In 1999 I was in eighth grade. To get on the internet, I had to have my parents enter in the password before the modem dialed up our internet provider. Clever me, I tacitly installed NetZero and was able to get on the internet without their knowledge. Once online, I downloaded Napster, and the first song I downloaded is the Beastie Boys’ “Intergalactic.”
Flash forward a couple of months. I’m on a week-long church confirmation trip. My parents give me $100 to spend on souvenirs and to use on the roller coaster at Mall of America. The first stop our coach bus made was at a Wal-Mart in Wisconsin, and I dropped $35 on the Beastie Boys’ The Sounds of Science compilation. When the trip was over, my parents asked for their remaining money back. I told them there was none and lied about how I spent the money. Then they found all the CDs I bought. They were not happy, but for reasons I don’t remember, my dad was really not happy I bought a Beastie Boys album.
I didn’t care. I was smitten. I ripped the CD onto my computer, and put it in in the file folder for The Sims, so I, and by proxy, my Sims, could listen to the Beasties even when I was building a virtual suburbia.
The Beasties were the first band I was obsessed with. As such, I unequivocally recommend reading the Beastie Boys Book.
It’s really a 590 page eulogy to MCA. He was the secret sauce that held the group together. Think about how hard the beat to “Paul Revere” is 30 plus years later. That’s MCA. Who made “Hold It Now”? MCA. Who drove Adrock’s mom all around Manhattan in some beat up MG convertible? MCA.
But it’s not too nostalgic or saccharine; it’s full of fun tales of all sorts of characters. There’s a story about Biz Markie which is literally two sentences, and it’s the funniest thing in the book. Did you know that the Beastie’s hung out with Mick Jones and MCA re-taught him how to play “Clash City Rockers”? Apparently so. Also, I knew the Beasties moved to LA and smoked a bunch of weed, but I didn’t know they smoked that much weed.
After two decades of listening to the Beasties, when I read a chapter by Adrock or Mike D, I heard their voice in my head as I was reading. Effortless pop culture name drop? No problemo. There were so many name drops, as I scrambled to Google these names I started to feel like I was reading the footnotes in Infinite Jest. But it’s just like their music. Who the heck is Sadaharu Oh? Google that shit. Or if it was 1992, usenet that shit.
Since there will never be any more music made by the Beasties, the book is the most fitting coda to their career. It’s just like their albums: full of different voices and timbres, styles, and genres of prose. Not all the essays are great, and at times it feels a little bloated like Ill Communication, but overall the book is an excellent capstone.
Could a group like the Beastie Boys be created today? I’m not so sure. So much of who they are was made possible by this pre-Giuliani NYC and just a devout passion to music that I do not believe is possible in this age of streaming. Plus, the Beasties really reformed themselves. Dollars to donuts you’ll never see another group go from being so obnoxious and misogynist to reformed equality crusaders. However, they still own the hydraulic phallus from the Licensed to Ill tour, and once a year it’s um, erected, at a New Jersey storage unit.
I walk a mile to my office each way, every day, and I usually refrain from carrying books more than 300 pages because I’m as old as Licensed to Ill and my back can’t handle big books, a laptop, and a lunch. I made an exception for this book and it was worth the pain.
PS – the index is fuckin’ awesome.
