Rhymin' and Stealin'

Brooklyn toile by Michael Diamond

On "Rhymin' and Stealin'," the opening track of the Beastie Boys' License To Ill (1986), the band samples Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks." It's perfect -- ominous and celebratory, struck through with a fat needle. This loop came from an Adam Yauch (MCA) experiment wherein he literally looped tape -- from a two-reel player around a chair and back -- in his apartment.

I learned this detail last night, seeing the remaining two Beasties, Mike Diamond (Mike D) and Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock), with their long-time collaborator Michael Schwartz (Mix Master Mike, who played that loop, scratches and all) on their tour for the delightfully thick new Beastie Boys Book at the Ricardo Montalbán Theater in Hollywood.

The Beastie Boys are my favorite band. I've loved them since high school. I still have Paul's Boutique (1989) on vinyl. I wore out at least two License To Ills on cassette, hurtling my dad's 3/4-ton Dodge pickup down Montana back roads. I saw them in Washington state at Lollapalooza (where my best friend lost half her boot in the mud), then a few other venues I pretty much remember, in the '90s. When I sold my CDs, theirs were among the first albums I purchased on iTunes. They were my soundtrack for college road trips and my beats of choice for after-party dance-offs. They've accompanied me on hundreds of grown-up slogs along the 405. And in my dotage, they join me for ferocious bouts of elliptical and dusting. Mike Diamond and Adam Horovitz last night, sharing stories from their lives and careers, were joyous and heartbreaking. Adam Yauch died in 2012. His presence and absence are palpable.

These guys were and are incredibly talented, across genres and disciplines. On top of making and producing music, they act, direct, write, helm podcasts, even design wallpaper.

Speaking of stuff you stick on other stuff: The term "collage" comes from the French coller, "to glue." Collage, sometimes called "assemblage," is my favorite form -- visual, auditory, and written -- to witness and to work in. The Beastie Boys revolutionized sound collage via sampling in their music: Their curated layers of sound are beautiful, indebted, original, and fun. Sometimes they give props; sometimes they just catalyze joy in the communal experience of art. They Rauschenberg. They move me. Sometimes to tears, sometimes to dance like a 48-year-old white woman with a tricky back probably shouldn't.

Today as I work in my office at the Marion Davies Guest House, I'm grateful. To be alive, to be writing, to be supported in my work, to be witnessing the work of other artists. We are all collaging, consciously or unconsciously, all of the time. And we are all collage, fragments that make new sense vibing with and juxtaposed against other fragments.

As MCA writes in "Something's Got To Give" (Check Your Head, 1992): Someday, we shall all be one.



-- Catherine Coan, 11/05/18

PS: If you, too, love artists who work across genres and disciplines, please join me Tuesday, November 27, at 6:30 pm at Annenberg Community Beach House as I moderate a conversation between collage-y artists and writers Sheree Winslow, Mathieu Cailler, Leslie Wood-Brown, and Cindy Rinne.