mikesaliba.com

So many memorials today to Adam Yauch, AKA MCA, who lost his battle with cancer this morning.  Turning on Facebook or Twitter, one can’t help but see tons of video clips and songs dedicated to the three white MCs from NYC.  

The Beastie Boys were not just one of those groups I grew up with, but grew into. From the opening chords and the anarchic video behind “Fight For Your Right” to the backwards 808 beat of “Paul Revere”, their debut album “Licensed To Ill” is 26 years old and still blows ANY hip hop album on the charts away.  No group (w/ Rick Rubin producing or otherwise) has sampled their influences better than The Beastie Boys.  

I can distinctly remember having/making/begging/forcing my mom to buy the cassette for me from the K-Mart in Florence, SC.  It was a big deal and I couldn’t wait to listen to it.  I probably didn’t put it down for months. There were lyrics in those first songs that I wouldn’t ever get until I was in my thirties, but I still knew them by heart.  None of my friends parents allowed them to own such a filthy tape, so I would carry it around with me - where it would get passed from walkman to car stereo to dual cassette deck to be dubbed over a sister’s Debbie Gibson cassette (scotch tape over the holes).  It was instantly the greatest thing on the musical frontier for me since I was still getting my mind blown over “In The Air Tonight”.

In sixth grade, at Delmae Elementary, we had a weekly music appreciation class.  A pretty teacher, who was probably fresh out of college, had a whole room full of instruments and tried to teach us about Mozart and “Mary Had A Little Lamb” within 45 minutes each week.  It was a struggle as we just cut up and usually just saw it as an extended recess.  One week the teacher suggests that it would be a good idea to bring in a record or cassette from home and do a bit of show and tell with a selection from the album.  We’d play it in front of the class and Ms. Whatshername would tell us all about the time, tempo, instruments, etc…  ”Would anyone like to volunteer to be first next week?”

My friend Jimmy ribbed me and practically raised my hand for me.  It was settled.  I was gonna bring “License To Ill” in that next week and we would all use this class time to listen to the clown princes of rap, alcoholism and misogyny.  The lady looked nervous, mainly because we didn’t tell her what it would be, but because half the class was giggling over it. 

So the next class arrives and I’ve got the tape in hand.  The portable cassette player is perched on a small table in the center of the room and once I get the cue, I popped the top on the deck and inserted Side One. We only had the one song to play and discuss, but I never predetermined which one it was gonna be. Suddenly, all control was gone as the kids who had heard it already were shouting out requests. “Crafty!” “Brass Monkey!” “Girls” came flying at me, until the teacher demanded to get a move on and just play a song already. I hunted and pecked through Side One until I got to “She’s Crafty” and the line “…he recognized my girly from the back of her head…”  

“Michael!!! Play something different!”  I fast forwarded some more until i got to “Girls”.  It starts playing and she started to improvise her elementary music teacher knowledge over the fast-paced synth and yelping vocals.  She was lost. We, on the other hand, were loving it. Everything about that song appealed to an 11 year old boy and it was a high point in my elementary school career to be standing in front of the class, presenting the Beastie Boys like it was a science fair project.  Evidently our teacher had  never heard anything like it and before we made it halfway through the song, she bounded towards the player, hit stop and ejected it back into my hands.  She showed me back to my seat as the other kids whined and struggled to keep it together for the rest of the class.  We were probably handed recorders, woodblocks or something like that for the rest of the time. At the end, I  do remember someone brought up who the next week’s song selection would be and before we could determine it, Ms. Whatshername halted us and exclaimed, “No more music from home. Ever.  Class dismissed.”  It was the plane crashing into the mountain. I guess it seemed like a great idea at the time.

I think that spoke volumes to me about what I wanted to do and how I wanted to live my life from that moment on. 

(Source: mikesaliba.com)

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