NEW YORK TIMES: Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys announced Monday, by way of a homemade video placed without fanfare on the band’s Web site, that he would be receiving treatment for cancer and that as a result the group would cancel some future shows and push back the release of a new album. He did not give specifics of the veteran hip-hop group’s plans in the 3 minute 23 second video. Its next scheduled appearance is at the All Points West Festival in Jersey City on July 31. MORE
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following ran last summer on Phawker…
ILL COMMUNICATION: Dear Beastie Boys…
I am a student at a small Midwestern college, I never thought the letters to the Penthouse Forum were true until…Heh-heh. Um, you weren’t supposed to see that. In other news, Phawker has been invited to a special Beastie Boys press conference tonight at the Festival Pier in advance of next week’s tonight’s concert. And in the interest of making New Media your bitch work FOR you, dear readers, WE ARE GONNA LET YOU ASK THE BEASTIE BOYS ANYTHING YOU WANT. How many times have you gotten into an argument with your buds about the Beastie Boys — and been, like, If only we could somehow ask the Beastie Boys, then we would finally know once and for all — all the time, right? And now, thanks to the democratizing power of Phawker, you actually can! Just send your questions for the Beastie Boys to FEED@PHAWKER.COM. And then check back here tomorrow to find out how they answered your question. Why? Because we like you.
NO SLEEP ‘TIL BROOKLYN: Beastie Boys, Festival Pier, August 1, 2007
BY JONATHAN VALANIA So as promised, here’s a rough transcript of the Q&A at the Beasties press conference. The assembled press included Dan DeLuca from the Inquirer, Christian Hoard from Rolling Stone, some dude and dudette from Wonkavision, and dude from Gloucester County Times. (Note: We all sat around waiting about an hour for a.d. amorosi to show up — and when he finally did, he sat down for two minutes, checked his cell phone messages and then he left before the press conference even started! Now that is gonzo journalism, folks.)
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ME: So I run this blog called Phawker…
AD-ROCK: Oh, you’re Phawker…
ME: [nods] And we ran this contest where readers could send in questions for me to ask you guys, but unfortunately we had the wrong date for the concert and most of the questions where along the lines of “Aren’t they playing TONIGHT?” and “That show is tonight, dumbass” — so my first question is just to confirm that the Beastie Boys concert is tonight, not next week.
MIKE D: Correct.
ME: OK, my next question comes from a Phawker reader who wants to know “When are the Beastie Boys finally gonna put out an official Beastie Boys buzzbee?” Does this mean anything to you guys? What the hell is a buzzbee?
AD-ROCK: It’s a frisbee with a bowl on top and a little compartment on the bottom where you keep your, um, tobacco. You take a puff and throw to your friend.
MIKE D: We have a lot of other merch we are planning to release that are ahead of that in the pipeline.
ME: Such as.
MIKE D: The Bart Simpson Bong.
ME: Wow, you guys got the rights to that?
MIKE D: It’s gonna be a collaborative thing [with Fox.]
DAN DELUCA: [to Ad-Rock] Any new developments in your Scrabble feud with ?uestlove?
AD-ROCK: I don’t wanna talk about that because we finally put it to rest — even though I was winning. He’s a nice guy, and he’s bigger than me. However, I am fast. So if he wants to race me.
MIKE D: I just want to say that we met up with him a couple of weeks ago and it ended with a tight hug.
AD-ROCK: Not tight.
MIKE D: It was pretty tight.
ME: If you could go back in time twentysomething years ago to the beginning of the band, knowing what you know now, would you still call the band Beastie Boys? And if not, what would you have called it instead?
AD-ROCK: Disco Three.*
MCA: [looking off into space wistfully, as if imagining what life would have been like for Disco Three] If we’d had that name, who knows what we could have accomplished…
*Originally the Fat Boys were known as The Disco Three. However, the name was changed after their manager, Charles Stettler, complained about how much the trio ate during an early European tour.