The First REAL Beastie Boys Record

This is a record I've been meaning to get for a long time, and then, after I finally scratched it off my Want List, it's a record I've been meaning to cover here for an even longer time.  It's a fairly famous record, even legendary in fan circles, but also not quite so rare as it's often made out to be.  It's the kind of record people probably wind up overpaying for.  It's the Beastie Boys first record for Def Jam, even predating "She's On It" from Krush Groove and the MCA solo single, "Rock Hard."  It's so well known because it's the song that wound up getting left off of the album, or any wide release, because they got sued by AC/ DC for sampling their song "Back In Black."  So it's a semi-unreleased classic Licensed To Ill-era Beastie Boys song, and it's good.

Now, I call it the first "real" Beastie Boys record because it's not actually, strictly speaking, their first record.  They put out two indie singles on a tiny little punk rock label called Rat Cage Records: "Polly Wog Stew" (1982) and "Cooky Puss" (1983), later repackaged with a couple unreleased demos onto a compilation album aptly titled Some Old Bullshit (1994, on their own Grand Royal label).  "Polly Wog Stew" is a pure baby punk band record, straight out of The Decline of Western Civilization (part 3).  Then "Cooky Puss" is a silly "Buffalo Gals/ Hobo Scratch" parody, with the famous "all that scratchin' is making me itch" line becoming, "these pussy crumbs are making me itch."  They're at least starting to venture into Hip-Hop territory, but it's just a cheap novelty record (without any rapping) where a few copies were pressed up to make a local teenage crowd smirk for a hot second and that's it.

But 1984's "Hard Rock" sounds exactly like the Beastie Boys we know and love.  Sonically, it would have fit right into Licensed To Ill, and even have been a popular track.  Admittedly, though, I've always been a "Dope Beat" (a.k.a. "Hope Beats") man myself.  That's the early Boogie Down Productions record that chops the same "Back In Black" sample in pretty much the exact same way.  I generally prefer Krs-One's more natural voice and flow, and I love the way the beat strips itself and breaks down throughout the song.  I know everyone focuses on AC/ DC's guitar licks, and the song certainly wouldn't work as well without them, but I just love how they freak the drum machine on that joint.  Compare it to Stretch Armstrong's remix of Eminem's "My Name Is," for example, which also uses "Back In Black," and that's just a simple loop that repeats and repeats almost to the point of irritation.  "Dope Beat," on the other hand, keeps pulling out elements until sparse bass hits are just floating out there by themselves.

Other noteworthy uses of the same "Back In Black" licks include Hard Corps, a short-lived rap/ rock hybrid group who did a straight up rap cover of the song in the early 90s, and of course the great MC Player.

Anyway though, if you go back and revisit "Rock Hard," it actually does a lot of dope, percussive tweaking like "Dope Beat."  Those massive, bassy beats lifted off the AC/ DC record.  That's probably Rick Rubin's influence, because yes, he was already down by then.  In fact, during this brief period, The Beastie Boys were officially a four-man group, with Rubin the fourth member going by DJ Double R.  He does some scratching on this record, and he's no Mixmaster Mike, but for 1984, hey, it at least jives with the rest of the music.  In fact, there's a lot of interesting stuff going on instrumentally, with some flavor no doubt being added by editors The Latin Rascals.  Plus, there's a lot of live guitar on here, besides just whatever they lifted off the AC/ DC record, probably being played by Ad Rock, who brags "I can play guitar - not just B-boys but real rock stars" in the lyrics.

And that's another thing about this record, the lyrics are, for a Beastie Boys record, strangely cohesive.  Usually, when I think of Beastie Boys lyrics, I think of an endless string of Greg Nice-ish non-sequitors.  Not that all of their songs are like that... "Fight For Your Right To Party" is a very simply themed, direct song.  But you know, they're generally credited for throwing in a million references, but they're almost never substantive, just throwing in arbitrary mentions of old movies and their girlfriends.  Like, "I'm as cool as a cucumber in a bowl of hot sauce; you've got the rhyme and reason, but got no cause. But if you're hot to trot, you think you're slicker than grease, I've got news for you crews, you'll be sucking like a leech. Well I'm Dr. Spock, I'm here to rock, y'all; I want you off the wall, if you're playing the wall..." and so on.  That's from "So What'cha Want," but it could be from almost any of their songs, right?  Most of their records are just like a lyrical stew, where one sentence doesn't connect to the next or previous one.  Why bring up "Spock" except that it's an obvious rhyme with "rock?"  Anyway, that's my general little Beastie Boys rant.  I only bring it up to say this record isn't like that.  It's no epic poem like "The Illiad" set to music - the guys are basically just telling us how awesome they are at rocking the show - but it's at least a cohesive song that flows together.

After "Rock Hard" is "Party's Gettin' Rough," which is basically just a crazy, extended dub mix of "Rock Hard."  It extends the instrumental, adds a lot of ad-libs, including a long shout and call sequence of random syllables, but no actual rap verses or anything.  It's cool if you're digging the instrumental enough that you want it stretched out into a ten minute song, but it doesn't stand on its own.

More interesting, though, is the B-side, "Beastie Groove."  In fact, one curious aspect about it right off the bat, is that it doesn't feature any AC/ DC riffs, but was still left off of Licensed To Ill or any subsequent official release, including the bajillion times that album's been officially reissued.  Why?  I don't know!  Maybe they just didn't like it as much, possibly thought it sounded a little too old school?  It does feel a little rougher than most of their Def Jam work, but it's pretty solid with just classic early 80s beats and a hook that throws back to The Treacherous Three's "Heartbeat."  They really sound good over the track, and again, they're just doing standard braggadocio rhymes, but they're not on that random non-sequitor tip.  Ad Rock even flexes an impressive "New Rap Language" inspired flow for his verse.  But the Beastie Boys definitely give their record an updated, tougher edge, especially for its time.  "Beastie Groove" might not be Greatest Hits worthy, but I'd take it over most of their post-"Pass the Mic" indie rock junk, that's for sure.

The 12" wraps up with the instrumental.  So this was an early Def Jam 12", so it's a little on the rare side.  Like, you won't find it in a 99¢ bin.  But it's not like copies were recalled from record shops after the lawsuit, so copies are out there.  And it's been bootlegged plenty, sometimes with slightly altered track-listings, with fake Grand Royal labels.  And there's even a European Def Jam repress that came out in the late 2000s (music licensing laws seem to be a little different over there), all of which probably helped bring the original 12"'s market value back down to Earth.  So yeah, it's not that impossible to find an O.G.; you can own it if you want it.  And I think it's definitely worth it.  I've only sprung for a small percent of Beastie records over the years - most of it just feels like hipster bait to me - but this single is one of the essentials.

Raheem the Vigilante Raps for King Ad Rock

In 1989, when The Beastie Boys had just exploded into mainstream popularity with their Def Jam records, corporate America was watching. And just like they've attempted to cash in on young pop stars' popularity by casting everyone from Elvis to Vanilla Ice in their own films, so too did King Ad Rock get to star in his big budget star vehicle. And really, if you watch any of these movies - from Britney Spears' Crossroads or Eminem's 8 Mile all the way back to Mamie Van Doren's Untamed Youth and before - they're essentially the story. Underdog youth has major family issues and runs counter to the status quo/ authority and usually specifically the law, only to discover the specialness within themselves, choose good friends over bad friends and overcome their circumstances. It's pure teen pandering, of course, since that's who these movies are aimed at, since their casting their heroes.

Well, Lost Angels is no exception, it's got every cliché in spades. Ad Rock comes from rich Californian parents who don't understand him. They're divorced and treat him like an outcast because he's in a gang (who strangely pretend to be Latin), even though he really doesn't want to hurt anybody and is just following along because of peer pressure. He falls in love with a bored rich girl (her mom tells her to clean her car, so she drives it into their swimming pool), who seems out of his league, but really she's just another troubled teen in with the wrong crown. He gets into a gang fight and there's some legal scenes which really make no sense if you think about them (his father walks into juvenile court with a paper bag full of pills his mother is abusing, dumps them on the floor, and so Ad Rock is sentenced for having them, even though nobody even suggested he they were his). So he's sentenced to a silly juvenile detention center, where Donald Sutherland is the one good doctor who cares about the kids and teaches Ad Rock to be a good person, while ironically learning the same lessons apply to his own life as well... essentially the Robin Williams role in Good Will Hunting.

It's all dopey and trite and very 80s. It's full of voice-over monologue of Ad Rock pontificating about what jerks adults are, and gang members who look like the cast of Fame. Despite it all, some scenes are well directed: well shot, dramatically staged and with good use of music, probably because it's directed by Hugh Hudson who directed Chariots of Fire, as well as some more questionable films. But his talents are usually evident even if his stories are sub-par. Sutherland is easily the best actor in the show, when we finally get to him. Other cast members seem to be struggling with just how straight or broadly to play it: are they satirizing clueless parents and doctors or playing real people? Some seem to have chosen A while others tried for B. And Ad Rock himself? It's a pretty bland, low key performance, but for a non-actor, he manages to slip through most of the drama without embarrassing himself.

Lost Angels is a fairly obscure film these days, and most people who know of it only do because they're diehard Beastie Boys fans who've tracked it down .But in 2012, it was finally released on DVD... or at least DVD-R, in its proper widescreen aspect ratio through MGM's MOD program. So you can at least order it in its OAR from places like amazon.

Still, If you're going in hoping for any Beastie Boys music, prepare to be disappointed. He doesn't rap at all in the film. They do show that he's a graf writer and so still kinda hip-hop, and his gang always hangs out in a big nightclub. So there's heaps of opportunity to shoehorn in the ol' typical scene where his buddies shove him on stage and he shows us how he's this artistic phenom, and at the same time makes the girl fall for him (he instead does this just by dancing with her). But no, there's none of that. There's also no original Beastie Boys song written for the title theme, or even a teensy clip of "Fight for Your Right To Party" playing in the background.  No Beastie music at all.

There is a lot of pop music and even a soundtrack album, but it's all stuff by groups like Happy Mondays, The Cure, Soul Asylum and The Pogues. There's only one rap song on there at all, and it's actually by Raheem. The Raheem who used to be in The Geto Boys. Fortunately, it was also released as a single, so you don't have to buy the whole crappy soundtrack album to check it out.

The song is called "Self Preservation," and it's not on either of his albums, though it's still been released by A&M Records and Rap-A-Lot. 1989 would put it a little closer to The Vigilante than The Invincible, and it has more of that vibe to the song. Produced by Bryan New, who did a lot of big stuff for Jive Records, and Rap-A-Lot regular Doug King, it's pretty hard and message-oriented, though a little too guitary for my hip-hop purist tastes. But it's got nice, huge drums and the guitars are at least scratched in samples (Jimi Hendrix, I believe), not some studio musician noodling around. It's sort of like early Paris or Esham would use guitars in their early work - in fact, I'm pretty sure they both have sampled these exact same riffs - and they're cut up during the hook; so overall it's actually pretty strong.

Raheem raps from a more negative perspective of a disenfranchised youth fed up with the system... I'm not sure I fully subscribe to this theory, but it's possible that he's specifically written this song for the film and is rapping as the main character. But he does refer to himself as a "vigilante," and he doesn't really follow the film's plot or get too specific with the references. In other words, he doesn't rap, "my crazy girlfriend actin' the fool, just drove her car into a swimming pool," which is good not just because that line would be awful but because it makes the song relatable and effective outside the context of the Lost Angels movie.

The 12" features a couple different mixes. They're all essentially the same music and lyrics, but you get an Instrumental and a couple different edits of the track. Most notable is the Dirt Cheap Edit, which is a pretty substantially extended version, doubling the length of the song. So that's just another reason you're better off with the 12" rather than the full soundtrack album. Because "Self Preservation" is definitely at least worth checking out, which is more than I can really say for Lost Angels.

Shelved 'Licensed To Ill' Beastie Boys Tracks

(Youtube version is here.)