Category: Beastie Boys

Beastie Boys Go Instrumental On ‘The Mix-Up’
Returning to a style dabbled in with 1996’s “The In Sound From Way Out!,” the Beastie Boys will release an instrumental album, “The Mix-Up,” June 26 via Capitol. The 12-track set is the follow-up to 2004’s “To the 5 Boroughs,” which debuted at No. 1 on The Billboard 200.
“The Mix-Up” features guest turns from longtime collaborator Money Mark and percussionist Alfredo Ortiz. Sources say down the road, an alternate version of the project may be released with vocals from outside contributors.
As previously reported, the Beasties will play some instrumental shows this summer in tandem with a slate of regular gigs. Dates get underway May 26 at the Sasquatch! festival in George, Wash.
Here is the track list for “The Mix-Up”:
“Be for My Name”
“14th St. Break”
“Suco De Tangerina”
“The Gala Event”
“Electric Worm”
“Freaky Hijiki”
“Off the Grid”
“The Rat Cage”
“The Melee”
“Dramastically Different”
“The Cousin of Death”
“The Kangaroo Rat”

Beastie Boys name new album
Beastie Boys have revealed exclusively to NME.COM that their new album will be called ‘The Mix Up’ and will be released in June.
Bandmember Mike D said the follow-up to 2004’s ‘To The 5 Boroughs’ will be “radically different” to its’ predecessor. The rockier record will instead hark to the style of the band’s classic albums ‘Check Your Head’ and ‘Paul’s Boutique’.
Mike D said: “We play instruments on the whole album, as opposed to sampling. There’s more rock on there. If you know us you can trace the influences and they’re no completely surprising. Someone who listens to us casually might think ‘What the hell are these guys doing?’
“It might make you flip your wig right off, or your hairpiece, if you’re a casual listener.”
The star also talked about the band’s forthcoming appearance at the London leg of the Live Earth shows, which aim to promote action to confront global climate change.
Beastie Boys will perform at Wembley Stadium alongside the likes of Madonna, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Snow Patrol.
Speaking about the cause, Mike D said: “It’s come to the point where drastic measures have to be taken now. To really create a mass consciousness of what needs to be done, mass action, it’s gonna take mass awareness. And these huge concerts around the globe are probably one of the best means of doing so.”
Asked if he would be playing any new material at the event, the star replied: “By that point we’ll already be playing new songs. But I dunno – you don’t wanna do ‘Jazz Odyssey’ in front of a crowd of 60,000.”

Beastie Boys Eyeing Summer For New Album
An uncharacteristically short three years after their last disc, 2004’s “To the 5 Boroughs,” the Beastie Boys are putting the finishing touches on a new record. “Hopefully that’ll be out this summer, too,” group member Adam Yauch tells Billboard.
Though he remained characteristically tight-lipped about details, Yauch says the Beasties plan to air out some of the new material in a series of dates this summer, including a headlining slot at the Sasquatch Festival, to be held May 26-27 at the Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Wash.
From there, the Beastie Boys head to Europe for a series of festival dates. The band also plays a headlining set in Paris on June 26.
As first reported here Friday, Yauch has also produced a new record by the original lineup of Bad Brains, “Build a Nation,” due in late May or early June via Megaforce.
Here are the Beastie Boys’ tour dates:
May 27: George, Washington (Sasquatch Festival)
June 10: Lisbon (Alive! Festival)
June 17: Istanbul (Efes Pilsen One Love Festival)
June 22: Scheessel, Germany (Hurricane Festival)
June 24: Neuhasen, Germany (Southside Festival)
June 26: Paris (Le Zenith)
June 28: Werchter, Belgium (Rock Werchter Festival)
June 30: Gdynia, Poland (Heineken Festival)

Beasties working on ‘hot’ new album
TORONTO ñ The Beastie Boys are in the midst of writing and recording material for their next album.
The trio confirmed they’ve begun work on the yet-to-be-titled disc.
Adam Yauch (a.k.a. MCA) said the band’s follow-up to 2004’s “To The 5 Boroughs” will most likely be another self-produced effort.
Pressed for details, Adam Horowitz (a.k.a. Ad-Rock) promised the new set of songs will be the Beasties’ “best ever.”
“Wait ’til you hear the new shit that weíre working on. The shit is hot.”
Refusing to say when the disc might reach stores, Michael Diamond (a.k.a. Mike D) said the band is in the “messing around” stage.
After its premiere earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, the Beasties were in Toronto earlier today to promote the DVD release of their first-ever concert film ñ “Awesome; I Fu**in’ Shot That!”
Recorded at Madison Square Garden during 2004’s Challah At Your Boy world tour, the feature-length picture captures the Beasties’ entire live performance using footage shot by fans on 50 different cameras.
Saying that the unconventional move was prompted by their desire to “do something different,” the film was one of the most critically praised in the days following its January debut.

Beasties put new edge on concert film
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – They were the first white rappers to hit it big, and they blazed musical trails on the Web and DVD. So leave it to the Beastie Boys to take the concert film in a radical direction by letting fans call the shots.
For “Awesome; I F*****’ Shot That!,” which previews for one night in the United States on Thursday in digitally equipped theaters, the New York band gave 50 video cameras to fans at a 2004 Madison Square Garden concert who shot the show from their points of view. (The official title does not hide the profanity behind asterisks).
Band member Adam Yauch, who directs Beastie videos under the pseudonym Nathanial Hornblower, spent a year editing the tapes together. He said the aim was to capture the energy of die-hard fans and avoid run-of-the-mill concert footage that he believes seems manufactured and “plasticky.”
“Using the cameras and having the audience shooting — the fact they are dancing and jumping around or spazzing out with the camera — captures the feel in the room,” Yauch said.
For more than two decades, the Beasties — MCA (Yauch), Adrock (Adam Horovitz) and Mike D (Michael Diamond) — blazed trails in music. They became a sensation with 1986’s hit album “License to Ill,” and built a huge following with single such as “Fight for Your Right (To Party)” and “Sabotage.”
The Beasties formed a record label, published a magazine, and, while others fretted about music theft on the Web, offered songs that fans could download and remix themselves.
Under his Hornblower name, Yauch created 2000’s “Beastie Boys Video Anthology” DVD that gave viewers the ability to change camera angles on videos as they watched and/or mix the music in a way that created multiple new songs and new videos.
CELL PHONES TO CINEMA
Yauch got the idea for “Awesome” after watching a short film clip from a Beastie concert that was recorded by a fan using a cell phone. “The energy that was in it more sincerely captured a concert than most things I’d seen, and I thought, wow, imagine multiplying this,” Yauch said.
“Awesome” begins with the cameras being given out before the Garden concert and the Beasties heading onto the stage. For the next 90 minutes, movie audiences see the band perform songs like “Hello Brooklyn” and “Shake Your Rump.”
They also watch concert-goers dancing in the aisles — one fan directs his entire section. Another fan runs to the toilet and a pair sneak backstage. When the band enters the audience for the finale, the cameras capture the pandemonium up close.
The movie premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival to good reviews and enthusiastic crowds. Yauch remembers seeing people jump up from their seats and start to dance, and he added that some people have told him theater owners should install a small dance floor for fans.
Doing so may not be far-fetched. Theater owners are trying to stem declining admissions, which fell nearly 9 percent in 2005. One way to do so has been to install new digital projectors and feature new types of entertainment.
Keeping with their trail-blazing ways, the Beasties are previewing “Awesome” only at 200 digital venues. Preceding it is a 30-minute short, “A Day in the Life of Nathanial Hornblower,” which will never be screened again.
“Nothing about the way ‘Awesome’ was made was conventional, so we are trying to be as imaginative in our release strategy as Adam was in making the film,” said Mark Urman, president of the film’s distributor, THINKFilm.
Following the one-night preview, the film begins playing in regular theaters on Friday, March 31.

FAN PARTICIPATION
ThinkFilm acquiring worldwide rights to Awesome: I Fuckin’ Shot That, a Beastie Boys documentary shot mainly by fans at Madison Square Garden using handheld cameras, per the Hollywood Reporter.

Beastie Boys turn 24 with ‘Solid Gold Hits’ set
NEW YORK (Billboard) – On the occasion of the Beastie Boys’ 24th birthday, Capitol will on November 8 release “Solid Gold Hits,” a 15-track compilation that will also be available as a limited-edition CD/DVD featuring as-yet-unspecified music videos.
The Beasties were previously anthologized on the 1999 double-disc set “The Sounds of Science,” which included all but five tracks here. “Triple Trouble,” “Ch-Check It Out” and “An Open Letter to NYC” are drawn from last year’s album “To the 5 Boroughs,” while Fatboy Slim has remixed “Body Movin.”‘
The lone oldie left off “Science” that has been revived for “Solid Gold Hits” is “No Sleep ‘Till Brooklyn” from 1986’s breakthrough album “License To Ill.”
Due to the fact that the Beasties have been off the radar since completing the tour in support of “To the 5 Boroughs” and that no new or rare material is featured on “Solid Gold Hits,” there is renewed fan debate over the trio’s future.
Here is the track list for “Solid Gold Hits”:
“So What’cha Want”
“Brass Monkey”
“Ch-Check It Out”
“No Sleep ‘Till Brooklyn”
“Hey Ladies”
“Pass the Mic”
“An Open Letter to NYC”
“Root Down”
“Shake Your Rump”
“Intergalactic”
“Sure Shot”
“Body Movin”‘ (Fatboy Slim remix)
“Triple Trouble”
“Sabotage”
“Fight for Your Right”