praxis1966
12th November 2004, 09:52
I was farting around on the 'net and found this. I thought maybe the B-Boy fans would wanna ch-check it out.
Beastie Boys are a wind-em-up-and-watch-em-go kind of interview. For instance, ask them if they've decided on a support act for a tour and they instantly start sparking off of each other.
"I don't want to give away too many secrets" says the gangling Mike D conspiratorially, "but Adam is in talks with a performing dog troupe."
When this is met with a cry of disbelief, Ad-Rock is quick to drum up some support for his plan: "Tell me you wouldn't want to see that. You go to a show and see dogs doing tricks? That would be great."
"What if the dogs bite?" wonders MCA, aka Adam Yauch, in his distinctive rasp.
"'Beastie Boys and Dog Show!'" marvels D, before reproving MCA. "The dogs would be separated from the audience."
"Also the Sasquatch is trying to get a slot on the tour ..." adds MCA, referring to the Northwest's mythic man-beast.
"He can't even get a passport!" says D, sensibly. "How is he gonna go on tour?"
Watching the three members of Beastie Boys lose themselves in this labyrinth of cross talk, two things become clear. The first is that trying to get them to speak any sense is an exercise in futility. The second is this surreal combustion is exactly the kind of chemical reaction which has made the trio responsible for some of the best records of the last 20 years.
Their latest, To the 5 Boroughs, might be their best album since New York's illest MCs played real instruments on 1992's Check Your Head. Inspired by the city's recent tough times and rich hip-hop culture, it's an old school disc that gets away with sampling "Rapper's Delight." And the Beasties wit is on point: as the rhymes spill forth, the crew name-checks challah bread, Crazy Eddie, Sanford & Son, Polar explorer Ernest Shackleton, and George Whipple, a local cable anchorman with the thickest eyebrows in the biz.
So yes, it's been a long time since their last album (Hello Nasty was way back in the last millennium), MCA will be 40 next year, and George W. Bush is a playa hater. Now that the preliminaries are out of the way, sit back and let the Beasties blow smoke and tell their tales taller than the Empire State Building. You know, in a crazy way, it makes sense.
VH1: Was To the 5 Boroughs a conscious effort to go back to straight hip-hop?
MCA: It has been highly disputed at what stage along the way we decided to make it an all hip-hop record. We actually had some fistfights among ourselves on that subject.
Ad-Rock: Yauch threw me into a thing of poison ivy, he was so mad at me.
MCA: What he said was a misunderstanding, because I thought he liked poison ivy.
Ad-Rock: Which is a crazy argument, because who's going to want to get thrown in poison ivy?
MCA: I like poison ivy. I put that sh*t on my sandwich. I eat it like asbestos. I don't even care.
Mike D: [incredulous] You eat asbestos?
VH1: There's a song called "Shazam" on the album and you dressed up as Shazam in the "So What'cha Want" video. Who's the fan?
Ad-Rock: A lot of kids are talking about Shazam right now. Shazam is big in the media. Shazam is hitting right now. So we figured if we featured Shazam a lot, it would lead to more record sales.
Mike D: Market research indicates clearly that there are not as many superheroes allied so closely with mobile homes. Mobile homes are blowing up right now. So the combination of a superhero and a mobile home – Shazam!
MCA: And the bagels. Not too many superheroes wear bagels. He keeps a bagel down his pants.
Ad-Rock: Well, technically, he isn't actually wearing the bagel. It's just in his pants.
MCA: You never know, right?
Ad-Rock: This is true.
Mike D: Time out. If you're wearing a cup, you're wearing a cup.
Ad-Rock: Well the cup is just the thing that's in the actual strap.
Mike D: So Shazam uses a bagel like a cup.
Ad-Rock: I didn't know that. I just heard about the bagel.
VH1: Judging from the "Ch-Check It Out" video, you also have a real Star Trek jones.
MCA: Yeah. Am I a big fan? Yeah, I'm deep. I'm wearing like the whole outfit under my clothes. I just whip it off like Superman and be Star Trek Man.
Ad-Rock: You're just random Star Trek Person? Hey, is Mork from Ork Star Trek-related or is he just a whole separate thing?
MCA: Yeah, did you see the episode when he beamed down to earth? It was like that episode where I Love Lucy and The Brady Bunch got together.
Ad-Rock: I didn't see that.
Mike D: Wait wait wait. Trekkies are the name for people who are into Star Trek, but what's the name for somebody who is into Mork from Ork? Orkies?
VH1: I don't think people are that into Mork & Mindy.
Mike D: I watched that show.
MCA: [Making the Mork sign] Na-no, na-no. It was big time.
Mike D: It's on the DL. There are secret societies, people who worship Mork. People are going around all na-no'd out.
MCA [Making the Mork sign again]: That's the same symbol that they use that also Vulcans use.
VH1: Was it important for you to come out with a lighthearted song as the first single?
MCA: What are you saying? Do you think it's soft?
VH1: No. But it belies the more serious material on the album.
Mike D: Oh. The album gets real serious up until it gets to a pinnacle where you hear real subliminal "Na-no na-no," over and over again, and it puts you into a Mork-induced trance.
VH1: You drop a lot of Jewish references on the album ...
Ad-Rock: [interrupting] Whoa!
VH1: Are you rediscovering your faith?
MCA: [To Ad-Rock] Is it a cuisine thing?
Ad-Rock: I like Chinese buffet! What are you gonna do?
VH1: So some of the battle raps on the album -
Mike D: [interrupting] Wait, you're gonna accept that as an answer? Stand up to him! As [NBA all-star] Bill Walton would say, "Be a man!"
Ad-Rock: Throw it down, big man!
MCA: Walton's pretty hard. So what's wrong with being Jewish?
VH1: Nothing. I was psyched to hear all the challah references on the album.
Ad-Rock: Is challah bread Jewish? I thought it was Polish – well, I guess it is. Because we always get it at the Polish restaurant, but I suppose it's a Polish/Jewish thing.
MCA: Do you have it at the Chinese buffet?
VH1: You make some pointed comments about George W. Bush. How much effect do you think you could have on your listeners come November?
Mike D: Who knows? Being New Yorkers and making our record in New York, you couldn't not say something about what's going on and what our feelings are towards that. I think it's a little clearer to people that this whole conception that criticizing what the government's doing is anti-American is really nonsense. The principle that this country is founded on is the involvement of people and our freedom to speak out. That's such a crucial thing. That's one of the reasons we love being Americans.
VH1: In this era when there's still so much anger, is it hard for you to talk about why non-violence is important?
MCA: I think the trickiest time to talk about non-violence was right after September 11th when we put on the New Yorkers Against Violence concert. Everybody was so quick to say, "What do you mean? You side with the terrorists? You're un-American!" That was people's immediate reaction. That was definitely a tricky time.
VH1: I see you around New York, so I know you're approachable. What do your fans feel about their stance?
Ad-Rock: I don't like them! I don't trust them and I don't like them.
Mike D: Where have you seen me?
VH1: On the subway.
Mike D: On the subway! Oh, you're demystifying the whole thing! When I'm on the subway, I try to give people hugs and they usually just run away from me. I don't know why.
Ad-Rock: It's that button that says, "Hugs $1." It throws people off a little. We got a lot of people talking about Bush and Cheney and how wild they're acting. A lot of people are talking about it that wouldn't really be talking politics or even thinking about it right now. So it's around. It's going on.
VH1: It seems important for you to retain your sense of humor. Because if politics were all you talked about, the message would be lost.
MCA: A record like this is made over a long period of time. It's made over two years, so we're coming in everyday and writing down lyrics. Some days you're into a mood to goof around and some days you're on your way into a studio and you walk past newspaper headlines saying Bush is doing this insane thing. You're walking past soldiers on the street with machine guns and combat boots and like combat gear. That stuff influences you. So sometimes the lyrics are more serious.
Mike D: The next day you might only talk about the cheese sandwich you ordered and just do that all day. And that's all right, too. Because cheese is important to some people. Especially us.
VH1: Did the album become funnier as you went along?
MCA: I think so. Not completely, but some of the heavier stuff was written closer to September 11 and as we got further away from that we got a little sillier.
VH1: Was it important to end the album on a positive note, as you do with "We Got The"?
Ad-Rock: It sounds nice to end nice. It's nice to be nice.
MCA: We kept making mixtapes on iPods. That one kept on being the last song on everything we were listening to, because it was in alphabetical order. It kind of made sense as the last song, so we left it there.
VH1: It seems like you still have a blast making videos. What will the video for "Triple Trouble" be?
Mike D: Can we just say it involves revenge and the person we're out to get is the director Nathanial Hornblower. The next video is full out war, because Nathaniel Hornblower, who directed the "Ch-check it Out" video, he's wild, and he must be stopped. It's a showdown.
MCA: I'm gonna kick him straight in the nuts.
Mike D: Have you ever seen a man in lederhosen get kicked in the nuts before?
Ad-Rock: The lederhosen is already tight, so it's weird. Kicking Shazam's nuts would be a different story.
Beastie Boys are a wind-em-up-and-watch-em-go kind of interview. For instance, ask them if they've decided on a support act for a tour and they instantly start sparking off of each other.
"I don't want to give away too many secrets" says the gangling Mike D conspiratorially, "but Adam is in talks with a performing dog troupe."
When this is met with a cry of disbelief, Ad-Rock is quick to drum up some support for his plan: "Tell me you wouldn't want to see that. You go to a show and see dogs doing tricks? That would be great."
"What if the dogs bite?" wonders MCA, aka Adam Yauch, in his distinctive rasp.
"'Beastie Boys and Dog Show!'" marvels D, before reproving MCA. "The dogs would be separated from the audience."
"Also the Sasquatch is trying to get a slot on the tour ..." adds MCA, referring to the Northwest's mythic man-beast.
"He can't even get a passport!" says D, sensibly. "How is he gonna go on tour?"
Watching the three members of Beastie Boys lose themselves in this labyrinth of cross talk, two things become clear. The first is that trying to get them to speak any sense is an exercise in futility. The second is this surreal combustion is exactly the kind of chemical reaction which has made the trio responsible for some of the best records of the last 20 years.
Their latest, To the 5 Boroughs, might be their best album since New York's illest MCs played real instruments on 1992's Check Your Head. Inspired by the city's recent tough times and rich hip-hop culture, it's an old school disc that gets away with sampling "Rapper's Delight." And the Beasties wit is on point: as the rhymes spill forth, the crew name-checks challah bread, Crazy Eddie, Sanford & Son, Polar explorer Ernest Shackleton, and George Whipple, a local cable anchorman with the thickest eyebrows in the biz.
So yes, it's been a long time since their last album (Hello Nasty was way back in the last millennium), MCA will be 40 next year, and George W. Bush is a playa hater. Now that the preliminaries are out of the way, sit back and let the Beasties blow smoke and tell their tales taller than the Empire State Building. You know, in a crazy way, it makes sense.
VH1: Was To the 5 Boroughs a conscious effort to go back to straight hip-hop?
MCA: It has been highly disputed at what stage along the way we decided to make it an all hip-hop record. We actually had some fistfights among ourselves on that subject.
Ad-Rock: Yauch threw me into a thing of poison ivy, he was so mad at me.
MCA: What he said was a misunderstanding, because I thought he liked poison ivy.
Ad-Rock: Which is a crazy argument, because who's going to want to get thrown in poison ivy?
MCA: I like poison ivy. I put that sh*t on my sandwich. I eat it like asbestos. I don't even care.
Mike D: [incredulous] You eat asbestos?
VH1: There's a song called "Shazam" on the album and you dressed up as Shazam in the "So What'cha Want" video. Who's the fan?
Ad-Rock: A lot of kids are talking about Shazam right now. Shazam is big in the media. Shazam is hitting right now. So we figured if we featured Shazam a lot, it would lead to more record sales.
Mike D: Market research indicates clearly that there are not as many superheroes allied so closely with mobile homes. Mobile homes are blowing up right now. So the combination of a superhero and a mobile home – Shazam!
MCA: And the bagels. Not too many superheroes wear bagels. He keeps a bagel down his pants.
Ad-Rock: Well, technically, he isn't actually wearing the bagel. It's just in his pants.
MCA: You never know, right?
Ad-Rock: This is true.
Mike D: Time out. If you're wearing a cup, you're wearing a cup.
Ad-Rock: Well the cup is just the thing that's in the actual strap.
Mike D: So Shazam uses a bagel like a cup.
Ad-Rock: I didn't know that. I just heard about the bagel.
VH1: Judging from the "Ch-Check It Out" video, you also have a real Star Trek jones.
MCA: Yeah. Am I a big fan? Yeah, I'm deep. I'm wearing like the whole outfit under my clothes. I just whip it off like Superman and be Star Trek Man.
Ad-Rock: You're just random Star Trek Person? Hey, is Mork from Ork Star Trek-related or is he just a whole separate thing?
MCA: Yeah, did you see the episode when he beamed down to earth? It was like that episode where I Love Lucy and The Brady Bunch got together.
Ad-Rock: I didn't see that.
Mike D: Wait wait wait. Trekkies are the name for people who are into Star Trek, but what's the name for somebody who is into Mork from Ork? Orkies?
VH1: I don't think people are that into Mork & Mindy.
Mike D: I watched that show.
MCA: [Making the Mork sign] Na-no, na-no. It was big time.
Mike D: It's on the DL. There are secret societies, people who worship Mork. People are going around all na-no'd out.
MCA [Making the Mork sign again]: That's the same symbol that they use that also Vulcans use.
VH1: Was it important for you to come out with a lighthearted song as the first single?
MCA: What are you saying? Do you think it's soft?
VH1: No. But it belies the more serious material on the album.
Mike D: Oh. The album gets real serious up until it gets to a pinnacle where you hear real subliminal "Na-no na-no," over and over again, and it puts you into a Mork-induced trance.
VH1: You drop a lot of Jewish references on the album ...
Ad-Rock: [interrupting] Whoa!
VH1: Are you rediscovering your faith?
MCA: [To Ad-Rock] Is it a cuisine thing?
Ad-Rock: I like Chinese buffet! What are you gonna do?
VH1: So some of the battle raps on the album -
Mike D: [interrupting] Wait, you're gonna accept that as an answer? Stand up to him! As [NBA all-star] Bill Walton would say, "Be a man!"
Ad-Rock: Throw it down, big man!
MCA: Walton's pretty hard. So what's wrong with being Jewish?
VH1: Nothing. I was psyched to hear all the challah references on the album.
Ad-Rock: Is challah bread Jewish? I thought it was Polish – well, I guess it is. Because we always get it at the Polish restaurant, but I suppose it's a Polish/Jewish thing.
MCA: Do you have it at the Chinese buffet?
VH1: You make some pointed comments about George W. Bush. How much effect do you think you could have on your listeners come November?
Mike D: Who knows? Being New Yorkers and making our record in New York, you couldn't not say something about what's going on and what our feelings are towards that. I think it's a little clearer to people that this whole conception that criticizing what the government's doing is anti-American is really nonsense. The principle that this country is founded on is the involvement of people and our freedom to speak out. That's such a crucial thing. That's one of the reasons we love being Americans.
VH1: In this era when there's still so much anger, is it hard for you to talk about why non-violence is important?
MCA: I think the trickiest time to talk about non-violence was right after September 11th when we put on the New Yorkers Against Violence concert. Everybody was so quick to say, "What do you mean? You side with the terrorists? You're un-American!" That was people's immediate reaction. That was definitely a tricky time.
VH1: I see you around New York, so I know you're approachable. What do your fans feel about their stance?
Ad-Rock: I don't like them! I don't trust them and I don't like them.
Mike D: Where have you seen me?
VH1: On the subway.
Mike D: On the subway! Oh, you're demystifying the whole thing! When I'm on the subway, I try to give people hugs and they usually just run away from me. I don't know why.
Ad-Rock: It's that button that says, "Hugs $1." It throws people off a little. We got a lot of people talking about Bush and Cheney and how wild they're acting. A lot of people are talking about it that wouldn't really be talking politics or even thinking about it right now. So it's around. It's going on.
VH1: It seems important for you to retain your sense of humor. Because if politics were all you talked about, the message would be lost.
MCA: A record like this is made over a long period of time. It's made over two years, so we're coming in everyday and writing down lyrics. Some days you're into a mood to goof around and some days you're on your way into a studio and you walk past newspaper headlines saying Bush is doing this insane thing. You're walking past soldiers on the street with machine guns and combat boots and like combat gear. That stuff influences you. So sometimes the lyrics are more serious.
Mike D: The next day you might only talk about the cheese sandwich you ordered and just do that all day. And that's all right, too. Because cheese is important to some people. Especially us.
VH1: Did the album become funnier as you went along?
MCA: I think so. Not completely, but some of the heavier stuff was written closer to September 11 and as we got further away from that we got a little sillier.
VH1: Was it important to end the album on a positive note, as you do with "We Got The"?
Ad-Rock: It sounds nice to end nice. It's nice to be nice.
MCA: We kept making mixtapes on iPods. That one kept on being the last song on everything we were listening to, because it was in alphabetical order. It kind of made sense as the last song, so we left it there.
VH1: It seems like you still have a blast making videos. What will the video for "Triple Trouble" be?
Mike D: Can we just say it involves revenge and the person we're out to get is the director Nathanial Hornblower. The next video is full out war, because Nathaniel Hornblower, who directed the "Ch-check it Out" video, he's wild, and he must be stopped. It's a showdown.
MCA: I'm gonna kick him straight in the nuts.
Mike D: Have you ever seen a man in lederhosen get kicked in the nuts before?
Ad-Rock: The lederhosen is already tight, so it's weird. Kicking Shazam's nuts would be a different story.