Sometimes, music can be so brilliant, so original and so creative that it occupies just about genre and soundwave it can get its hands around. In a sense, it’s inescapable. It’s the exception to every rule. It’s popular, yet acclaimed from even the fiercest of critics. Its timelessness — its flawlessness — will always remind everyone that some music (as well as the creators behind it) is just impossible not to like. Whether you’re a hip-hop head that hates heavy metal, a metalhead who hates hip-hop, a hardcore kid stuck in the past listening to old Reagan Youth records, or simply an ignorant non-music lover, you fucking love the Beastie Boys. Even if you’ve been living on the moon for the past twenty years and don’t know who they are, chances are you still already love a song or two, because being lovable is just one of many attributes these three New York Jews were the embodiment of. They dared to be different, to create, to live life to the fullest, and most of all to be themselves. This month, Pit Therapy and members of the Last Rites community honor Adam Yauch — a man who undoubtedly lived life to the fullest, and died at peace with the world and with himself. So here’s to you, good brother. May the fans of your music, and your loved ones spend a lifetime honoring both your music, and the music you helped inspire. We love you, we’ll miss you, but your spirit will live in through your music. Forever.
Pit Therapy knows that there’s nothin’ wrong with a little blood between friends. Let’s set it off with this old-style breakdown in “Heart Attack Man.”
Ramar Pittance’s take:
Music critics like to casually dismiss the old. We buy into the idea that musicians should be put out to pasture before 30 or by their third album lest they tarnish the narratives we’ve created on their behalf. Gone too soon at 47, Adam Yauch (MCA) defied all that. Some musicians pass on before they’re ever given the chance to disappoint us, others wander sadly through galleries of past accomplishments hoping to recapture a lost spark. Not MCA, who thrived as an artist and a man for far longer than we deserved.
The Beastie Boys began as a hardcore punk band playing shows along bands like Reagan Youth and the Bad Brains and become one of hip hop’s most influential outfits–throughout they were a clearinghouse of cool, a group dedicated to the idea of style as extension of self. The Beastie Boys were able to thrive across genres because they were astute listeners and players. “Gratitude,” off 1994’s Check Your Head, is a stoner rock joint driven by a Yauch bassline that even Geezer Butler couldn’t deny. Perhaps the Beastie‘s most iconic cultural moment revolved not around any rhyme spit by any member of the trio, but in Yauch’s hammering bass run that gave way to Ad-Rock’s raging “Caaaan’t Staaaand Ittt!!!!” in “Sabotage.” 2009’s Deluxe Version of Hello Nasty features a bonus track of of Yauch gradually sussing out the bassline to “Remote Control” as Ad-Rock lays down a undistorted guitar riff. MCA was always in the cut.
Nearly three decades into a career spent almost entirely in the spotlight, the Beastie Boys were a constant standard bearer of quality. Yauch, the human being, was an outspoken advocate for human rights–a role he carved out for himself consciously and lived with integrity. He was also a damned excellent filmmaker–2009’s “Gunnin’ For that Number One Spot” peeks into the world of prep basketball, finds some truth, and like Yauch himself, is unerringly savvy.
Again, critics are quick to ask artists to quit. To spare us the recurring images of Mays as a Met, KISS licking it up. With MCA, the call never came. We always wanted more MCA–we’ll always want more Adam Yauch.
“We want body rockin’, not perfection.”
Yauch gave us both.
Andrew Edmunds’ take:
I’ve never been what anyone would consider a fan of hip-hop — I don’t dislike it universally, but I don’t quite “get it,” even in its best moments. But the Beastie Boys were more than just a hip-hop act — they were something I could understand; they were rappers in a rock band or maybe rockers in a rap band; they were musicians, punks, artists, clowns, activists… Their music crossed boundaries and became a thing of its own — there were really no other groups like them; there never have been, and there may never be again. I won’t pretend that I listen to them everyday, or that I’d even broken out any of their records regularly in the past few years (though, like all who survived the 80s and 90s, I have spent many an hour with License To Ill, Check Your Head and Ill Communication). Their recent induction into the largely useless institution of the Rock’n’Roll Hall Of Fame brought them back onto my radar. As you can see, I don’t hold much stock in the Hall, but every now and then, usually by accident, they get one right, and this one is undeniably deserving of induction, a band equal parts comical and intelligent, groundbreaking and just simply great. The tragic loss of Adam “MCA” Yauch only a few weeks later has left me surprisingly saddened — I never knew the man, of course, only the music, but nevertheless, it rightfully feels like the world lost a good man, and it’s again undeniable that music lost a great voice. RIP MCA.
Arian Gjatollar’s take:
After some ponderance to recollect what the Beastie Boys meant to me, I can say for certain as a young child born in the late 80s and reaching adolescence a decade later they helped contribute and served as an early influence for my appreciation for rowdy, raunchy and loud music coupled with exposing me to a form of humor that helped develop my own with their music videos.
Oliverio Casás’ take:
As an 80s child, there are too many memories of my life with the Beastie Boys.
Here are my top 3:
1. Shouting “fuck yeah!” when MTV news announced that Licensed to Ill had bumped off Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet from the #1 position in the Billboard chart, back in January 1987… or was it February? My memory’s a little rusty there.
2. The 20-minute-plus version of “Sabotage” I did with a joke band I had in college in 1993 on a Spring Festival gig… We called ourselves the “Bestial Zombie Morbid Devasters” and did death metal versions of pop songs just for the heck of it. I remember being blind drunk, having a blast and ad-libbed lines in Spanish, English and French while nobody in the audience had a clue at what we were doing.
3. My one-year-old daughter shaking her little rump to the sound of “Body Movin’” last February.
Konrad Kantor’ take:
Tough Guy, Your Shit Is Weak
Tough Guy, You Fucking Freak
Tough Guy, I’ll Stick Your Shit
Tough Guy
If you’re interested in tracking down some of the early hardcore brilliance of the Beastie Boys, you can start right here! Okay, so now that Pit Therapy has established that mixing hip-hop and hardcore doesn’t have to consist of artists who play annually at Disney’s The Gathering of the Juggalos and don’t know how to play instruments, it’s only appropriate that we briefly point out some of the creative ways hip-hop has continued to influence the lifestyles of hardcore and metal. Again, these are merely a few brief shout-outs. The obvious point of this exercise is to celebrate the vast influences of MCA, Mike D and King Ad-Rock in all walks of life.
From bandanas to high socks and bouncin’ around, this most-famous track by Suicidal Tendencies cries out a love for MCA.
Even hardcore skinheads have a soft spot for LicenseTo Ill.
Moe from Cipher knows that technical metalcore and hip-hop can mix if you do it right!
Turnstile might be fresh to the scene, but we know that they studied all the old school dance moves of Mike D before taking the stage.
Say what you want about E-Town Concrete, but their straight-from-the-heart style brought more passion to what would be the last Hellfest (NJ) than any other band that weekend.
I think MCA would approve of some of this ill shit!
So as you can see, MCA was one of three fine men who are responsible for opening up a world of new possibilities in music, style and thought. But most of all, he taught us that you’ll get further in life if you’re not afraid to be yourself. Now I don’t know what his last words were, but if he wanted us all to know something, I have a strong feeling it would be just that. RIP.
