.

this one made me laugh: http://www.criterion.com/explore/57-adam-yauch-s-top-10

When I was in college in the 90s my group of friends often disagreed about what should be playing on the stereo at any given times. Usually it was a fight between Grateful Dead and Classic Rock vs. Rave music. Beastie Boys seemed like the one thing that made everyone happy.

I still have a couple of the Grand Royal magazines. They seemed like the coolest thing in the world when they first came out. B-Boys were definitely ahead of the game with the whole unearthing of retro culture.

It's hard to even think of all the stuff I was intro'd to by the beastie boys. I definitely checked out Lee Perry because of a name drop in a Beasties song, and their instrumentals got me into 60s/70s Soul Jazz breaks.

damn, rip. didn't even realize he was still sick. ;_;

iirc remy bean has a great story concerning yauch, not sure he posts anymore tho?

oh he's around

I slept in his bed once, and barfed in his mom's commode (he wasn't there). RIP duder.

― Olivia Newton John Justen Bieberheimer Schmidt (remy bean), Friday, May 4, 2012 1:24 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wanna hear this story sometime.

Apologies if this has already been posted but it cracked me up:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/20/arts/l-ch-check-it-out-one-goat-on-account-996904.html

I slept in his bed once, and barfed in his mom's commode (he wasn't there). RIP duder.

― Olivia Newton John Justen Bieberheimer Schmidt (remy bean),

oh ha

the version i got in person was longer and funnier

I still have a vivid memory of this guy Peter I worked with at a record store right when Licensed came out. He was quite large, wild red hair, horn-rimmed glasses, and (no exaggeration) he had the album memorized word for word within days of its release. Working the floor on a packed Saturday afternoon, with Peter on cash lip-synching to "No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn" (with lots of corny hip-hop moves thrown in), was really something. Also remember him describing and quoting from the Joan Rivers appearance the following day in great detail: "Do I detect a note of jealousy?"

other things the Beasties introduced me to:

Lee Dorsey
Richard Pryor's standup
Eddie Harris' "Silver Cycles"
Led Zeppelin (to some extent, heard Rhymin and Stealin before I heard the Ocean for ex.)

Rod Carew

yeah, i got lee dorsey & eddie harris from them, too

The Beasties basically introduced me to late seventies sitcom pop culture.

they also made me think there must have been some minor Knicks player named Evan Bernard

this is the only time i've ever really felt bad after hearing a celebrity died. fuck...

ooh also Les McCann and Eugene McDaniels

xp

i missed their heyday but in 98 every time i turned on mtv i hoped to see the "intergalactic" video

I think the Whatcha Want video and the Sabotage video had a similar pull for me.

Intergalactic is a great one too!

I went to Space Camp between 4th and 5th grade. To shuttle us between our dorms and the giant warehouse that Space Camp was in, we had this bus driver who seemed really old at the time but was probably about 20 and basically like Otto. We were a rowdy bunch of kids and you could smell your back sweat getting stank against the 90-degree interior seat cushions of the bus, but he knew how to keep us quiet -- "If you all sit down, shut up, and don't throw anything out of the windows, I'll playLicense to Ill each time you get in." It had come out the winter before but I mean that shit was a rare, hot currency among 9- and 10-year-olds. So we did as told and he popped the tape in and we all felt like the coolest, most rebellious little shits that week.

whoa

Yauch's mom talks to the NYT briefly about his passing:

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/adam-yauch-of-the-beastie-boys-dies/?hp

ha Dare, that is great

RIP
Fuck you, cancer.

the beastie boys are the three stooges of rap. moe howard died may 4, 1975.

When I was in college in the 90s my group of friends often disagreed about what should be playing on the stereo at any given times. Usually it was a fight between Grateful Dead and Classic Rock vs. Rave music. Beastie Boys seemed like the one thing that made everyone happy.

A guy I knew in high school was an obstinate Beatles/Robert Fripp/Richard Thompson/early blues fan was also the very first person I knew who had a copy of License To Ill. I remember visiting him in his dorm room and we'd blast that and Psychocandy like a couple of idiots.

The Mets are all using Beastie Boys as their walkup music tonight

Super bumer. Wrote some thoughts here.

i saw them at the ritz for the first show (i think?) of the licensed to ill tour and its still one of the best shows i've ever seen. but i was in high school and probably really drunk. i was up against the stage and got my picture in newsweek magazine. i was bruised from head to toe. skinheads, jocks, b-boys, it was friggin' mayhem. packed to the rafters.

http://a1.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/93/a6b56de2761e1153caa43a0650994202/l.jpg

jon pareles review of that show has a great headline: ROCK: THE BEASTIE BOYS, RAP-METAL GROUP

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/12/29/arts/rock-the-beastie-boys-rap-metal-group.html

I am now listening to Hello Nasty and am about to open my second beer.

RIP once more for good measure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJAGJ8ckmZY

unlike many people itt, I was taking no news as bad news, but that's made it still feel sudden.

From Tim Sommer.

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 5 May 2012 06:45 (3 hours ago)

this is on facebook, does anyone want to post?

Born and Bred in Brooklyn, U.S.A., they call him Adam Yauch, but he's M.C.A. RIP Adam. #beastieboys #nosleeptillbrooklyn

Chuck Schumer
7 hours ago
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this is kinda fucking me up. they represented so many firsts for me. first album i ever bought myself with license to ill. maybe first non-kiddie album i owned period? and even at age eight i knew you wanted to grow up to be the one in the leather jacket who hadn't shaved in three days. entire crowds of children losing their shit like the audience at a black flag show whenever the roller rink dj would plsy a beasties song. first album i ever really had to work to get with paul's boutique. (so many years in between! i thought they'd fallen off the face of the earth. then i saw the "hey ladies" video on vacation and made my parents drive me to every place near colonial williamsburg that even remotely seemed like it might have records. then not being able to make heads or tails of it for months.) i feel like you could almost explain what happened in the 90s, musically and maybe just pop culturally, to a space alien by playing it the three 90s beasties albums.

My wife just suddenly broke into the chorus of "Girls" last night during dinner. Been dancing to Check Your Head with my two year old for the last hour.

Anyway RIP, damn that dude was way too young.

also everyone otm about the trickle-down influences thing. fugazi may have said they were influenced by dub in interviews but the beasties actually gave you artists, albums, whatever to track down.

Almost forgot I saw the Beasties live in '92 in Tempe. Great show. This is fucked up. We've already lost musicians from my youth for reasons of drugs, suicide and murder, but now they're dying of natural causes. too young RIP

can't believe i never saw them. RIP. the beasties were such a presence growing up, it's not right, too young...

its funny to watch hey ladies video now and all i can think of is beck and fatboy slim.

Gotta love the blog journalism:

http://globalgrind.com/entertainment/ll-cool-j-wants-hip-hop-preserve-adam-yauchs-legacy-details

LL Cool J and The Beastie Boys came up together. So when he heard the news that Adam Yauch has passed away, it was no surpise to find out that the "Walk This Way" rapper from Queens wants the world to preserve Adam's legacy.

One of the best shows I've ever seen was Beastie Boys/fIREHOSE/Basehead at the Troc on Philly maybe around '91 or '92, not long after "Check Your Head" came out but before everyone suddenly realized they were still awesome. It was a school night.

fIREHOSe opened when I saw them too

This is so great in every respect:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSPCEeaaIe8

karaoked a gleeful Fight For Your Right tonight for MCA, wherever he is

feel so sad, like we lost a spirit guide or something

but I fkn love this thread right now, all these stories fill me with joy at what he & the Beasties gave us just by being enthusiastic funny earnest awesome music nerds/musicians

fuck fuck fuck

Didn't see if this was posted before, but Sasha Frere-Jones' piece in the New Yorker is great

Love this bit...

In the summer of 1986, I lived in Manhattan near Union Square with my first girlfriend in a duplex owned by a very trusting and foolish adult. In August of that year, my friend Tom Cushman gave me an advance cassette of “Licensed to Ill.” The liner was red letters printed on a white J-card, with either the Def Jam logo or Columbia’s or both. I was as obsessed with the fact of that cassette as the music. We knew somebody on a major label? And it was the Beastie Boys? This was a band whose 1983 single “Cooky Puss,” which is often described as the Beasties’ first “rap” single, is an extended, semi-capable funk vamp over which Mike prank calls a Carvel ice-cream store and somebody scratches a Steve Martin album (and the first Beasties E.P.), not capably. The single is about as commercial as a bag of dead spiders. It also represented the New York we grew up in, where a club like Danceteria would show loopy homemade videos on C.R.T. monitors and dance records were whatever records the d.j. decided to play while you were dancing.

Also...

Rather than being perceived as the first draft of Ali G, the Beasties were taken at face value; many threads got tangled in one of hip-hop’s breakthrough moments. Rap is ridiculously profane and loopy and perfect and anybody can do it and you can use any music you want! Ok bye! And then, two years later, on “Paul’s Boutique,” they took the idea even further: maybe you could rap every word you knew over every record ever made. Sure, why not.

you must be talking about GRRRRUNGE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDyy7TmyOf0

It feels like saying goodbye to my youth suddenly. I know it's stupid and silly. But god damn you cancer. This guy seemed such a sweet and lovable guy. I feel especially sad for his daughter, a mere 14, so she really doesn't deserve this. :-( I thought he had pulled through. I remember the announcement. :-((

RIP. What would the 90's have been without the Beasties? Saw them a couple of times in '94 and it was awesome.

Sad news. Fight For Your Right is my earliest memory of actually hearing music, think I was 5 or so and I can remember instantly repeating the chorus to my parents.

Yeah it's really sad. I've barely even thought about the Beastie Boys for years, I suppose they slipped out of fashion at the end of the 90s and didn't quite come back in properly, Paul's Boutique excepted maybe, and I'd lost the need for music like that in my life since so never went back to them. But now I want to listen to pretty much all of them again - Ill Communication was the album for me, being 15 at the time, and yeah if you look back as an older listener there were always better rappers and probably better hardcore bands but the whole package they bundled it up into was so much fun and totally irresistible.

And yeah hip-hop for white people whatever think about how many listeners ears they opened up and how many great artists they pointed those listeners in the direction of.

his short from last year is free to watch on mubi this week

http://mubi.com/films/fight-for-your-right-revisited

Say what you will about Coldplay generally, but I'm down with any tribute that's sincere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVr4UP9ntLs

it is a testament to something that chris martin did not break character as Sensitive Rock Bro Frontman one time during that.

i kept waiting for him to crack-up at some point. maybe on the porno mag line he will crack up? here it comes. and...no. no. just keeps on being chris martin, heartfelt man.

more NYT fun:

`CH-CHECK IT OUT'

One Goat, on Account

To the Editor:

I had the great pleasure of reading your unsolicited critique of the "Ch-Check It Out" music video ["Licensed to Stand Still" by Stephanie Zacharek, May 16]. It took some time to get to me, as it had to be curried (sp?) on goatback through the fjords of my homeland, the Oppenzell. And in the process the goat died, and then I had to give the mailman one of my goats, so remember, you owe me a goat.

Anyway, that video is big time good. Pauline Kael is spinning over in her grave. My film technique is clearly too advanced for your small way of looking at it. Someday you will be yelling out to the streets below your windows: "He is the chancellor of all the big ones! I love his genius! I am the most his close personal friend!"

You journalists are ever lying. I remember people like you laughing at me at the university, and now they are all eating off of my feet. You make this same unkind laughter at the Jerry Lewis for his Das Verruckte Professor and now look, he is respected as a French-clown. And you so-call New York Times smarties are giving love to the U2 because they are dressing as the Amish and singing songs about America? (Must I dress as the Leprechaun to sing songs about Ireland so that you will love me? You know the point I make here is true!)

In concluding, "Ch-Check It Out" is the always best music film and you will be realizing this too far passing. As ever I now wrap my dead goat carcass in the soiled New York Times — and you are not forgetting to buy me a replacement! Please send that one more goat to me now!

NATHANIAL HORNBLOWER

Manhattan

The writer, whose real name is Adam Yauch, is a member of the Beastie Boys. He directs their music videos under the pseudonym Nathanial Hornblower.

It's funny because I definitely haven't given more than one listen to anything since Hello Nasty, and I was not anticipating that changing, but on the other hand it has hit me really hard.

Though as a couple of people upthread have said, just because he's not making music for me any more doesn't mean he wasn't being a great force for good in the world, and he would almost certainly keep branching out. Kind of surprised I never knew he was behind Oscilloscope.

The Coldplay is the oddest tribute I've seen - on the one hand fuck no! on the other I'm kind of touched by how far his influence spread, and that the band must have spent some time on this, when absolutely no-one would have expected it of them.

well fuck me i cried during that goddamn coldplay tribute fuck you ilx

I'm not meaning to hate on Coldplay here, but Chris Martin has always seemed to be more than a tad self-conscious about his coolness factor or lack thereof, so his love of the Beastie Boys is surely a no brainer, as there was literally no one cooler than the Beastie Boys.

Just talked to a friend who I guess, back in the day, was one of the group's #1 Toronto fans, and hung with Adam the most. She said he was the nicest guy, and that his lifestyle was so clean and had-been for years - vegan, no drinking (I think?), no drugs, not even smoking pot. She's pretty shocked by his death, especially because she had lost touch and, in her current life, hadn't really been following the group.

the beasties more than any group (except maybe tmbg) are a symbol of my childhood and adolescence...this feels like the milemarker from which i will know ever after i am an adult and i don't like it.

i saw them at bonnaroo in 09 and remember not having high expectations, you know, about ten minutes of beasties then i'll go see david byrne. but they put on one of the best shows of my life...i remember being really disappointed after a 60 minute set that they weren't the headliner that night (which was either springsteen or phish).

well fuck me i cried during that goddamn coldplay tribute fuck you ilx

Jesus Christ me too and I really didn't expect it

my little girl was dancing real hard to Check Your Head while we went grocery shopping this morning. Up until "Time For Livin'". That made her cry.

Soul fire
And we ain't got no water

I thought I had written a pretty good bass part until a few years later when I realized I had subliminally stole it from Track 6 of License to Ill.

http://soundcloud.com/r-mantlebakken/come-on-inside

yeah, actually watched and will remember the coldplay video. if I meet him in hell, we'll shake hands

Really emotional watching then get inducted into the rock n roll hall of fame right now

Ha mixmaster mike chopping it up on the wheels with a nuclear assault t shirt is about perfect for the era that birthed the beasties

this is hilarious: Adam Yauch's top 10 films released by Criterion http://www.criterion.com/explore/57-adam-yauch-s-top-10

well fuck me i cried during that goddamn coldplay tribute fuck you ilx

Jesus Christ me too and I really didn't expect it

― cosi fan whitford (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, May 5, 2012 2:50 PM (4 hours ago)

yeah

lol at that criterion list [sniff]

Really emotional watching then get inducted into the rock n roll hall of fame right now

― l0u1s j0rdan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, May 6, 2012 1:56 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ha mixmaster mike chopping it up on the wheels with a nuclear assault t shirt is about perfect for the era that birthed the beasties

― l0u1s j0rdan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, May 6, 2012 1:59 AM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm. but the vibe was kinda ruined when we had to watch Kid Rock and Travie McCoy butcher them. Questlove and Black Thought made up for it though.

Really fucking loved that Questlove had the ABA basketball logo on his kit.

i've seen that banana photo in a couple places accompanying obits/death coverage and it always brings a smile to my face

Perhaps I'm out of it but I blessedly don't know who that travie guy is

Yeah the performance was just ok

So far bette midlers speech about laura nyro and-surprisingly- Mick Hucknall of simply red subbing for rod stewart have been the highlights

Travie McCoy is the dude from Gym Class Heroes and did that "Billionaire" song recently. I'm sure you've heard some stuff he's done.

rip

rip

rip

Awesome, SNL just showed a short little snippet of the Beastie Boys as tribute after the fake news. Has the show ever done that before?

i feel like i might've seen something similar before but still yeah, it was nice, especially using that 'love and respect to the end' part of "Sure Shot" as the clip

Seems like Roy Orbison died on a Friday and the next night, they showed him doing "Crying" in its entirety (at 11:53 pm CST)

keeps hitting me

so sad for his daughter

;_;

vegan, no drinking (I think?), no drugs, not even smoking pot.

he stopped smoking cheeba / that was part of the key

Maybe the least assholey thing I've seen in Perry Farrell in a while:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/perry-farrell-remembers-adam-yauch-20120504

Watching their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame right now on HBO. Just Ad Rock and Mike D. Industry folks must have been tipped so this could happen before he passed away.

LL Cool J said they were the ones who played his demo to Rick Rubin which is how he got signed.

Ad Rock read a note from Adam -- whose folks were in the audience. Pretty special.

Forgot about them being in Beat Street for about five seconds.

All their stuff was such a huge celebration of life. We went to the baseball park on Friday night and they were playing "Johnny Ryall" between innings while the kids ran laps around the concourse. Beeps and I walked past two concession guys who were trading off lyrics to "Paul Revere". There was sadness, but this weekend has definitely felt like more a wake than a funeral.

If this is how you mourn a poet, I hope we do it like this every time.

"They're busting mad rhymes with an 80% success rate. I believe that qualifies as 'Ill. At least from a technical standpoint."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUrsKjTP2Zk

was MCA not on that ep?

MSG playing beastie boys during the knicks/heat game

http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3imo1K5tQ1qz9yvto1_500.png

lol

damn that coldplay thing was awesome and i fucking hate them

isn't there a Mark Sinker essay about the essence of a "band" w/r/t Rolling Stones and Public Enemy ( or was it NWA?) somewhere? anyone know what i am thinking of, any links?

was MCA not on that ep?

nope - how chillingly prescient

actually the chillingly prescient part is

Fry: "Back in the 20th century I had all five of your albums."
Ad-Rock: "That was a thousand years ago! Now we got seven."

Ha!

whoa

they have eight tho, bet yr forgetting The Mix-Up

i'm not sure that one really counts

I always forget that one

It counts(ish). It's not like In Sound From Way-Out, where it was just a comp of previously heard instrumentals. It's a collection of new recordings. No one paid it any attention, though.

Mix-Up ≠ In Sound, frog

Yauch feeding an interviewer mushrooms:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4N01rR0pR4&list=PL95A9B55546080A3E&index=1&feature=plpp_video

^ xpost

sic, that vid is fucking awes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJDo7KAC-sI

I bought 'In Sound From Way Out' on LP when it was first released, and I seem to remember there was some kind of hoop you had to jump through to get the damn thing. Like, coupon in Grand Royal mag or something like that? Hell, I'm old, don't remember. I *did* think that the thing had a lot of exclusive instrumentals, but I looked at the Wiki entry just now and, yeah, I guess it was just the stuff from 'Check' / 'Ill' with like two exclusives

In 3's is :D

I think the first pressing, on "gold" (yellow) vinyl, was originally mail-order only; then after the initial rush of orders, leftover stock was sold to indie or OS record shops - I bought it in-store in Australia, anyway.

No exclusive tracks - Son Of Neckbone was off the Sure Shot 12", and Drinkin' Wine was a Jimmy James/Frozen Metal head b-side - but many of the CYH/IC transplants were different mixes or edits, or vocal-less versions of tracks that originally had chanting or singing.

the video for Mullet Head is sadly instrumental, but it lets you focus on him shredding both bass and powder:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1035wEsQzzA

Why did MCA have to die. Couldn't Drake or Lil' John have died instead.

kebab52 1 day ago 22

feel like we could poll the guys quoted on his wiki page

Yauch died at age 47 on May 4, 2012.[1][26] The cause of death was not immediately known.[27] Upon his death, Russell Simmons of Def Jam Records said that Yauch "was incredibly sweet and the most sensitive artist, who I loved dearly." Ben Stiller tweeted that Yauch "stood for integrity as an artist."[11] Joel Madden of Good Charlotte said of the Beastie Boys: "We wanted to dress like them, talk like them, and we wanted to make music like them."[10] Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam said that Yauch was "a crazy talent whose contributions with his band were inspirational and consistently ground breaking".[28] Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke wrote, "We looked up to the Beastie Boys a lot when we were starting out and how they maintained artistic control making wicked records but still were on a major label, and the Tibetan Freedom Concerts they organized had a very big influence on me personally and the way Adam conducted himself and dealt with it all impressed me a lot. He was a mellow and [very] smart guy. May he rest in peace".[29] Eminem said in an interview "Adam Yauch brought a lot of positivity into the world and I think it's obvious to anyone how big of an influence the Beastie Boys were on me and so many others".[30]

i do not understand your beef

youtubes are acting funny for me so apologies if this was already posted

bboys on chappelle's show, never aired

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPLLEIUYnlk

always dug this '92 letterman appearance, it was the moment I had to admit ok maybe this going back to playing instruments is gonna work for them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8Rs-I2K148

Mix-Up ≠ In Sound, frog

i know but it's only *kinda* counted for me, i see it as more of a 'side' thing like Aglio e Olio, yes it's album length, but it's not really a "Beastie Boys" album

they thought it was but hey if you ascribe to death of the author guess you won

wait, why are we arguing this

new board descrip

we're arguing about it for the sake of my futurama joke

http://www.thealternateside.org/120507/beastie-boys-thank-fans-and-friends-love-and-support

love both those clips

i do not understand your beef

― Bad Company's Drummer's Daughter (stevie), Monday, 7 May 2012 08:20 (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you don't find it hilarious that a member of one of the best rap groups ever dies and his wiki has ben stiller, pearl jam and good charlotte in tribute?

reposting the Chappelle/Beasties clip -- it's getting taken down all over the place which sucks bc it's AWESOME

http://www.egotripland.com/beastie-boys-chappelles-show/

wow that is really some letter of the law bullshit

I can't wait until we are even banned from describing clips with the written word.

clip is doooooope

^^^

yeah

...and it's gone again. that was a great clip.

can someone repost where they can't find/get to it?

http://www.egotripland.com/beastie-boys-chappelles-show/

oh crap hang on, is that version gone now?

ha it's like a virus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVGaP0Np_PA

viacom's a little bitch eh?

that clip should be seen by everyone!

^^^^^^^

cant embed it on facebook :(

It's alright...by the time you'd finished your fb post, the video will have been ganked offline.

maybe just post a link to this

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=videos&search_query=beastie+boys+chapelle&search_sort=video_date_uploaded

Odd how little coverage, if any, the mainstream media has given this

it was on the front page of cnn.com over the weekend.

front page of NYT too

http://www.reviler.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/adam-yauch-cat-e1336422253103.jpg

Made the front page of the NYTimes (below the fold). (oops, xp)

Didn't catch the network news that night, but there was about a 2-minute piece on the CBS morning show on Saturday (and it totally sucked; only clip was FFYRTP, completely omitted Yauch's Buddhism/work for Tibet, and ended with some bullshit tagline like "this 'bad boy' will be missed").

My mum knew about it, so there must've been some coverage.

didn't see it on network news fri or sat. - guess i missed it. Currently, cnn.com home page has only a mention of "artists pay tribute" as the fifth item under the "entertainment" listing

well that's what happens when you die on a Friday

That's crazy, they had a good segment on NPR and I've seen a lot of coverage.

The Washington Times article lives up to the newspaper's batshit insane rep

I saw a couple quick things on local news and Diane Sawyer.

I checked MTV and VH1 a few times and saw nothing more than a 60-second MTV News thing with Sway interrupting an episode of Ridiculousness.

i'm sure VH1 wanted to run something but Jim Shearer hasn't been able to stop weeping long enough to get in front of a camera

Theres like 9 MTV/VH1 channels now, you'd figure at least one of them could've played some B-Boy retrospectives..

I watched the whole music video collection w/the band commentary turned on to start my day yesterday.

i remember watching this when it aired

(@2:39)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB-ya6gBI4w

Billy Corgan
Although I did not know Adam well, I respected him as a spiritual warrior who fought strongly for peace in this world. And whether he ever knew it or not, he had a lot to do with my own spiritual awakening. He led with his heart, and in the conversations we had that's what stands out most; that he was real to his core.

We can only hope that MCA made Billy a better person

that noise is MCA's corpse groaning

I wonder what AdRock and Mike D will make of all the people coming out of the woodwork to say 'a few words'

Probably be nice, not say too much, and go on being pretty chill guys

That MTV compilation vid IT'S SO GOOD

history as it happened

lots of coverage here; on Friday it was the second lead story on the main BBC site for hours.

i certainly can't think of any other musician that i've heard memorialized extensively on the local rock and hip-hop stations

"sometimes overrated as a live act" loool Loder you tool

re MTV compilation clip.

Wasn't Loder the one who said something about drugs/nicotine when William burroughs passed at a ripe old age?

wow @ that video

Was this posted? If not...it's one of my fave tv performances
So Whatcha Want on Arsenio with Cypress Hill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kX_49MTrJo

This Live at PJ's on Letterman is great too, love the way the Late Night Band just totally slots in with that groove
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKNZtRaKLbM

I don't care if we keep posting the same vids over and over

moral panic in australia, the tube 1987

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8bY8UhsYnw

yeah, that MTV Music Awards comp. is an awesome watch.

http://boingboing.net/2012/05/08/rip-mca-supercut-of-adam-yau.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

er
http://www.youtube.com/embed/at5TbukcBDY

goddammit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at5TbukcBDY&feature=player_embedded

fuck

that's cool!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMijdWjWyts

idk if this already got posted but hot damn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0i1iGa96GYM&feature=related

http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3tdn0JXz21qz6f9yo1_500.jpg

hahaha

<a href="http://gawker.com/5908629/requiem-for-a-white-mc";>Slightly bizarre/distateful memoir of a 'beef' by a dude whose place in history seems not so certain as MCA's</a>

eh, i dunno, that's a pretty good piece.

lol figured that was 3rd Bass before I even clicked on it

beef always seemed really one-sided to me, 3rd Bass defensively attacking their peers to make a name for themselves.

never understood how the Professor Booty verses were determined to be directed at 3rd Bass - did the Beasties say that in an interview somewhere or something? cuz the disses are pretty generic

It's kind of a shame that I've seen the Beastie Boys be awesome two or three times, but the last time I saw them, at Stubbs in Austin playing a "surprise" SXSW gig, they were slop-city.

Twere great both times I saw them. Once on IC tour at Brixton and earlier at Town & Country Club where they were co-headlining with Henry Rollins. Beasties played first so they were done by 9pm allowing me to get home nice and early which I appreciated. I'm not v rock n roll.

I dunno, I found that pete nice piece kind of touching in its honesty.

In reality, and despite whatever the Voice cover said, the Beasties had already broken the perceived "street barrier" for white artists performing in a black medium: their 12-inch single off of Licensed in 1986, "Hold it Now, Hit It," had done the job. The record got major play on KISS-FM and WBLS with tons of spins by Red Alert, Chuck Chillout, Mr. Magic, and Marley Marl. For any MC at that time, white or black, recognition like that on the Friday or Saturday mix-shows was the epitome of success.

^ 100% OTM. I knew the beasties from the "she's on it" single and it was cool but also kind of a joke, but when "hold it now hit it" dropped, that was a real rap song and everybody recognized it and it remains to this day my fave beastie jam.

i'm relieved to hear that MCA was black enough for prime minister pete nice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1rvUMO24eI

3rd Bass always struck me as chumpy in much the same way as Vanilla Ice...white dudes trying to be black rappers instead of just rappers. I think that's why Eminem broke through, because you don't ever mistake that guy for being a black rapper. He's just a rapper.

^^^

the first 3rd Bass album is a classic IMO, so much great prince paul, sam sever, simulated dummies production and they were really good rappers, one of my favorites of that era

that article felt sort of uncharitable and weirdly self-obsessed.

however, a couple nice pieces of trivia, which i'm always thankful for:

1) professor x was 3rd bass's manager! amazing!

2) DMX was Just Ice's beatboxer!!!! crazy

3rd Bass, Henry Rollins, Vanilla Ice ... it all comes together!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzXI_ApY4dY

yeah that Professor X bit was news to me, that's bizarre

I went back to that first 3rd Bass album awhile ago and it really didn't hold up imho

the first 3rd Bass album is a classic IMO, so much great prince paul, sam sever, simulated dummies production and they were really good rappers, one of my favorites of that era

that article felt sort of uncharitable and weirdly self-obsessed.

^^^OTM

the first time i saw the beasties, at brixton for ill comms, their different flavours didn't really gell like they do on record, but i have a boot of them in new jersey in 1992 that is simply fantastic.

The only time I've seen them was 2007 at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, I think I said that upthread somewhere. It was one of their 'greatest hits' shows they did when the MixUp came out. They were awesome, whole show was like a big party.

beef always seemed really one-sided to me, 3rd Bass defensively attacking their peers to make a name for themselves.

never understood how the Professor Booty verses were determined to be directed at 3rd Bass - did the Beasties say that in an interview somewhere or something? cuz the disses are pretty generic

― Roger Barfing (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, May 10, 2012 1:57 PM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

MCA's "dancin' around like you think you're Janet Jackson" line on Professor Booty was pretty clearly aimed at Serch.

i liked the cactus album at the time, but haven't heard it in forever

"we are looking for the brooklyn-queens"

^ i thought this was a gay joke

MCA's "dancin' around like you think you're Janet Jackson" line on Professor Booty was pretty clearly aimed at Serch.

I've always heard that, but there were plenty of dancing rappers at the time. Cube had lyrics dissing dancing rappers too, were those all aimed at Serch?

3rd bass invented the gas face so theyre cool as hell forever for that

love pop goes the weasel tbh

Damn, Shakey. Did 3rd Bass take shots at Ice Cube before he started dissing dancing rappers?

The Gas Face, Brooklyn Queens, Steppin' To The AM, Products Of The Environment and a few other tracks on the Cactus still hold up pretty well. I mean what, late '80s Prince Paul and Bomb Squad tracks aren't enough?

rap beef magic eye

pete nice always had nice suits

ade is otm tho

So many wack M.C.'s you get the T.V. bozack
Ain't even gonna call out your names 'cause you're so wack
But one big oaf whose faker than plastic
A dictionary definition of the word spastic
You should have never started something that you couldn't finish
'Cause writin' rhymes to me is like popeye to spinach
I'm bad ass move your fat ass 'cause you're wack son
Dancin' around like you think you're Janet Jackson
Thought you could walk on me to get some ground to walk on
I'll pull the rug out from under your ass as I talk on
I'll take you out like a sniper on a roof
Like an M.C. at the fever in the D.J. booth

i mean, it's probably about 3rd bass because who else would it be about?

its funny i heard those lines a million times but never once thought about who it might be about, or that it was about a specific guy at all

Vanilla Ice? MC Hammer? anyone? rappers routinely attack anonymous targets.

xp

a lot of classic dis tracks drop really specific clues even if they don't name the target outright - referencing particular lines of the target's or stylistic tropes or whatever. the closest thing that Professor Booty has to any of those is maybe the fat ass/dancing line but even that's pretty vague. imho.

like, that's hardly No Vaseline or Takeover or even the Real Roxanne

Vanilla Ice? MC Hammer? anyone? rappers routinely attack anonymous targets.

More like Heavy D? Chunky A? The Fat Boys? or MC Serch?

shakey, who else ever really dissed the beastie boys that publically?

1) Hammer and Vanilla Ice dance but are not remotely "fat asses"

2) Serch is pleasantly plump but i like my white rappers w/some junk in the trunk

3) "Thought you could walk on me to get some ground to walk on" > who else used dissing the beasties to gain rep like 3rd Bass...also the "started something you couldn't finish"

4) Dissing is so out of character for the Beasties, they really occupied their own little world, it would HAVE to be for some reason, someone calling them out, i.e. 3rd Bass

5) Sure, it's vague compared to No Vaseline but I've heard way more vague stuff in disses before, so it's not like this is some unsolveable mystery

tbh by the time CHY came out I had completely forgotten 3rd Bass had dissed the Beasties at all (they had moved on to the GasFace and Pop Goes the Weasel - kinda funny how this band's best tracks are all dis tracks lol)

I'm not saying you guys are wrong - the contextual clues are there - just that they completely went past me with their relatively generic nature.

who else ever really dissed the beastie boys that publically?

there's dis lines on LTI iirc. Granted they're also vague and pretty joke-y but they're there.

I was a schoolboy on the other side of the planet but I still took "someone who'd dissed the Beasties on record to aggrandise himself, who has a fat ass, and dances like Janet Jackson" to be Serch (and was amused/pleased that Pimp Minister Pete Nice got let off)

also The Gas Face came out before Sons Of 3rd Bass afaik

Has any rapper ever dissed the Beastie Boys, besides 3rd Bass?

have any other rappers ever dissed 3rd bass?

lol

okay, i'm wondering if that's the same DMX. it really can't be right? DMX doesn't beatbox.

he goes
WHAT
HAH
WHAT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_DMX ?

sounds right

Pete Nice article is interesting, but shows a complete lack of understanding of the Beasties as a punk band -- which is no sin, but leads to not getting the Beasties at all.

http://networkawesome.com/2012-5-11/beastie-boys-infomercial-for-hello-nasty

i thought it was common knowledge that that DMX started out as a beatboxer in the '80s and that that was how he got his name. apparently Just-Ice worked with a guy called Human DMX, who was neither that DMX nor Davy DMX, though.

maybe?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberheim_DMX

maybe Pete Nice talked a drum machine in that anecdote?

talked TO a drum machine

Wasn't DMX the DJ in Material, among other Laswell projects? Like Herbie Hancock's "Rockit?"

that was D.S.T.

i feel like i'm in a room full of tuomases

Not to worry, I'm sure knowledge of this sort of thing will become more widespread and valuable in the future, so everything should even out.

if only there were some sort of computerized information store we could access

maybe connected via a series of tubes

I just think it's dumb that 3 different guys named themselves DMX.

i feel like i'm in a room full of tuomases

― some dude, Friday, May 11, 2012 9:45 AM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i know, i can't even

I just think it's dumb that 3 different guys named themselves DMX.

― i will show you fear in a handful of nuts (how's life), Friday, May 11, 2012 10:07 AM (48 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there it is, the dumbest post

"Eddie "Guitar" Burns, Guitar Slim, Johnny Guitar Watson... blues musicians sure are dumb assholes."

Fair enough.

But now name me some other rappers named after specific drum machines.

these guys all are (or started out) as human beatboxes, not rappers. that's why they're named after the most common drum machine of the era in which beatboxing flourished.

gr8080 started out as a beatboxer

But now name me some other rappers named after specific drum machines.

― i will show you fear in a handful of nuts (how's life), Friday, May 11, 2012 10:20 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

D-Nice called himself "the TR-808" a lot, Ready Rock C was the "Human Linn Drum" etc etc

And let us not forget Def Jam main man Russell Simmons.

i lolled

^

D-Nice called himself "the TR-808" a lot
Tbf he did say you could just call him d nice

so Pete Nice was named after a guy named after a drum machine, IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW

wait, there a d-nice and a pete nice? so confusedd

Also I knew davy dmx but not human dmx

Though I think it's kinda weird for pete nice to drop it in there and have ppl not assume he's talking about DMX....dude had been around for awhile before he blew up, with that born loser stuff, but it's not out of the possibility that a really young dmx and just could have performed together

Edward III, it's ready to get them confused, just remember pete nice was the prime minister of canada at the the time and also rapped in the ny scene, camron and company did a concept album about his life called ”diplomatic immunity”

Though I think it's kinda weird for pete nice to drop it in there and have ppl not assume he's talking about DMX....

to be fair it was a Deadspin editor's job to clean this up, not Pete Nice's

Pete Nice probably forged the anecdote like he forges baseball memorabilia amirite

said editor probably didn't know there was any other DMX's

listening to "Goin' Way Back" right now...this is one of the best rap songs ever

75 and the Black Spades

my 2 favorite ppl in that song are Muscleman Ron and the homie Zignaut

what happened to this beautiful thread

yeah "going way back" is an all-time jam

what did you guys DO while I was asleep, jeez

sparked a Davy DMX revival and got schooled on the ways of old bluesmen.

Worse ways to spend an evening imo

Nicky Wire dissed the Beastie Boys in the press and even in song

Probably wasn't worth it, bringing 3rd Bass into the thread.

I'm glad I was asleep

xx-post
he was punished for that by having to wear a banana suit though

I was thinking this morning about MCA, and how his gruff voice would have transformed really well into old age.

Don't click on this photo link unless you want to be bummed out. (Yauch at the Jackass 3D premiere in October 2010)

http://media.idahostatesman.com/smedia/2012/05/04/13/59/nURjQ.AuSt.55.jpg

have any other rappers ever dissed 3rd bass?

Well, there's this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8cwkGvWneo

wait, there a d-nice and a pete nice? so confusedd

― diamanda ram dass (Edward III), Friday, May 11, 2012 2:34 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Edward III, it's ready to get them confused, just remember pete nice was the prime minister of canada at the the time and also rapped in the ny scene, camron and company did a concept album about his life called ”diplomatic immunity”

― Bandersnatch Cumberbund (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, May 11, 2012 2:37 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

THAKIG U

http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/294898_3595077807478_1589431533_2848572_785178168_n.jpg

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3wxfjZszN1qziwcco1_1280.jpg

very nice

sweet

Never thought graffiti would make me tear up.

yeah...

OMG

http://gawker.com/5910370/kids-reenact-sabotage-to-honor-the-memory-of-the-late-mca

Just watched that. Nuts.

yeah that's great! a friend of mine is pals w/ the dad.

That's awesome, but they could not have picked a less MCA-centric track, bass aside.

The bass is that song though, ad much as the suspenders and mustaches.

so great, thanks for posting that phil, made my day!

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/578243_3888874617748_1155433306_3563496_474470089_n.jpg

errrrr, maybe a bit too much now.

cool

uhhh at logo

I'm sure Yauch would rather these people spend some time reading up on Tibetan oppression or do a shift at a soup kitchen, but I'm not gonna deny people the opportunity to deal with his death in a way that makes them comfortable.

re: Sabotage not being Yauch enough--the video is the definitive Nathaniel Hornblower Production, so there's that

"Sabotage" video is credited to Jonze, not Hornblower (whereas "Sure Shot" is credited to both)

yeah, there's the misconception lately but it was definitely a Jonze video

aha I stand corrected

This short Q&A between Fricke and Adam Horovitz made me choke up again.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/beastie-boys-adam-horovitz-opens-up-about-adam-yauch-he-was-in-charge-20120523

I blame Scik Mouthy for pointing it out on twitter

When we were in Los Angeles, doing Paul's Boutique, he got this crazy apartment in Koreatown. And he made "A Year and a Day." What happened to the three of us together and all that crap? But I heard that track, and it was some heavy shit. He rapped his ass off. Adam bought a jet pilot's helmet, rigged it with a microphone and recorded the song wearing that helmet.

;_;

I love the bit about the tree. "Anything is better than that tree."

that tree is dope, I had a poster of it on my wall.

good morning.

i wanna give thanks to Mike Kearny for putting together MCA DAY yesterday.

i feel like a bunch of us been walking around lonely bumping into walls.

you got us together, outside and in the sunshine. thank you.

-adam

aww

The bit about Gratitude made me well up.

Love those interviews - there's one with Mike D too. Great that they pay homage to him (prompted by Fricke) by telling these little specific stories about tracks. It's easy to slip into the broad sweep when you're summing up a life but reading about something geeky, like how he made the beat for Paul Revere is so much more powerful to me.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/mike-diamond-on-the-beastie-boys-last-recordings-with-adam-yauch-20120523

Yeah, it's a really nice, personal way of doing it.

Westwood posted this home video from the Raising Hell tour in London, and it is INCREDIBLE: Drunk Beasties, LL Cool J swapping the mic on Slow & Low, MCA stagediving straight onto the floor, Lyor Cohen diving after him to smack anyone who touches him, Russell Simmons rapping along with his head uncovered, LL AND LYOR DOING THE WHOP TOGETHER:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xyrizURRt3o

Elroy was straight up thuggin' in that vid.

saw this billboard up in hollywood last week

http://i.imgur.com/ehV7A.jpg

http://news.yahoo.com/beastie-boys-rappers-bars-ad-181533934.html

Won't be rocking the ads.

ha

rechristened today

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/img/bp/ad-rock.jpg

aw <3

they gave him a park in Canada?

no Canada has been renamed Adam Yauch Park

Got more hits than Stompin' Tom Connors

I dropped my draws she said welcome back bacon

*drawers

Logo of NYC Parks. Did you know that NYC park employees all have "Park Names," Shakey?

I guess they probably do on that TV show as well.

i thought park names were just a thing under commissioner Stern

Probably right

Peace, Yauch.

Hello from Russia! R.I.P. MCA
It was a huge loss for the whole history of hip-hop music, fans, friends and family ...
5 years have passed, but we will remember you forever!

revive of the year

five years!

this still bums me out.

yeah, same :(

yeah

i remember the day and heard so many people blasting beastie boys out of their cars/houses throughout

;_;

Yup

7 years.

fuck

Today we remember Adam Yauch of the legendary Beastie Boys who passed away 10 years ago today. His childhood park in Brooklyn Heights is named in his honor. Visit it at State Street and Columbia Place. pic.twitter.com/yiHrn3zQNR

— NYC Parks (@NYCParks) May 4, 2022

The No Dogs in Space podcast deep dive into the Beasties is very good, particularly good at illustrating how they happened to be in just the right spot to leverage the tenuous connections between the 80s punk and hiphop scenes. They don't emphasize it, but it really struck me as ironic that their dj gear was funded by a settlement with British Airways after a advert used a Yauch bassline without authorization, then six years later, Paul's Boutique.

Yeah, it's pretty bonkers that they happened to see that ad and were able to get some money out of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R374eE_b2NY

Wow, that's pretty insane and incredibly fortuitous.

also kind of bonkers that British Airlines had a copy of a Beastie Boys demo track

IIRC they had released it on a 12-inch at that point. Going from memory, I think "Beastie Revolution" was the B-side of "Cookie Puss".

still pretty obscure!

Yes, totally! That story blew my mind when I read it in the Beastie Boys' book

Here's the guy who did it, telling his side of the story (Beastie Boys talk starts at 1:07)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucrj3BP6vfY

^great find!

I might be conflating this with another story from the book, but I believe Adrock says that he took some of that money to a shop intending to buy a guitar, changed his mind on the spot, and walked out with a Roland TR-808 drum machine instead. And that ended up being the drum machine he used to program the beat for "I Need a Beat" by LL Cool J, the first release on Def Jam.

Nice! Thanks peace, man, that was an amazing find. I don't want to bestow too much credit, but given the chain of events that was set off by that settlement money, that ad man really did the world a solid.

“that ad man”!

Agh, I just saw the 1:07 part and assumed he was an ad guy based on him talking about creating a commercial.

not too hard to believe that Beastie Revolution was this guy’s favourite record for a couple of months tbh

That's the Haysi Fantayzee guy? I'm shattered to see that he didn't wear that hat-thing for the rest of his life.

xp: ok, I had read the words Haysi Fantayzee before but never looked them up. I don't know what to think after watching that. I think I might have a fever.

I ended up listening to a bunch of other clips from that interview. I had never heard of Haysi Fantayzee before. He tells some good stories. Super likable guy.