Beasties Have Their 'Head' Together

The Orlando Sentinel Tribune
by:Parry Gettelman
May 22, 1992

Rap has changed a lot in the three years since the Beastie Boys' last album, Paul's Boutique. But somehow, the Beasties managed to come out with a ''comeback'' album that's right in tune with the times.

Check Your Head is vastly different from Paul's Boutique, which was cluttered with samples, bad-attitudinizing and hipper-than-thou pop-cultural name-dropping. It's an even longer way from 1986's Licensed to Ill, rap's first No. 1 album, which combined hip-hop with punk snottiness and hard-rock's riffs and sexism.

Lowdown, slinky bass lines, played on a real bass? Real drums? Real guitar? Some of the funkiest Hammond organ playing this side of the blues? Check Your Head, despite the flip title, has less in common with the Beasties' brat-rap past than with genre-expanding ''alternative-rap'' releases by such groups as Arrested Development, P.M. Dawn and De La Soul. (The Beastie Boys will play the Edge in Orlando Thursday night.)

The Beasties' move toward real instruments and a sparer, funkier style has met with fan approval. Check Your Head debuted in the Top 10 this month, and although it has since dipped in the standings, it seems destined for greater commercial success than the disappointing Paul's Boutique. But the stylistic change wasn't a calculated effort to keep up with rap's evolution, said Adam Yauch, a k a Beastie MCA, in a phone interview.

''I think it just came - it's time,'' said the surprisingly soft-spoken Yauch. ''We started doing it before it really took off, for whatever that's worth. When we got into it, it was before all that (MTV) Unplugged stuff ever came out. Right when we finished Paul's Boutique, around '89, we just started playing (instruments) a lot.''

In fact, the Beasties started out playing instruments in a New York hardcore band in the late '70s. The present lineup - bassist Yauch, drummer Mike D (Mike Diamond) and guitarist Ad-Rock (Adam Horovitz) - made its first hip-hop mark with the single '' in 1983. After an EP on the Def Jam label, the group released its megahit Licensed to Ill, produced by Rick Rubin and liberallylaced with samples from Led Zeppelin, the Stones, the Clash and others.

Licensed was hardly a feminist manifesto, and the Beasties' first big tour was most notable for such frat-boy nonsense as a giant inflatable phallus and a female dancer kept in a cage - as well as plenty of beer-spewing antics. The trio tried to show a little more depth on Paul's Boutique, but although it metwith some critical favor (from male critics, anyway), the album barely went gold.

Yauch said that after Boutique, the group started getting together and jamming. From the outset, the sessions included keyboardist Mark Ramos Nishita, whose jazz-and R&B-derived organ riffs give Check Your Head much of its flavor. Nishita, a friend of co-producer Mario Caldato Jr., initially came by the Beasties' L.A. rental house to do some carpentry.

''Mike D had been crashing into a gate at the house we were living in and smashing it,'' Yauch said. ''Mark came and repaired it, and we got to talking and heard him play stuff and started jamming. . . . ''

Nishita was involved in the writing of many of the tracks, which generally arose from the jam sessions, Yauch said. Since the band had its own studio, it was able to take about a year to jam and extract material to turn into songs forthe album.

''We just messed around a lot, kept playing around with the music and stuff, slowly putting things into place until they were done. We'd actually planned - hoped - on finishing a lot sooner. We kept making deadlines for ourselves and kept missing 'em. It goes back to . . . school - we were definitely constantly absent and late with our term papers and asking for extensions.''

On Check Your Head, Yauch's bass playing is surprisingly melodic and supple -with a '70s funk feel that owes more to founding fathers of funk bass such as George Porter Jr. than to contemporary punk-funkers such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea.

''I've definitely played along with my fair share of Meters records, and I love War,'' said Yauch, who always keys in on a good bass line.

''It's hard not to for me - I've been doing that ever since I was little. I guess when I was like 13 and got my first set of headphones and was really listening to different instruments, I got really into bass. I was listening to alot of Bob Marley back then, bugging out on (Wailers bassist) Family Man.''

The new Beasties album features guest spots from rock star Ted Nugent and rapstar Biz Markie on ''The Biz vs. the Nuge.''

''They managed to both be at our studio jamming with each other,'' Yauch said. ''That was pretty wild. But the high point was actually when Ted Nugent decided to cook us all dinner, and he cooked up a big bouillabaisse. Biz tasted it and thought it was terrible. He went out and bought himself a bag of candy.''

(For the record, in Yauch's opinion, Nugent makes a fine bouillabaisse.)

The album includes three instrumentals, and two of those, ''Pow'' and ''Groove Holmes,'' are among the best tracks. Yauch said the album actually started out tobe all-instrumental, but toward the end of recording, the group began rhyming again - although not at the behest of its record company, Capitol, mind you.

''They pretty much at this point just let us do our thing,'' Yauch said. ''They kinda stopped trying to steer the band a while ago.''

The instrumentals wouldn't seem destined for airplay. However, Yauch said a friend of his had heard one on a L.A. jazz station, which played a number by jazz organ player Richard Groove Holmes and followed it up with the Beasties' ''Groove Holmes,'' their tribute to him.

The Beasties play their instruments during much of their live show and are including both ''Groove Holmes'' and ''Pow,'' along with a lot of material from Paul's Boutique and Licensed to Ill - but not ''Fight for Your Right to Party,''their hit hymn to hedonism. Yauch said whether it's maturation or the move to California, the band has gotten away from ''the whole drinking beer mentality.'' (However, Yauch said that Horovitz has recorded five - count 'em - solo albums of a rather risque bent, which Capitol refuses to release.)

''That song ('Party') is just not really happening for us right now,'' Yauch said. ''It's pretty weird getting really famous for something you do when you're goofing around.''