Farewell Adam Yauch

It seems as if Adam Yauch (1964-2012), along with the Beastie Boys, was always there. I first became familiar with the group via the single "She's On It," circa about 1985. I loved its combination of buzzsaw guitars and slammin' beats. But a year later, "Fight for Your Right" did not grab me the same way. It sounded more like a frat boy song to me, and the single "Girls" was just annoying. I owe my friend Nicole a debt of thanks for eventually convincing me of the group's genius. A few years later, the album Paul's Boutique was nothing more than a masterpiece, and I've been a full-fledged fan ever since. I was lucky enough to see them live in concert in 1992, on the Check Your Head tour. Every handful of years for two more decades, a new Beastie LP was big news, and I bought them all, savoring the crazy samples, jokes, production, and brilliant rhymes. 

Yauch was also involved in movies and video. Among the group's groundbreaking releases was a collection of videos released on the Criterion Collection label; this included an amazing interactive video for the song "Alive." After I became a film critic, I also had the opportunity to review several items like The Work of Director Spike Jonze, a DVD that included "Sabotage," which could lay claim to being the greatest music video ever made. Yauch was involved in Paramount's release of Mario Bava's Danger: Diabolik on DVD; he allowed the inclusion of the  "Body Movin'" video, which was directly inspired by that film. (Yauch conttributed a commentary track for the video.) Finally, the Beastie Boys cooked up an innovative new idea for a concert movie, shot by the fans: Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That!

The Beastie Boys provided one of the ultra-cool "underground" tracks ("Scenario") that Christian Slater played in Pump Up the Volume... and it's a track that I have NEVER been able to find anywhere else. (If anyone has any info, I'd be grateful!)

But perhaps just as importantly, Yauch recently founded Oscilloscope Laboratories, a distributing company that has released some of the best movies of recent years: Exit Through the Gift Shop, I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale, The Maid, Meek's Cutoff, The Messenger, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, Scott Walker: 30th Century Man, Treeless Mountain, Wendy and Lucy, a re-release of Jules Dassin's The Law, and many others.

Perhaps most amazingly, Yauch was a rare positive rapper, making it sound cool to talk about things like spirituality and women's rights, or to speak out against George W. Bush and his oil war. Most of all though, when I remember Yauch, I remember all the years of pure joy he and the Boys gave me, a lot of it with friends, and some of it by myself when I desperately needed a laugh or a pick-me-up. This is a major loss in the music world, but I'm forever grateful that he was here.