Beasties - Then & Now(ish)

So I don't know if you know this, but the Beastie Boys are definitely on my top-whatever list of favorite music groups.

As far as my love for GOOD hip-hop goes, I give a substantial amount of credit to the Beasties for leading me down the path of how I should judge so-called hip-hop heads. Their debut (debut mind you) album License To Ill remains this historic production that completely turned hip-hop at the time on its head - I mean listen to it, it's like Nostradamus made a rap album about how rap music (and hell, countless other genres and fusions, etc.) would become during our present time. This is also the album that made me believe that Rick Rubin was less of a producer and more of a genius.

So anyway, I've been scrounging the Internette for Beastie material I haven't yet heard (with the exception of 2007's The Mix-Up, as I vowed not to listen to it until I eventually buy it on vinyl), because I got no life like that, and have recently happened upon a couple REALLY TASTY MORSELS of Beastie Boys history that I have to say was thoroughly enjoyable.

The first of which is a bootleg released under the title Original Ill. Original Ill is the demo tape of what would later become their groundbreaking first album. Yeah I know it doesn't sound that great (especially because it was literally ripped straight from an actual TAPE circa 1984), but the reason that it is something worth checking out is the fact that some of the tracks on here have new verses (like whole fucking bars of new shit!), new mixes, and even jams that didn't make it to the album (!!!!!), which includes a Beatles cover (!!!!!!!). Yeah dude....

Ch-Check It Out

So the next great find was this bootleg from '87 when the Beasties went on tour to pimp Ill. Now the quality of this recording is shasty as hell due to shasty 1980's bootleg technology, which I'm convinced means that someone came in the place with Talkboy. However, the reason you should cop this boot is the fact that (A) they bring out suprise guests RUN DMC, and (B) they sound drunk as hell...like shit-faced drunk...and apparently it's because it was Ad Rock's birthday, but who knows. Definitely worth checking out...

RIGHT HERE

And to conclude this post, as I've mentioned previously in my cool ass blog, I had the chance to witness the greatness that is THE Beastie Boys live, in person, posse in effect, in 2004 at Voodoo Fest in New Orleans - easily one of the best concerts of my entire life. I tend to look around the 'Nette after I go to a show that I know was most likely bootlegged, and luckily for me, I happened to find this very show! Thank god I downloaded it then, because ever since then (and I've searched) I can't find it anywhere. Apparently there was also a soundboard version SOME-fucking-WHERE that the guy who I got this from wouldn't give me (and I tried, that cunt). So for those -3 people who read my blog, here is the Beastie Boys, Live at Voodoo Fest 04 (and my first megaupload upload):

FUCKING AWESOME SHIT

now be sure and compare the two bootlegs - kinda eye-opening aint it? special thanks to It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold This Sac for the links.