MCA Passes the Mic

"I want to offer my love and respect to the end." Adam "MCA" Yauch (1964--2012)

  Adam "MCA" Yauch, who dropped science like Galileo dropped the orange, has left the Earth and two Beastie Boys behind after battling throat cancer for three years. He was the voice of gravel to Mike Diamond and Adam "Adrock" Horovitz's whine and yelp. He was always the steadiest one, leaning in the back chewing bubblegum and moving with a calibrated ease. I always took a personal liking to Mike D, but it was the lyrics of MCA that rattled most in my brain. "All you Trekkies and TV addicts/Don't mean to diss, don't mean to bring static," or, “I’m cool as a cucumber in a bowl of hot sauce,” or, "I'll stir-fry you in my wok," and who knows what else, all of it.

     Once at a job interview for Blockbuster I was asked how I prepare myself mentally before going to work. In a moment of hesitation I wondered if I should give them the professional answer, or the truth. "Well...I put on the Beastie Boys and that pretty much gets me ready," I answered. The two employers had smiles that turned into laughs and I was hired.

    This is the absolute beauty of MCA, Adrock and Mike D: When the Beastie Boys play all the problems of the world fall away. Everything loosens up and suddenly it's the first day of summer vacation. Dance, shout, jump, throw shit around and have some fun. The Beasties unlock the part of your brain where all the happiness hides. They instantly achieve pure wild positivity and reflect it back to the listener. No other group does this. Many come close, many have tried, but only the B-Boys can truly make it happen again and again. Just think of the opening seconds of “Intergalactic” or “Sure Shot” and you’ll start to feel that spazzed-out energy. It’s hard not to jump out a window or swing from the ceiling fan when it comes on.

    They've given the world something magical that will last forever. It's heartbreaking to think it’s over, but hard to imagine the Beastie Boys as a duo. They've always been and always will be a trio, but this ends not with a slouching sadness, but of a joyful gratitude. MCA’s soul now may be divided up amongst the rest of us so that a sliver of him will melt inside us always. He now travels by the sound waves of his own creation. He now is the music.

TOP ALBUMS--2011

10. THE WHOLE LOVE-Wilco
Wilco, always the go-to for Americana experimentation, roar back with The Whole Love. Jeff Tweedy reigns supreme as the most daring and fruitful songwriter of these times and with a crack professional band backing him up, another page turned in their history. From the blast-off of “Art of Almost” to the quiet, stirring confessional “One Sunday Morning (Song For Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend)” Wilco cement their feet in the palace of rock and roll.

9. BAD AS ME-Tom Waits
Tom Waits is baaaaack! The scrap metal blues are alive and well in 2011 with Waits grumbling and moaning of leaving wherever he is right now. Bad as Me is all about unrest and anxiety and with two and three minute songs, it sounds that way too. Enlisting the help of Keith Richards, Les Claypool, Flea and Marc Ribot, Waits crafted a funky, brash, junkyard treasured album for these monolithically troubled times.

8. HOT SAUCE COMMITTEE PART 2-Beastie Boys
Yo, throat cancer ain’t nothing but a bitch to the Beastie Boys. Put on hold after Adam "MCA" Yauch discovered a cancerous tumor intruding his salivary glands, Hot Sauce was finally released this year and I almost trashed my entire room by the end of opener “Make Some Noise.” After experimenting with instrumentation on The Mix-Up, the B-Boys returned, a little older and more grizzled, to their trademark goofball raps. All you crab rappers, you’re rapping like crabs.

7. HELPLESSNESS BLUES-Fleet Foxes
Words that have described Fleet Foxes: pastoral, melancholic, folksy, harmonious. After the wild success of their first album it’s easy to get frightened that expectations will get the best of them. Not so with Blues. They made a record that sweetly illustrates the struggle of today’s common man: dragging oneself to work while dreaming of the peaceful woods and searching for moments of tranquility and acceptance. The harmonies are prevalent and folk strumming comforting. This is home, wherever that may be.

6. BLOOD PRESSURES-The Kills
The greatest girl-boy duo since those siblings in red and white stopped production, The Kills return with the very fine Blood Pressures. The songs are quick, to the point, drenched in reverb and tinged with that subtle nostalgia that keeps you coming back. Alison Mosshart vocals slice through the distortion of guitarist Jamie Hince creating end-of-the-world black ballroom music.

5. 4-Beyonce
Beyonce very well could be the supreme diva of our time. It’s so refreshing she didn’t take the electronic pound-it-in-your-head dubstep route other divas (Lady Gaga, Rihanna) have taken to broaden their sound. Each song touches on different genres of pop music to create a well-rounded album. It starts with a downcast mood reflecting on troubled relationships (c’mon Jay!), but pulls itself from the mud to emblazon the speakers with songs like “Love on Top” and “Countdown.” Get it girl!

4. SMOKE RING FOR MY HALO-Kurt Vile
Kurt Vile woke himself up long enough to record this layered acoustic gem. Still less hazy than his previous albums, Smoke Ring is the soundtrack to the marijuana-laced dreams you can never remember. He takes Kurt Cobain’s angst-fried snarling and pours cough syrup all over it. There’s a comfort in lethargy as the world swoons all around your bedroom.

3. THE KING OF LIMBS-Radiohead
The most challenging record of the year is also the most rewarding. Radiohead raise their ceiling of creativity with each new release and The King of Limbs, certainly, is no different. At first you’re not sure if the drum tracks are lined up with the electronic tracks and then you’re wondering what Thom Yorke is saying and before you realize it the song is splashing in glorious ponds of connectivity and all is right with the world. Inside of 38 minutes, but demanding repeat listens, Radiohead prove, once again, why they are skyscrapers above the rest of the pack.

2. WATCH THE THRONE-Jay-Z & Kanye West
Docked from the top spot only because “Made in America” is a terrible song and totally disrupts the mood, Watch the Throne, fulfilled its promise to be the biggest release of 2011. Jay and ‘Ye get deep dissecting what it means to be black, rich and successful in America—pretty fucking fun, but also lonely and disengaging. Their thoughts move past bling and supermodels just long enough to reveal a landscape of paranoia, distrust and insecurity that may give its white audience something to think about before they mutter ‘nigger’ to their friend in the passenger seat. Let’s hope these fuckers never leave their zone.

1. LET ENGLAND SHAKE-PJ Harvey
England’s angel soars above the clouds to deliver the most poetically scathing portrait of her homeland. Dreamlike on arrival, but haunting in tone, England captures the drifting prominence of the United Kingdom as well as America and the rest of the E.U., for that matter. Harvey reflects on the atrocities of war and the unrelenting aftermath that follows. “The Words That Maketh Murder” offers a soldier’s deathly perspective as he walks the battleground filled with an unknown regret. It’s national pride gone awry, turned inward and defensive, and it comes through on the haunted breeze that is Harvey’s voice.

Beastie Boys be gettin' psychoactive

Put this on your zip disk and send it to a lawyer, Hot Sauce Committee Part Two has revealed itself
       After the Celtics blew the Knicks and their playoff hopes out like birthday candles Sunday night, Madison Square Garden emptied of disgruntled fans. Fortunately, there to fill the void, a single boom-box, at mid-court blasted the first full listen of the Beastie Boys’ new album, Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, from the famous arena’s sound system. Basketball may be over for New York, but at least their rap icons have returned.
       Their eighth studio album was scheduled to arrive in the fall of 2009, but Adam "MCA" Yauch discovered a cancerous lump in his throat and the whole moment was postponed. MCA took time off, stir-fried the lump in his wok, and made a full recovery. Hot Sauce Committee Part Two will stack up on chain store shelves everywhere this Tuesday, but it's been streaming fo’ free at http://www.hotsaucecommittee.com/ all week.
       The gonzo skwonking on the opener, “Make Some Noise,” starts the party off right. Like the beginning of all their albums, it instantly puts you in a good mood. As usual their zany beat arrangements shift songs into new rooms constantly keeping the listener wandering through the house. All the ingredients for mom’s home-made Beastie Boys’ album are here. We’ve got the spastic rhymes dashed with corny clown samples, live drums, stoner space jams, creeping robotics and nearly every song is anchored by a tremendous bass line.
       "Too Many Rappers,” the first track to leak, sounds heavier and coarser than it initially did streaming online. A quaking metal guitar throws Nas and the boys up against a cement wall of noise. It withers perfectly into “Say It,” a rumbling call-to-action drenched in feedback loops and junkyard bass. It has the same energy as “Sabotage” (as well as some of the same effects) and could be the song that destroys at the end of a long set list.
       A hazy hook from Santigold on “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win” lies horizontally with hot horns and a dripping dropping guitar. The echoes swim around and the desert sun swallows your head whole in mirror images. I would bet they’re saving this one for a summer time single. “Long Burn the Fire“comes next. MCA starts off with his prodigious growl as caterwauling synths drop off in the background. If your body doesn’t do some kind of side-to-side rock and sway then you must be a corpse washed ashore. When the Beasties come for you in the middle of the night this song will be playing.
       For non-fans who discarded the instrumental jams of The Mix-Up or the political overtones that blemished To The Five Burroughs, the new album is a welcome return. The closest line to a political statement could be, “running lines like rats at Taco Bell,” but that's a stretch.The three musical blendings that have kept the Beasties so alive in music for twenty-five years -- funk, punk and rap -- are all present and sharp. Their funk is galactic and strong on “Funky Donkey.” “Lee Majors Come Again” takes claim of the hidden punk-rock gem that side-swiped their earlier records and “Tadlock’s Glasses” feels like the exact point of time when the nitrous oxide hits your brain mister hot air balloon head. Mix all this with the fact that their goofball genes have not diminished whatsoever with age and you have a classic among classic B-boy albums.
       This is Mike Diamond, Adam Yauch and Adam Horovitz (of course also Mix Master Mike and Money Mark) crafting a cherished record. With their sound fully realized and all their tools in a pile right before them, they know what they’re doing and oh mercy me is it exhilarating!

Best Tracks: “Long Burn the Fire,” “Say It,” “Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament,” “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win”