The Beastie Boys Book is not really what the reviews claim A Love Story to Adam Yauch . The book is a series of essays written by the Beastie Books, and read by a series of celebrity narrators. I did not know very much about the Beastie Boys until I read this book. I listened on Audible Inc. The quality of the narration really varies from good to poor. Often they pick someone to read the story who with a bad voice. The best essays are the ones by Mike Diamond. In the beginning they pick someone who sound like I image a young man would sound a good choice. Suddenly I am listening to LL Cool J, then I am listening to a woman. I am like I guess this is the one by the girl in the band named Kate? But no they found a random woman with a weak voice to read another brilliant Mike Diamond essay. This effectively kills the essay. I love LL Cool J and all but he is not the right choice, and neither is a woman a good choice to read a story written by a man unless its from a woman’s point of view or the character is female. It goes both ways, I don’t want to hear a man reading a story told by a woman. I don’t even know who was in charge of this poor narration, but I am lucky they did not pick a Blackstone Reader with an English Accent to read it. I should be grateful for that. I wish they would refrain from shouting, as I use the book to fall asleep on a timer.
The book is a wonderful source of nostalgia for things past. The book also explains how The Beastie Boys transitioned from a hard core punk band that was going nowhere to a hip hop band. They bought all the hip hop music they could find and listened to it over and over. They taught themselves to dance, rap and have stage presences. The book is story of triumph. I recommend it.
I remember hearing the Beastie Boys on an interview on either the Howard Stern Show or on the Alex Bennet Show. Howard Stern replaced Alex Bennet in San Francisco at some point. The radio station The Quake or Live 105 thought they could increase ratings by signing up to get Howard Stern’s Show syndicated. Howard was working in New York and his program had music on it. He was still a DJ, but he did a lot of talking, and there was comedy. The show was similar to Alex Bennet and Joe Regelski. Joe Regelski was the Newsman like Robin is Howard’s News Woman. The songs I heard were the not on albums songs. Girl you know its True (Mike D is in Love) and I’m Down.
I’m Down was a remake of the Beatles Song. I assume they could not get permission to put it on an album. They did the songs live in the studio, I believe, but they could have been prerecorded. I recorded them on a cassette. I pressed record on my boom box, so I got to listen to them again and again. I remembered all the lyrics years later.
I had seen the MTV Video Fight For Your Right to Party, and I owned a tape of License to Ill, but I did not really follow the Beastie Boys later careers. I saw a later video, but it was kind of strange with a lot of animation that was colorful, but no actors. It was not really good, so I did not plan to spend money on buying further CDs. That was when I stopped listening. But, now I could go back and listen on Apple Music to see if I have find any interesting songs. The new style was more experiential then Hip Hop. I did not find it terrible and it may have grown on me, but that was the way it worked. If the record was not something you would listen to over and over, you did not buy it.
Macy Makes Magic 