2 X 3 X 2

This is one of those things where I run into a song and think "I'll have to remember to post this". That happens all the time. Every once in a while I'll actually remember to post the song. Tonight's not like that. I did not know that there was a studio version of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion doing a two cover medley of the Beastie Boys' "She's On It" and Link Wray's "Jack the Ripper". I'd posted a live version six years ago thinking it was just a one time thing. It was not. Here's both versions and the rest of the live set.

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Listen:
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - She's On It/Jack the Ripper mp3 at Internet Archive Studio version
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - She's On It/Jack the Ripper mp3 at Internet Archive Recorded live on WFMU, 2012
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Entire set (12 songs) at Internet Archive

BAND SHOT

Here we are. Friday. Yee haw. Baseball play-offs on the tube, Oktoberfest gathering of knuckleheads down by the pier, water temperature up, a weekend with no plans. My favorite type of weekend, just bounce from here to there. I'm starting it off with some Beastie Boys instrumentals. I miss those guys. They were one of the few bands that followed their own course and were irreverent doing it. And they learned to play better and drew from more sources as they progressed. Punk rock, hip hop, funk, kraut rock, soundtrack type cuts, the whole shopping bag. With any other band you'd say they were all over the place but the Beastie Boys were in the same place the whole time, they were in the Beastie Boys place.

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Listen:
Beastie Boys - Sabrosa mp3 at Internet Archive
Beastie Boys - In 3s mp3 at Internet Archive
Beastie Boys - Dr Lee, PhD (Dub Mix) mp3 at Internet Archive
Beastie Boys - 14th St. Break mp3 at Internet Archive
Beastie Boys - B Is For My Name mp3 at Roots and Culture
Beastie Boys - 14th St. Break mp3 at Roots and Culture
Beastie Boys - The Melee mp3 at Roots and Culture

FIVE TOOL PLAYAS

Studio Beasties during bong break.

Every once in a while I go back to the Beastie Boys. Why? Because they are one of the last bands that really seemed like they were full on music fans, not of a particular genre, but of the good stuff of all genres. They borrowed or stole in the form of samples licks, riffs, effects, riddims and tempos of all sorts of types of music and they rapped over pre-recorded mixes at times, and they played their own music as a three piece unit. They kept you guessing. They didn't look to what other people were doing, they just did their stuff. They didn't give a shit about what you or I were expecting. They more than proved themselves worthy, growing LP after LP, after their 1986 debut Licensed to Ill, itself a groundbreaking mix of guitar riffage and rhymes (thanks in no small part to producer Rick Rubins).

I haven't heard all of their stuff, but I followed them sporadically for decades and I have heard a shitload. I can't say that I've ever heard anything that wasn't worth hearing, and that includes music from all of the different eras. Here's four taken at random, I don't think I've posted before. I didn't even bother to try to remember when these were recorded or even look it up. It doesn't matter.

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Listen:
Beastie Boys - Now Get Busy mp3 at Internet Archive
Beastie Boys - Electric Worm mp3 at Tumblr
Beastie Boys - Sure Shot mp3 at Le Mellotron
Beastie Boys - OK mp3 at Tumblr
Video:
Beastie Boys - Sabotage (live) at YouTube From Letterman 1994. Phew.

2786? LIAR.

The first time I heard "Hey Ladies" by the Beastie Boys, my opinion of them when up a notch. It was because they name-dropped Sadaharu Oh. "I got more hits than Sadaharu Oh." Okay, so it's not poetry, but it's baseball. Japanese baseball. As a hitter, Oh fucking dominated, some of his stats up with the best ever. Over 868 career home runs. Even casually name-dropping him in an era when young people couldn't give a shit, that's brownie points right there. Shit like that, and their old Grand Royal magazine, are why I'm dying to read their recent book, but shit, even at the online mega-dealers it's something like thirty bucks. That's coffee table stuff. Shine that, I'll wait.

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Listen:

Beastie Boys - Hey Ladies mp3 at Snuhthing Anything

Beastie Boys - So Whatcha Want mp3 at Snuhthing Anything

Visit:

Old Beastie Boys posts Some of the links are still good.

Sadaharu Oh at Wikipedia

SABOTAGE DEPOT

I was in the mood to see someone scream but good, really let it out. The first thing that came to mind was the Beastie Boys doing "Sabotage" on Letterman. Man, there's one scream by Ad-Rock near the beginning that's just awesome, really sets the tone, but the one near the end is all-time. I'm not going to tell you exactly where because I think you need to invest yourself in the song to get the full effect.

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Listen:
Beastie Boys - Sabotage mp3 at Internet Archive
Video:
Beastie Boys - Sabotage at YouTube Official video, by Spike Jonze
Visit:
Sabotage - Song entry at Wikipedia

MISS THESE GUYS

The Beastie Boys are one of those bands I avoid going off about because they were around for so long, and had such a good track record that there's just too much to be said. Once you get started..., you know.

Earlier today I just happened to see the clip of them doing "Sabotage" on Letterman. Man, I gotta say, that clip holds up pretty damn well, considering it looked cool in 1994 and still does today. Good fucking screams in that one, right up there with the greats. After checking that out, I followed it with "I Want Some" which is pretty damn close to punk rock. 

Now here's the thing that sets the Beasties Boys apart. Check out the instrumental, "Son of Neckbone". Same band. No vocals, no samples, just groove. That's just insane the they could play both types of music without sacrificing authenticity, because they always did seem authentic if only because growing musically was their first priority. They were just playing their record collection, a collection that was good and varied. They could have followed "Licensed to Ill" with a half dozen records just like it and cleaned up, but they didn't. They started fucking with things right out of the gate.

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Listen:
Beastie Boys - Sabotage mp3 at Internet Archive
Beastie Boys - I Want Some mp3 at Internet Archive
Beastie Boys - Son of Neckbone mp3 at Internet Archive
A compilation:
Beastie Boys - Sounds of Silence at Internet Archive 40 songs. Note: In the right column, under "Download options" click on "VBR MP3 Files"

GIVE IT UP

There's a certain kind of fiend that likes punk rock, hip hop, reggae, jazz, rock, funk, soul all sorts of other music. Stuff that is disparate but somehow goes well together. These people I consider my musical friends. They're the type of people I like to listen to records with. They could be in a shitty band, but we could still share something. So, irregardless of their music, I've always had a soft spot for the Beastie Boys. They're that type of fiend. The fact that I like much of their recorded work is just icing on the like minded cake. If you haven't listened to much of their stuff, you might think that they were dependent on samples and shouting bratty rhymes. Yee gads, is that a generalization. Here's three from their all instrumental LP The Mix Up. Between the three you'll hear all sorts of stuff seeping in. Booker T, Krautrock, and the J.B.s in just one of the songs. Damn, I miss the Beastie Boys. They always seemed to keep things interesting.

 

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Listen:
Beastie Boys - B Is For My Name mp3 at Roots and Culture
Beastie Boys - 14th St. Break mp3 at Roots and Culture
Beastie Boys - The Melee mp3 at Roots and Culture

SWEET SUMMER JAMS

How do you make a good day better? With some feel good lady jams. They might even work on a shitty day. You'd have to try it. Ain't no way I want to associate them with a parking ticket.

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Listen:
Althea and Donna - Uptown Top Ranking mp3 at Eyeswing
Rita Marley - One Draw mp3 at Passion of the Weiss
Santigold and the Beastie Boys - Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win mp3 at Thighs Wide Shut

BUMMER

You've probable heard that Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys passed away today, after fighting cancer for three years.  How you reacted to the news might have depended on your age and your musical tastes.  Reactions I came across ranged from "Oh shit, really?" to "I hate rap,' and others that were harder to perceive.  Personally, it bummed me out because, despite the fact that I don't listen to the Beastie Boys all that much anymore, I have a huge amount of respect for them as independently minded ground breakers, because, as goofy as their image may have been at the times, they were serious artists with an encyclopedic knowledge of music.  Everything from hardcore, to funk, soul, Brazillian, reggae, jazz, rock 'n' roll; the whole shooting match.  They were creative, inventive and oblivious to trends.  Starting out as a hardcore band, they switched modes, becoming the "Fight For You Right" knuckleheads the network news seemed to focus on today (really, every report I saw showed a clip of that song, and only that song).  Their second LP, Paul's Boutique, took it up a notch, being something akin to a hip hop Sergeant Peppers.  After that, it was off to the races.



One reason why this, for me, was a gulp-worthy event is because when their first full length, Licensed to Ill, was released, I was living in NYC, and it was on my Walkman (remember those) constantly, on my treks to and from work, to the clubs, and on the subway (nothing like listening to "No Sleep 'til Brooklyn" late at night, while you're on your way to Brooklyn trying, yes, to stay awake).  It's still the one album I most associate with my short stay there.  After I moved back to the West coast, they too moved, working in L.A. with the Dust Brothers, who supplied many of the samples on Paul's Boutique (which back then was often in my crate when DJing).  Creative freedom clearly in their grasp, they continued meandering over musical styles, always with the gruff voice of Yauch holding things down, sounding more adult in contrast to the more nasal wisecrack sounding Mike Diamond and Adam Horowitz.

Sonic Reducer sampled.  I think you're starting to feel it.

Folks, Yauch did what all of us wish we could.  He taught himself to play bass, started a band, sold a fuck load of records, had a magazine and a record label, organized benefits, directed videos, and made a documentary; and he managed to do it without acting like a big shot, chasing after trends, or sweating the small stuff.  He was, in short, one of the good guys.

Here's just few odds and ends.  You real fiends should check out Beastie Mixes for a shitload of stuff that you probably didn't know existed.  Bootlegs, live show, remixes, interviews, mash ups, it would take days to sort through it all.

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Listen:
Beastie Boys - Believe Me mp3 at Sisters In Death Slow download, but worth it
Beastie Boys – Get It Together mp3 at Et Musique Pour Tous
Beastie Boys - Shake Your Rump mp3 at 365 Days of Music 
Beastie Boys & Santigold - Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win mp3 at Mixtape Riot
Beasie Boys - Rock Hard mp3 at The Lost Turntable 
Beastie Boys - Alive At Youch’s House mp3 at The Lost Turntable
EP Download:
Beastie Boys - Aglio E Olio (via Mediafire) at Brown Brown Bag 
Tons of stuff at Beastie Mixes:
Beastie Boys - Boots at BeastieMixes.com Demos, Japanese releases, sample sources, etc. 
Beastie Boys - Rare and Misc Mixes at BeastieMixes,com Just what it says, rare stuff, collaborations, covers (by and of), remixes (by, and of).  Over 150 selections. 
Beastie Boys - Live shows at BeastieMixes.com Live shows (1982 - 2009), TV and radio appearances. 
Visit: 
Beastie Boys Official site Yauch obituary/profile holding down their homepage

HIGHLY ILLOGICAL

Random clicks are on blog rolls are always iffy. Most of the time they lead to another ho-hum blog. But every once in a while they lead to something that turns into a slight detour, and you run into stuff that stops and makes you think, "Criminey, guess I'm out of that loop." That's precisely what just happened. There was a site on a blog called Brown Brown Bag. What the hell, I clicked on it. It appears to be dormant, the last post was a year ago. Poked around and ran into a Beastie Boys thing that I didn't know existed. It's something called "Aglio E Olio," and it's some oddballs that resemble hardcore, depending on just how hard your core is. Recorded in '95, if you didn't know that, I think you'd have a hard time putting a time stamp on it. One song, "Believe Me" sounds like a few different bands in spots: Flipper, the Germs, later era Black Flag, and the stop-snd-start-again sounds like they lifted it from "Institutionalized" by Suicidal Tendencies.

The whole thing is downloadable as a single download at Brown Brown Bag. But, before I hassled with that, I figured a test run was in order. So I tracked down "Believe Me," the song mentioned above. I also ran into what was listed as an Aglio E Olio b-side, a cover of "Light My Fire" with a women singer. Very loungy. The singer sounds Japanese, so maybe it's one of those Cibo Matto gals. I found that on Beastie Mixes, a site that should keep you total Beastie fiends totally busy. Totally. There's four thousand Beastie Boy remixes, some presumably made by bedroom DJs, but bonus points for the very democratic approach. 4,062 remixes, plus bootlegs, rare stuff, live shows. Yeah. I just bookmarked it to deal with later.

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Listen:
Beastie Boys - Believe Me mp3 at Sisters In Death Slow download, but worth it
Beastie Boys - Light My Fire mp3 at BeastieMixes
Album download:
Beastie Boys - Aglio E Olio (via Mediafire) at Brown Brown Bag
The site for gluttons:
BeasiteMixes.com Remixes, bootlegs, live stuff, rarities...tons of stuff.

WOMEN IN REGGAE

Here's a mixed bag. Everything from rocksteady by Phyllis Dillon, through some eighties stuff, up to some of the latest, notably Terry Lynn. It was Lynn's video (below) that inspired this post. The juxtaposition of her music and the street scenes of Kingston make the whole thing seem very current, and real. It made me realize what a large chunk of Jamaican music, primarily post-roots, that I've not really listened to. I remember where the urgency to keep up with current Jamaican music vanished. It was the mid-eighties when Eek-A-Mouse and Yellowman were all the rage. They didn't do much for me, so I stewed in slightly older DJ stuff (U Roy, Dillinger, Big Youth, etc.) I blinked, years passed, and now we have this:

In trying to round out this post, by adding earlier Jamaican women singers for comparison, I ran into some neat stuff, and some forgotten favorites (Sister Carol and Sophie George). As far as the non-Jamaican stuff goes, I threw in the Beasties/Santigold thing, just because it's new, and a lot more reggae than the Terry Lynn or Warrior Queen. Karolina (from Tel Aviv) is down there for the same reason, and Akane's down there just to represent another unlikely location (Japan). Like I said, it's a mixed bag, the only common thread is women singing reggae related stuff.

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Listen:
Phyllis Dillon - Perifida mp3 at Dinosaur Gardens
Althea & Donna - Uptown Top Ranking mp3 at Boogie Woogie Flu
Rita Marley - One Draw mp3 at Passion of the Weiss
Marcia Griffiths - Feel Like Jumping mp3 at Chrome Music
Sophie George - Girlie Girlie mp3 at Matlo44 Funkpower2
Sister Carol - Murdee & Stylee mp3 (via 4Shared) at Mighty Dub Foundation (Click on "Download Now")
Sister Nancy - Bam Bam mp3 at Earmilk
Karolina & Funset (Tel Aviv)- Lion mp3 at Aurgasm
Beastie Boys & Santigold (U.S.) - Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win mp3 at Mixtape Riot
The Bug w/Warrior Queen - Poison Dart mp3 at Electrorash
Terry Lynn - System mp3 at Electrorash
Akane (Japan) - Dancehall Head mp3 at Electrorash
Video:
Sister Carol - Dread Natty Congo at YouTube
Althea & Donna - Uptown Top Ranking at YouTube
Judy Mowatt - Black Woman at YouTube
Sophie George - Girlie Girlie at YouTube
Rita Marley - Who Colt the Game? at YouTube
Oddball:
I Threes - Is This Love (backing vocal tracks) mp3 at Bob-Marley.es
Further digressions:
Reggae related posts
New Beastie Boys

NEW BEASTIE BOYS

Blink...holy shit, twenty five years, already? When the first Beastie Boys LP came out in November 1986, I was living in New York. It was one of the few cassettes that I bought when I lived there, and I played that sucker incessantly on my Walkman. With the exception of a few mix tapes, it is the music I most associate with my short stay there. Now, the Beastie Boys have announced a new album coming out in a few weeks. Good news because it means Adam Yauch is over the cancer thing, that postponed a tour and recording about a year ago. Only one cut has been leaked (see link below) and there is a preview clip from a 30 minute video "Fight For Your Right - Revisted." If it doesn't look like them in the screen grab, it's because it's not. There's all sorts of other familiar faces in the preview, but not them. I've got no clue if it's a respect thing or what, but they managed to cast an A-list of actors, including Will Ferrell, Susan Sarandon, Jack Black, Seth Rogen, John C. Reilly, Elijah Wood, Ted Danson and Rainn Wilson and that's just in the clip below. In the full version, Steve Buscemi, Amy Poehler, Jason Schwartzmann, Alicia Silverstone, Laura Dern, Kirsten Dunst, Chloe Sevigny, Maya Rudolph, Rashida Jones, Will Arnett and Orlando Bloom also make appearances. The Beastie Boys do make a cameo in the full version, as cops. It looks funny as shit.

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The Beastie Boys - Make Some Noise mp3 at Culture Bully
(Note: If link doesn't work, go to Culture Bully, because it worked over there.)
Beastie Boys - Make Some Noise (Passion Pit Remix) mp3 at Vacay Wave
Video:
Fight For Your Right - Revisited Complete 30 minute version (added 4/22/11)
Read:
Blurb about Beastie Boys' "Fight For Your Right - Revisited" at Huffington Post

Well, I'll be damned.

What would it be like if there was a party with PiL, Ennio Morricone, the Slits. King Tubby and that guy from the Fall, all...sitting around drinking beer (or in Morricone's case, probably wine), watching the Beastie Boys audition?

Long live William Hung.

Honestly, didn't think they had it in them. But I like.

NEW Beastie Boys - The Rat Cage at Manifatturiere Broz