INTERNET WEB SITE REVIEW: The Beastie Boys Online
- Robin Lapid
Computer bigwigs always talk about the far-reaching potential of the Internet as a vital tool for economic and social growth. But we all know what the Internet's *really* useful for -- hacking and proffering advance copies of the new Pearl Jam cd and making proper tributes to your favorite bands, like "The Beastie Boys Ate My Balls!" homepage.
The collective Beastie Boys -- namely, the punk-rapping trio of Mike D, MC Adam Yauch, and Adam "AdRock" Horovitz -- are representin' well on the web, both officially and unofficially. The band has made ample use of the Internet's saturation ability to promote their numerous musical and philanthropic side projects. The fans, of course, are having their say as well. Herein, a primer to help weed through the net detritus and find those golden nuggets of b-boy representation.
The official Beastie Boys website, "On the Strength of the Doo Rag," (http://www.grandroyal.com/beastieboys) is the first and best place to go for a comprehensive Beastie fix. It started life as a high-quality fanpage, but Mike D's Grand Royal label has since taken over, so it has both the latest official news and all the other nit-picky goodies a fan could ever want. In fact, most of the fanpages just steal their stuff from this site. Included are tons of archived press clips, quicktime videos, pictures, discography, the official mailing list faq, and relevant links, including the homepage of Milarepa, the not-for-profit (co-founded by Adam Yauch) organization which puts on the annual Tibetan Freedom Concert. There are also updates on the latest goings-on of all things Beastie, which more recently includes confirmation of a new album and tour this summer.
The best links from this page include the 1995 Tour Diary (http://www.grandroyal.com/BeastieBoys/TourZine), an amusing behind-the-scenes look at the American tour for Ill Communication . Nearly every date is catalogued with setlists, pictures, and the necessary Beastie anecdotes (i.e. the time they snuck into a waterslide park afterhours, the NYC Madison Square Garden performance and afterparty, Mike D's explanation on Billy Joel's honorary status as 'the Fifth Beastie Boy').
The Grand Royal Records webpage (http://www.grandroyal.com) links you to all the bands on the label, including AdRock's BS 2000 side project and some outdated information on the GR magazine. But there's also a link to the interactive web-version of 1992's sold-out premier issue, with its infamous Bruce Lee cover story. This first issue epitomizes the best reasons to love the Beastie Boys -- the music for sure, but also that punk-ass, tongue-in-cheek cool filtered through hilarious in-jokes. Included in this issue are interviews with friends like Luscious Jackson and Def Jam's Russell Simmons, a fashion spread which pays tribute to Joey Buttafuoco, and Beastie-style music reviews (sample: Soul Asylum, 'Whatever The Fuck Their New LP Is Called' -- Mike D: 'This is why most white people suck. Who stole the soul? Soul Asylum.').
The official GR pages are pretty impressive as far as content, but only mildly so concerning graphics. Expect bigger and better as an apparent web- initiative has been ordered, so GR may be upgrading the entire site in anticipation of the new Beastie Boys album. Overall Rating: 'Jiggy' (i.e., flair, style, very worthwhile).
You might think the official mailing list (subscribe majordomo@grandroyal.com) would be just as rewarding. But you'd be wrong. Most of the high-volume traffic consists of e-mails wondering "So when's the new shit gonna drop?" and posts that just wanna show off some gangsta- inflected lingo. There are some promising posts, including information on the new album, but even that was filtered from mtv online. The same goes for the alt.music.beastie-boys newsgroup. Ratings for both: "Wack" (i.e., bad, as in "what if Sean "Puffy" Combs sampled Celine Dion's Titanic theme song?" kind of bad).
For other Beastie Boy jiggy-ness on the Web, Sonicnet has exclusive coverage of 1997's 2nd Annual Tibetan Freedom Concert from New York (http://www.sonicnet.com/tibet/97). It contains realaudio and -video clips from many of the bands that performed, including almost the entire Beastie Boys set. For the best in beastie links, the Ultimate Band List saves you a lot of search-time (http://www.ubl.com/artists/001024.html); it includes categories such as audio and video links, brief intro's to fan pages, and much more.
