Beastie Boys Book

This massive book of essays, musings, comics, photos, recipes, and more tells the story of Beastie Boys, by band members ADROCK and Mike D (MCA passed away from cancer in 2012), with contributions from Amy Poehler, Spike Jonze, Kate Schellenbach, just to name a few. This book does chronicle the shenanigans most casual readers may expect from the Beastie Boys, but being that this book is a gargantuan 600-page Beastie tome, I don't believe it was intended for a casual reader. It is for beloved fans of Beastie Boys and music in general, as well as a love letter to friendship and New York City (and a love note to Los Angeles, too).

The photos and various ephemera are enjoyable but I particularly liked the self-awareness put on display by ADROCK (Adam Horowitz) and Mike D (Michael Diamond) about their friendships, their place in time in NYC when they were kids, their luck at being in the right place at the right time, and their adolescent mistakes. All of their misogynistic jokes on their early recordings and videos still haunt them to this day and they gracefully retell many of the steps they took to fix their youthful transgressions with their friends. Early band member Kate Schellenbach is given a chance to tell her side of the story of why she felt she was “fired” from the band and her observations of that time. It's an affecting part of their story. And I clearly remember hearing their song Sure Shot for the first time with its infamous MCA verse, “I want to say a little something that's long overdue / the disrespect to women has got to be through / To all the mothers and the sisters and the wives and friends / I wanna offer my love and respect till the end” and thinking to myself, ‘They're growing up. That's cool.'

For me, Beastie Boys were and still are a big part of my musical life. I have enjoyed all of their music and videos since She's On It. I was 15 when License to Ill came out. My friends and I memorized all the lyrics on Paul's Boutique. Hearing Check Your Head for the first time in my car BLEW MY MIND! Ill Communication continued blowing my mind. I saw them at Lollapalooza in ‘94 at their Houston stop. I also saw their In the Round show in Austin at the Frank Erwin Center. To say the Beastie Boys are part of my life is an understatement. So, reading this book not only gave me more insight about their lives, it also sparked my own memories of my life as it was partly soundtracked by their music.

What a glorious soundtrack that is!

If you're a fan of Beastie Boys or music in general, then I highly recommend this book.