beasties book

[a duncandisorderly]

anyone got a copy? well, I'll have one soon.
in the meantime, here they are plugging it on late-night tv:

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

[Better Midlands]

Nice 1hr interview here from a couple of months ago

https://youtu.be/NwX9xmLkG64

[Malcy]

https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,69800.0.html

Audiobook as well with a huge list of readers.

[a duncandisorderly]

ta. I wish the search function worked. now I feel like I've created clutter.

[magval]

I'd a flip through it in Waterstones. It seems far too lovely too ignore in favour of the audiobook, I reckon I'll read it first and listen to it much later, like with the Partridge books.

Only halfway through the Beasties catalogue though. They've quickly become one of my favourite groups ever, in just a few months.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I've been keeping an eye on this. Definitely on the list.

[Swoz_MK]

Getting this off Mrs Swoz for Chrimbus. Interesting to see MC Serch is one of the audiobook narrators given MCA's diss on Professor Booty. Hopefully he's reading that bit.

[Ja'moke]

I've been working my way through this. It's very good, and very nicely put together. I like that they hold themselves accountable for some of their dodgy antics in their late 80s era. It's also very funny.

[Lord Mandrake]

I'd a flip through it in Waterstones. It seems far too lovely too ignore in favour of the audiobook, I reckon I'll read it first and listen to it much later, like with the Partridge books.

Only halfway through the Beasties catalogue though. They've quickly become one of my favourite groups ever, in just a few months.

I only realized this a few years ago, that they're my favourite. I heard them since 89 (we even took the VW signs) and always liked them and amassed their records and magazines and videos but never quite heard the full sound, even the earliest stuff until recently.

The audio book I can report, is pure joy.

[Paaaaul]

I'm 6 hours into the 13 hour audiobook, and they've just got to the recording of Licensed To Ill. It's been fantastic so far, but I'm slightly worried it's going to rush through other interesting stuff later.

[DrGreggles]

Ordered the hardback. Will get the audiobook too.

[a duncandisorderly]

I heard them since 89 (we even took the VW signs)

I was working in liverpool from 1984-89, so I was there when they lobbed a can of budweiser into the crowd at the royal court or wherever it was... but my introduction to them was at a house-warming party for one of the stars of the soap I worked on; her 13-year-old son was holed up in his room blasting LTI while the grown-ups did what they did, & I went to see what the noise was, mainly because I heard bonham in there somewhere. the following week, the badge was gone from our golf, & I decided not to miss punk this time around.

the last time I saw them was (I think) 2009 or 2010; a mate at work rang me & said
"you want to see the beasties at the roundhouse tonight?"
hell yes.
"there's a wrinkle... "
go on...
"we've got special tickets, side of the stage, some after-show access...."

happy days.

[PaulTMA]

The audiobook is complete and utter joy.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Some geezer on reddit has built a comprehensive playlist for each of the lads based on influences they mentioned in the book.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Soz, forgot the link. What a wally.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/9z3zbg/i_created_mike_ds_adrocks_and_mcas_playlists_from/

[Sin Agog]

Oh great, another bleedin' Beatles thread!

[magval]

Slight derail here - I've been working my way through Beasties in release order and I've hit a major wall with Hello Nasty. In the car, on the bus, at home - I'm finding it very hard to get into. The Lee Perry song leaves an awful taste and very little from the rest of it sticks. After about four or five listens, the album feels a little false. Too dense, maybe.

Can anyone convince me otherwise? Is this a common stalling point? Through what lens can I try looking at it to make it register in that glorious way seemingly impenetrable albums sometimes do?

[poodlefaker]

Hello Nasty is their big, everything-dialled-up late 90s album, very much of its time, I think: think OK Computer, Chemical Brothers, Prodigy etc. They'd been achingly hip for years, since the early tabloid stories had died down: if you mentioned the B-Boys to your Oasis-fan mates in 1995 they thought you were mad - all they knew was Fight For Your Right...but with HN it felt like they really went overboard, and it lacks the looseness and grooves of Check Your Head and Ill Communication.

[Shaky]

Slight derail here - I've been working my way through Beasties in release order and I've hit a major wall with Hello Nasty. In the car, on the bus, at home - I'm finding it very hard to get into. The Lee Perry song leaves an awful taste and very little from the rest of it sticks. After about four or five listens, the album feels a little false. Too dense, maybe.

Can anyone convince me otherwise? Is this a common stalling point? Through what lens can I try looking at it to make it register in that glorious way seemingly impenetrable albums sometimes do?

I felt exactly the same way about Hello Nasty when it came out - too pristine, scattershot, style over substance, too much going on yet none of it really sticking - but now, some two decades later, it's probably the one I listen to most. It sticks out like a sore thumb in their catalogue and there are admittedly a handful of weak tracks but there is much deep gold at every turn for those who persevere, which is a little bit ironic considering how poppily it was received at the time.

This little nugget from the second-half of Nasty is easily a top-five Beasties track for me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPOd2_IhKCY

Advice for improved enjoyment? Just listen to the album a lot.

The Lee Perry track is pretty duff, mind...

[Sebastian Cobb]

Hello Nasty was probably what originally got me in to them as I was about 11 when it came out.

I definitely like it, Paul's, Check Your Head and Ill Communication are the trifecta, but I think Hello Nasty is where they really solidified themselves as musical polymaths.

[magval]

And how are the remaining three? I remember listening to most of Hot Sauce when it came out and off the back of the long video Yauch directed, but it was in my downloading-and-not-paying-for music days so I really didn't care about anything.

[non capisco]

My problem with everything from Hello Nasty onwards is that they used the same "Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-DUH! Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-DUH!" rhyme pattern on every rap song they did. You know, the 'Intergalactic' one where they all chime in on the last word of every line. It started to feel quite lazy and mechanical. They were still blistering live in that period but my fierce love of the Beasties' recorded output hits a bit of a wall after 'Aglio e Olio', the hardcore EP they put out in '95 with 'Brand New' on it. There was a three year gap after that and Hello Nasty where I'd argue they lost a certain amount of essential spontaneity and warmth due to the dread influence of renewed critical and cultural regard. I think they were at their absolute peak when they were under the assumption that no-one was going to give a shit about them again (Paul's Boutique) and when no-one actually was giving a shit about them (Check Your Head, the recording of Ill Communication). I don't think I've listened to 'To The 5 Boroughs' or 'Hot Sauce Committee' more than once each whereas every last millisecond of Paul's Boutique is imprinted on my mind til the day it collapses.

PURCHASING GUIDE
If Mike D looks well fed
You will nod your head
If gaunt he appears
it might end in tears

[Sebastian Cobb]

Back in 1999 the Beastie Boys played Glasgow and MTV recorded it and it was amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJYfOGb3sKw&t=2479s

[popcorn]

Back in 1999 the Beastie Boys played Glasgow and MTV recorded it and it was amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJYfOGb3sKw&t=2479s

The moment when they run on stage in that is one of my favourite live performance moments ever.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

I feel the same about Beastie Boys as I do about Steve Albini or Manic Street Preachers.

There are a few things by them that I really like, the early albums are bloody good fun if you play them in quick bursts... but I'd generally rather hear them talk about music than actually playing any. Because they've got an interesting history, they've been around some scenes and got lots of gossip and opinions. But listening to the later/most recent stuff is a bloody chore.

I've enjoyed dipping in to their book, I like the structure, I like reading about the early hardcore phase and how they coped with fame. I might even buy some of their other records, though they'll probably end up in a second hand shop not long afterwards.

I thought Paul's Boutique sounded really interesting when I read the bad review of it on teletext way back in the day. I really regret not buying a copy, because then I could claim I was someone who knew it was a great album, at that point when the consensus was they were hasbeens who wouldn't be relevant in the 90s. At one point their prospects were somewhat worse than those of Blur before they discovered they were a mod band.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I'd consider the beasties the opposite of people like Albini (see also, pj Harvey or bjork) they are musical polymaths that never took themselves seriously.