I have put everything else aside for the moment to be sad. I
just heard Adam Yauch, better known as MCA of the Beastie Boys died today of
cancer. Adam’s death for some reason touches me almost as much as the death of
a good friend. Maybe because in a lot of ways that’s what he as part of the
Beastie Boys were to me. Good friends I had grown up with and shared some of my
most memorable experiences with them playing ecstatically in the
background.
The Beastie Boys with License to Ill, really were my (and
those around me in the 80’s) teenage party band. I recall more than a few
parties where the only music played was License to Ill, Side A to Side B then
back to Side A again. I’ll still sing along with “Brass Monkey” like that
sickly tasting, cheap concoction is the best drink money can buy and I’m not
even sure I have ever even drank it. I saw them play on the Check Your Head
tour where the crowd was dancing and moshing so intensely, after the show there
was mountain of discarded shoes we had to sift through to find our own. These
days I buy 1 to 2 CDs a year as I get most my music sent to me through bands or
I download it, but Hot Sauce Committee P. II was a CD I bought and immediately
slammed it into my car CD player to listen to loudly with windows down.
Adam Yauch was my favorite Beastie Boy. To start he had a
gruff voice that separated him from King Ad Rock and Mike D. In the early days,
there was also a real menace to MCA in that he could be the Beastie Boy that
might really be a beast. He had a persistent 5’O Clock shadow, wore the leather
jacket and his raps were tough. He might really had been the one to carry a gun
and really used a whiffle ball bat. Of course that was all really a laugh and
the MCA we got to know later was the introspective one of the band. He was a
practicing Buddhist, became deeply involved in free-Tibet movement and would
talk karma about how even killing an insect was beyond him.
I’ll miss Adam Yauch because in a strange way I know it
signals another blast that my youth is fading whether I want it to or not. For
tonight though, I’m going to have a drink in Adam’s honor, it won’t be Brass
Monkey, but I’m going to shout and dance along with it like it is. RIP Adam
Yauch.
On an end note Paul’s Boutique will always be one of top 5
albums. If you have never listened to it, that funky rhythm buried somewhere in
your body has been suffering some without it.
This Post by Mikel O.D. of
