beastie boys Archives - Vinyl From The Vault

Beastie Boys “Paul’s Boutique”

sfilzen — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 18:36:45 +0000

Beastie Boys “Paul’s Boutique” released 35 years ago on July 25th, 1989. I had every intention of writing about the Beastie’s second LP on the anniversary, it was marked in my calendar and everything, but non-vinyl life got in the way that day. While considered commercial flop in 1989 as compared to their debut Licensed to Ill (1986), it went on to be listed as one of the best albums of the 80’s and of all-time (a Rolling Stone writer called it the “Sgt. Pepper of hip-hop”). It hit #14 on the US charts and went to #44 in the UK. In ’89 I still had a strong distaste for the Beasties (based on their dude-bro asshole fans, mostly) but by the time I first heard Paul’s Boutique sometime around ’91 or ’92, my stance was softening. It’s now one of my favorites from their catalogue (along with their 1994 Ill Communication) and contains some of my top tracks. Most especially that’s “Shadrach” which is one of the best ass-shakers ever. While the song references a Biblical story (a head-scratcher to this not-religiously raised girl but has one of my favorite lines “Because I got more stories than JD’s got Salinger” – that I understood), it’s funky beyond measure and samples Sly Stone’s “Loose Booty,” Black Oak Arkansas’ “Hot & Nasty,” and Trouble Funk’s “Say What” (they got sued for that last one). Also booty-shaking from Paul’s Boutique are “Shake Your Rump” (I mean, obviously), “Johnny Ryall,” “Egg Man” and “The Sounds of Science.” That’s just Side One! “Hey Ladies” is also on Side One and was the only single from Paul’s Boutique that charted (#36) and is definitely funky (they sample James Brown, among many others). Side Two is almost as strong ( (let’s put aside the weird-ass and thankfully brief “5-Piece Chicken Dinner”): heavy metal-tinged “Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun” has funk with head-banging and the epic 12+ minute “B-Boy Bouillabaisse” which really can be considered nine separate tracks, of which “Stop That Train” and “A Year and a Day” are the most funky/ass-shaking.

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Beastie Boys “Hello Nasty”

sfilzen — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 18:41:51 +0000

Beastie Boys “Hello Nasty” released 25 years (+11 days) ago, July 14th, 1998. I missed the anniversary because I just received this original two-LP pressing for my birthday this past weekend. Hello Nasty is the Beastie’s fifth LP; it hit #1 in the US and the UK (and a bunch of other countries, too) and was included in a host of publications best-of ’98 lists. So many classics on this record! The singles are all still excellent sounding 25 years on: “Intergalactic” (#28 US, #5 UK, plus a Grammy for Best Rap Performance) is still one of my favorites, “Body Movin” (#15 UK, #15 US Modern Rock Tracks chart) – its video uses the Fatboy Slim remix, “The Negotiation Limerick File” (#29 US Modern Rock Tracks) and “Remote Control“/”Three MC’s and One DJ” as a double A-Side (#21 UK) – “Three MC’s,” a super-simple, straight-up old-school rap track, notable for featuring Mix Master Mike for the first time. My other top tracks include the opener “Super Disco Breakin’,” the funk of “The Move,” the Santana-esque “Song for Junior” which features Luscious Jackson’s Jill Cunniff, the upbeat island grooves of “Unite” and the laid-back hazy “Dr. Lee, PhD” featuring reggae/dub giant Lee Scratch Perry.

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Luscious Jackson “In Search of Manny”

sfilzen — Tue, 17 Aug 2021 16:17:19 +0000

Luscious Jackson “In Search of Manny” 1992. Grand Royal Records. Today is Luscious Jackson singer/bassist/songwriter Jill Cunniff’s 55th birthday (b. August 17th, 1966). In Search of Manny is their first release, a 7-song EP, and the first release for Beastie Boys’ label Grand Royal. It’s also one of my top releases of the 90′s: a little sleazy, a lot slinky, laid back and über-cool. Going on 30 years old, I still listen to the record a lot. It reminds of me of when I first heard it in the early 90′s, not too long after I moved to Milwaukee after finishing under-grad. I had a horrible 9-5 office job and also had a second job working retail at a hip shoe store (Goldi’s) in Bayshore Mall and one of the other girls working there played the CD almost every night during our closing duties. The job kinda sucked (helping rich older ladies trying to jam their feet into cute shoes way too young and way too small for them: “Sure, we can stretch those for you!”) and I didn’t last long there but out of the experience I got a sweet employee discount and exposure to Luscious Jackson. I genuinely love every track but of the seven, four are my big standouts: the groovy “Let Yourself Get Down,” the slacker anthem “Life of Leisure,” the cool girl call-to-arms “Daughters of the Kaos” and the raw “Keep on Rockin’ It.”

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Beastie Boys “Beastie Boys Music”

sfilzen — Fri, 20 Nov 2020 17:29:08 +0000

Beastie Boys “Beastie Boys Music” 2020. Today, November 20th, is Mike D’s 55th birthday (b. Michael Diamond, 1965) so I’m spinning my newly acquired double LP retrospective, a companion to the Beastie Boys Story documentary (2020) and the Beastie Boys Book (2018). It’s only been out a few weeks so the chart positions may not be final/accurate: #64 Top 200 album chart, #34 R&B/Hip Hop chart, #12 Rock Albums chart. A couple of months ago, after watching the excellent documentary, I made my own Beastie mixtape/playlist (we don’t have much of their music in our library and almost none on vinyl as they mostly recorded during the digital-only age) and pretty much every song on my mix is on this comp (plus others like their first hit “Fight For Your Right” which I still have a hard time listening to: it reminds me of high school and high school assholes). My favorites (in chronological and Beastie Boys Music album order): “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” (Licensed to Ill, 1986); “Shake Your Rump” and “Shadrach” (from Paul’s Boutique, 1989); “So Watch’Cha Want” and “Jimmy James” (from Check Your Head, 1992); all of the featured tracks from Ill Communication (1994): “Sure Shot,” “Root Down,” “Sabotage” and “Get It Together” (I became a Beastie convert in ‘94 when Ill Communication came out; prior to that I thought I didn’t like them…see “Fight For Your Right” reasons); “Body Movin’” and “Intergalactic” (from Hello Nasty, 1998); “Ch-Check It Out” (from To the 5 Boroughs, 2004); and “Make Some Noise” (from Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, 2011). It’s an excellent way to have the best of the Beasties on vinyl.

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Beastie Boys “An Exciting Evening at Home with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego”

sfilzen — Wed, 05 Aug 2020 16:34:11 +0000

Beastie Boys “An Exciting Evening at Home with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego” 1989. I’m spinning this 6-song EP on what would have been MCA/Adam Yauch’s 56th birthday (b. Aug. 5th, 1964, d. 2012). Two of the tracks appear on the Beastie Boys’ 1989 LP Paul’s Boutique (#14 US) including the fabulous “Shadrach” (the first single released from the album, its animated video directed by Yauch), its groove (provided by a sampling of Sly Stone among others) carries through the rest of Side A: the non-LP tracks “Caught In the Middle of a 3-Way Mix” and “And What You Give is What You Get.” Side B has “Car Thief,” also from Paul’s Boutique and also super-funky with samples from Funk Factory, Funkadelic and Trouble Funk (that’s a shitload of funk) as well as “Some Dumb Cop Gave Me Two Tickets Already” (heavy on the Biz Markie lyrical samples or maybe he recorded it directly for them, I’m not sure, they did several collaborations over the years) and “Your Sister’s Def.”

I really didn’t like Beastie Boys when their first album Licensed to Ill came out in ‘86: the bonehead jocks at my high school, of course, LOVED it. We watched the Beastie Boys Story (2020) a couple of weeks ago and it turns out the band didn’t really like the record either (well, they probably did at the time but didn’t appreciate the bonehead jock thing either). I didn’t pay any attention to the Beastie Boys until ‘94′s Ill Communication which I loved so I missed out on some really great material which I’m only recently discovering/rediscovering.

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The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion “She’s On It-Jack the Ripper”

sfilzen — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 18:09:44 +0000

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion “She’s On It-Jack the Ripper” b/w “Audio Vacation” 2014, Record Store Day limited edition release on JSBX Recordings. I’m spinning another RSD gem in anticipation of this upcoming weekend’s event: today it’s JSBX’s cover/mashup of the Beastie Boys’ “She’s On It,” which first appeared on the soundtrack to Krush Groove back in 1985 and then again later on several Beastie comps, and Link Ray’s 1961 single “Jack the Ripper,” which hit #64 on the charts. It’s a genius combination full of JSBX noise, stomp and swagger. Side B is a JSBX original, “Audio Vacation,” a noise-rock experimental cacophonous track that, to my knowledge, is only available on this 12″ single; I couldn’t find a link to the audio anywhere on the web.

Run off grooves: Side A = RIP MCA Side B = the next level, the new sound

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Luscious Jackson “In Search of Manny”

sfilzen — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 13:52:19 +0000

Luscious Jackson “In Search of Manny” 1992. Grand Royal Records. The EP “In Search of Manny” was the first release on Beastie Boys’ label Grand Royal (and the album art is probably one of the sleaziest of all time). While only vaguely hiphop, the band had many connections to the Beasties: drummer Kate Schellenbach played on the Beasties’ “Pollywog Stew” and the band’s first performance was as the opening for the Beastie Boys and Cypress Hill. Allmusic’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine describes the album perfectly – “music that is elastic, casually expansive, darkly seductive…the samples are for texture and color, not groove, and the aesthetic is slacker bohemia. In short, it’s a record that only could have happened in 1992, just as Gen-X alt-rock culture hit its stride but before it reached the mainstream.”

I love this album so much and listened to it incessantly in the early 90′s, especially late hot summer nights, nodding along to the slinky beats of “Daughters of the Kaos,” “She Be Wantin It More” and my favorite, “Life of Leisure,” with its perfect 90′s slacker lyrics:

You got a brain you ain’t using
You got charm you’re abusin’
You’re too busy out there floosin’
Or lying at home snoozin’

Why you wanna waste away?
Lover of the life of leisure
Lover of the life of leisure

Why you wanna waste away?
Lover of the life of leisure
Lover of the life of leisure

Time moves along
You don’t have a life anymore
Time moves along
You don’t have a job, I got four

Spend my money on cigarettes
Midnight dragon, off track bets
Get up at three, turn on the TV
For all I know you got a dangerous disease

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