Tag: Beastie Boys

A love letter to 1981 NYC

If the first chapter of The Beastie Boys Book is a love letter to Adam Yauch, the second (titled: Beastie Revolution) is a love letter to 1981 New York City from Luc Sante. He describes a romantic vision of being a punk kid from a poor, forgotten city that is full of music. It is immersive and beautiful and you can feel the raw energy of a place that’s about to burst (re-burst?) back into America’s consciousness.

A clip from the kindle version, showing a stage that’s about to be vandalized by the crowd.

I think I listened to the author-read version of this chapter like three times and read it at least twice. There are too many bands to name, too many artists, all people who lived on the edge of society and could make a living as a poor artist because living in NYC was cheap.

If you want to fall in love with New York City and early rap and punk music, you could do worse than reading this chapter as a stand-alone essay.

An introduction

Before I get started: the kindle version of the Beastie Boys Book is only $1.99 right now. As much as I enjoy the audiobook, there are pictures and graphic design in the actual book that are also a goddamn delight. But it’s also almost $30 and a brick. So the $2 kindle version, read on the iPad, works pretty good.

There are almost no cultural touchpoints in Wild Card, the introduction to the Beastie Boys Book (with the exception of the Tibetan Freedom Concerts). But it’s a lovely tale of friendship between the three guys in The Beastie Boys, Michael Diamond (aka Mike D), Adam Yauch (aka MCA), and Adam Horovitz (aka Ad-Rock).

This chapter was written by Adam Horovitz, and it could have been Yauch’s eulogy (he passed away from throat cancer in 2014). His love for one of his best friends comes through in every sentence – from being amazed at him going off to go snowboarding after a 16-hour flight to Australia to him knowing how electric guitars worked to Yauch being a guy who always amazed Horovitz.

It’s a great, positive picture of male friendship, and it’s also super-moving. I want to have been Yauch’s friend after reading this chapter, and at the same time to be more like Yauch. He seems like he was a good person.

And that’s one of the things I really like about this book: the love. So much popular culture is about people being cool or angry with each other or making fun of something. This book is not that at all, and we need more love in the world.

It’s one of the reasons The Beastie Boys Book makes me so happy.

Um, hi

It’s been about three months since I posted anything, and four months since I posted regularly. I like posting regularly, but life sometimes gets in the way.

Life got in the way. I got in my own way. Reading got hard, I got burnt out, blah blah blah. These are explanations, not excuses.

But I got inspired. At least, a little tickle of something a couple of weeks ago. And now I need something that isn’t work and isn’t coronavirus to focus on.

So here it is: a chapter-by-chapter listen of The Beastie Boys audio book. Why? Partially because of the trailer for the upcoming Beastie Boys Story:

But I was never a huge fan of their music. I’m still not. But they are fantastic storytellers, and I love a good story.

This audio book, though. It’s SO GOOD. I listened to it last spring and I still regularly think about it. The 1980s and the 1990s were brought back to life.

So the intro credits: they’re read by Reverend Run from Run DMC. Run DMC is still the band who introduced Aerosmith to me. Their version of Walk This Way is the better one, IMHO.

Join me over the next few weeks, as I talk about and share of the various cultural touchpoints, music, and memories that this book brought to the forefront of my brain.

The Beastie Boys Book is a delight

I was never more than a casual, occasional Beastie Boys fan. I listened to this audio book for two reasons: I had a free book on Audible and Linda Holmes enthusiastically recommended it.

The Beastie Boys Book is a history of the band as told by its two remaining members, Michael Diamond (Mike D) and Adam Horowitz (Adroc). It captures their passion and enthusiasm for both New York City in the late 70s/early 80s and music. Their story is a delight to listen to. It took longer than expected to listen to the book because I kept wandering off to Spotify to listen to music I hadn’t heard in awhile or hadn’t heard before. (Someone, bless their heart, made a playlist of all the songs and artists mentioned in the book.)

Specifically, I’d recommend listening to the audiobook. Why? There are a ton of voices, not just theirs, people like Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, and so, so many others read chapters. Not surprisingly, a hugely successful band knows how to put together a quality audio product.

I can’t stop, won’t stop recommending the Beastie Boys Book to everyone in my real life, so here’s me, continuing to do it on the internet.