Yesterday made three months in Argentina. I was going to write a long blog about it and fill you in on how things have been going. They are going very well, but my internet service was down for a day and I lost the momentum for writing about it. I will fill you all in at a later date.
More importantly I want to talk about Adam Yauch.
In all honesty I wouldn't say I was a huge Beastie Boys fan. I was a fan. I owned two copies of "Licensed To Ill" and two copies of "Paul's Bautique". One on cd and one on vinyl each, as well as a few of their other albums. I didn't collect every one, although I should have. They are all gems.
My journey with them, though, begins back in 1986. Like any kid back then I was glued daily to MTV, watching every video that came on the channel. Songs that were popular got heavy rotation, being played up to 10 or more times a day and the Beastie Boys had three back to back hits. "She's On It". "Fight For You Right (To Party)", and "No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn". They toured opening for Madonna and for Run DMC, and their appearance on MTV's New Year's Eve Ball was legendary. They were drunk as hell and stage diving into the crowd. Not that strange now, I guess, but think about it, rap stars stage diving. Yeah, pretty far ahead of their time even then.
(Expand blog to see video)
In 1987 they headlined their own tour, with Public Enemy and Murphy's Law. By this time I had already gone to see Murphy's Law a few times at CBGB and was a big fan. I got a ticket for the show, or I should say that my dad got me and himself a ticket at a local comic book store. (The one and only time I've ever been in a comic book store in my life.)
To this day I have never forgotten the date and location of that show. April 1st, 1987, at the Capitol Theater in Passiac, NJ. It was a life changing experience. I was 16.
As we got inside I saw they were selling t shirts,...
Yesterday made three months in Argentina. I was going to write a long blog about it and fill you in on how things have been going. They are going very well, but my internet service was down for a day and I lost the momentum for writing about it. I will fill you all in at a later date.
More importantly I want to talk about Adam Yauch.
In all honesty I wouldn't say I was a huge Beastie Boys fan. I was a fan. I owned two copies of "Licensed To Ill" and two copies of "Paul's Bautique". One on cd and one on vinyl each, as well as a few of their other albums. I didn't collect every one, although I should have. They are all gems.
My journey with them, though, begins back in 1986. Like any kid back then I was glued daily to MTV, watching every video that came on the channel. Songs that were popular got heavy rotation, being played up to 10 or more times a day and the Beastie Boys had three back to back hits. "She's On It". "Fight For You Right (To Party)", and "No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn". They toured opening for Madonna and for Run DMC, and their appearance on MTV's New Year's Eve Ball was legendary. They were drunk as hell and stage diving into the crowd. Not that strange now, I guess, but think about it, rap stars stage diving. Yeah, pretty far ahead of their time even then.
In 1987 they headlined their own tour, with Public Enemy and Murphy's Law. By this time I had already gone to see Murphy's Law a few times at CBGB and was a big fan. I got a ticket for the show, or I should say that my dad got me and himself a ticket at a local comic book store. (The one and only time I've ever been in a comic book store in my life.)
To this day I have never forgotten the date and location of that show. April 1st, 1987, at the Capitol Theater in Passiac, NJ. It was a life changing experience. I was 16.
As we got inside I saw they were selling t shirts, hats, stickers as they do at every show. I begged my dad to buy me a shirt. He was a super cool guy and never said no to me when it came to things like this, but for some reason he kept telling me that I was only allowed to get a hat.
The tickets we had gotten were last row seats. The very last row. The one at the very back of the auditorium. I don't think that really would have mattered all that much to me now as the Capitol Theater really wasn't that big of a venue. I'd have to guess, maybe 500 - 700 seats. Every spot in the place had a pretty good view.
During Murphy's Law the crowd was pretty thin and they did what every opening act does, play their best and hope to get exposure. Public Enemy, on the other hand, was a whole 'nother story. They took the stage as if they were the headliners. Their songs were brutal and poignant. They had dancers in military uniforms holding guns. Wait, toy guys. Toy guys? Yeah, well that was enough for this audience. They thought that they were crap and booed them off the stage. I was blown away and immediately got their debut lp. "Yo, Bum Rush The Show." Another classic to talk about another time.
Their was no way I could stay in the last row when the Beastie Boys came on. I asked my dad if I could sneak down front and he said, "Go for it." It proved easier than I expected and I made it all the way to the four or fifth row without any problems and squeezed in next to some older kids.
The Beastie Boys were made for the stage. They aren't people, they are caricatures of themselves. Always clownin' the audience, each other, their manager, anyone who got in their radar. On stage with them they had a giant inflatable penis, a semi naked dancer in a huge bird cage, and "Between the turntables (they kept) the vodka and the mixes" Actually between the turntables there were buckets full of Budweiser. Their DJ/bartender back then was Hurricane and no matter where they were on stage all they had to do was put a hand in the air and he had a beer can flying to that hand immediately. It was truly a sight to behold. Usually they took one or two sips and then poured the rest on the crowd.
The energy in that audience was made entirely of electric. You could sense you were seeing something important, groundbreaking. I mean, think about it, three white Jewish kids who could out rap any of the classic MCs.with songs that had hooks sampled from Led Zeppelin and War. They were legends in the making and everyone there knew it.
After their set they came out to do two encores. The first was planned, but the second was a special treat. Since they had only a few singles and one album at this time they redid two earlier songs from the show in order to film them for a future video. I still to this day don't know if that was ever released or not, but it doesn't really matter.
Just before the second encore my hat got stolen off of my head by the huge guy behind me. I turned to him and looking directly at him wearing both my hat and another told him, "Give me my fucking hat back." He pretended not to hear me till I shoved him and said it again. He tried playing stupid and said that he bought two. He was nearly twice my size and I was alone so there wasn't much I could do but give in. What I said next to him I won't repeat, but it came out of my mouth in the heat of rage and even though I was much smaller than him I was surprised he didn't kill me for saying it. He was a person of color, as they say. Use your imagination.
After the show I made my way back to my dad forlorn that I had to tell him my hat had been stolen. He was such a great guy I felt like I was letting him down. I didn't dare ask him to get me another, nor for the shirt I so desperately wanted. But as we passed the stand I saw the reason why he refused to get me one, on the front it had the Beastie Boys logo, on the back it read, "Get Off My Dick" in huge letters. That would have gone over really well in my school.
Out of curiosity I did a search for that show and came up with THIS LINK. The entire show, as recorded from the audience. Simply amazing. Listen to it on headphones as loud as possible and it will take you there, I promise.
I saw the Beastie Boys at least 4 more times through the years and never was the show boring or the trip to and from the show uninteresting. In going to see them you became one of them, a part of their mad adventure. At Rutger's Stadium in New Brunswick, NJ both me and my friend Jay got in even though we arrived to the sold out show without tickets. Him, by buying a ticket off of a scalper who wanted $50 and Jay handing him a 5 dollar bill crumpled up around a bunch of singles, grabbing the ticket and running for the door. Me by simply walking between the two lines of ticket takers, and past two security guards. I just walked in. No one noticed. Try it some time.
At another show in North Carolina, later that same week we found an open garage door and walked in again. The garage door lead us backstage to their dressing room, so we let ourselves in. Jay, trying to make like we belonged there walked straight over to their buffet table and began helping himself to their beer and food and they sat bewildered not ten feet from us wondering who the fuck we were.
And after getting thrown out a few minutes later we simply walked back around to the same garage door and snuck back in to the show.
Their tour bus that year had a sign in the front that read, not "Chartered", but, of all things, "Weird Al Yankovik."
In Washington DC, when I went to see them I had won the tickets on a radio station. At the show during their performance in RFK Stadium, an open air venue, a kid was struck by lightning and the gig had to be cancelled.
Never a dull moment.
I can only imagine what their actual lives must have been like. Adam Yauch, Adam Horowitz, and Michael Diamond. Three bad brothers you know so well. They paved new ground, blazed new trails, left us with amazing memories, and incredible albums. Losing Adam for me is like losing a part of my childhood. I was so devastated by the news that it actually took a few hours for it to sink in how much he meant to me. How they won't be able to carry on without him. It saddens me more than words can possibly describe.
A few days ago, I woke up to the sad news that Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys had lost his battle with cancer and passed away.
As the sun started to set in Hobart, Australia -- where I was performing that night -- I became sadder and sadder. I wanted to talk about him during the show but, not having had much time to think about what I would say, I didn't want to get anything wrong or in any way be misunderstood. So I said nothing about him and kept it all to myself.
Last week, I was in a gym and on the television was one of those endless "best of" music video marathons. The show played the Beasties' "Sabotage" video. I don't know how many times I have seen this mini-masterpiece directed by Spike Jonze, but it never fails to knock me out every time. The talent of Adam and his cohorts Mike D and Ad-Rock is a very large and deep pool.
I was very lucky to have had the opportunity to tour with the Beastie Boys and watched almost every set they played on all those dates. Why not? You do your set and then you get to see the Beasties play? Best deal in town.
Never was any show a letdown. The fact that they would break away from the rap material and actually play instruments onstage -- sometimes to the dissatisfaction of some of their MTV-generated, ADHD-addled youth fans -- made it all the more impressive. They were a real band, and if they had to test the patience of some kid at his second concert, all the better. The Beastie Boys were completely impressive and you could tell their love of music was the real thing.
Not to get too music critic on you, because those parade watchers are such a pain in the ass, but the Beastie Boys in my opinion pulled off quite an amazing feat years ago that bears mentioning.
The Licensed to Ill album made the band famous all over the world. The work, a sonic force to be reckoned with, combined humor, beats and enough politically incorrect material to repel and attract in equal numbers. They could have broken up after that album and their reputation would have been cemented.
Unlike so many other bands that have a successful first album, they did not attempt to re-create it with their follow-up. Instead, they released one of the most stand-out albums of the 1980s. Paul's Boutique is one of the best damn records of all time. Nothing at all like what came before it.
The level of humor, sophistication, arrangement and sheer brilliance of the overall album was completely mind-blowing. As far as a band totally changing the game, taking it to a different place and knocking it out of the park, only a few comparisons can be drawn. Immediately, the transition that the Velvet Underground made from their debut to the roaring clang of White Light/White Heat comes to mind.
Not everyone was as enthusiastic; the album got some tepid and less-than-great reviews. It was edifying to see how ill-equipped some of these pedants were to wrap their ears around something so different. Perhaps they couldn't conceive the same band that brought them "Fight for Your Right (to Party)" could also deliver "The Sounds of Science." All of them, if they were worth their weight in the free records that were wasted on them over the years, had to come back around and admit they were caught flat-footed by the band, much like their corny ancestors had to concede that Miles Davis kicked their ass with his On the Corner album.
And from there, it was the Check Your Head album and breakout recognition for the band all over the world. As the albums and tours stacked up, audiences got a chance to understand that the Beasties were a very heavy and socially aware unit.
They were about so much more than music. They can be thanked, and Adam Yauch can be thanked in particular, for helping to bring young people in the Western world to an awareness of the state of Tibet and the draconian grip the Chinese government has on the good people there. My visit to Tibet was very much inspired by Adam. I thought of him every day when I was in Lhasa.
While it is incredibly saddening that he has passed away, one can be inspired by the fact that the man gave more than he got, and he got plenty. Beastie Boys albums will stand the test of time quite well. Adam's contributions to human-rights causes have no doubt not only improved the lives of countless others but saved lives as well.
Where music and activism meet is not always the most unmuddied water, but Adam's work to bring awareness to the plight of Tibet hits an altruistic altitude that in itself almost shoves all that great music to the other side of the room. So, while it is damn hard to take that he is gone, what he put into the time he was living occupies a very bright and beautiful place that will never dim or diminish. Adam's life is a standing inspiration.
Rest in peace, Adam. Woot woot, it's the disco call.
I'm going to go with the stage diving came from their punk band days. Their live stuff with them play instruments is amazing. People have no idea just what amazing musicians those guys actually are.
<3 XOXO ... muaaaaaaaa
Chrysis