Speaker 1: Four and three and two and one. Let's go, guys,
it is the Surely you Can't Be Serious Podcast, Part
two Beastie Boys Licensed Ill.
Speaker 2: Today, we're gonna go by track by track through license
to me.
Speaker 1: Man. I thought I had something. I had nothing.
Speaker 2: I was just like you are not rhyming and stealing
right there.
Speaker 1: Got Ali Baba and the forty Thieves just took those
thoughts right out of my head.
Speaker 2: Center stage on the mic, we've got our friend def
Dave back, Dave, how are you doing tonight?
Speaker 3: I'm on the cool check in. I'm hanging out with
the Gangster, the Prankston and the King of the app.
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
Speaker 3: I got some Chef woy er d cooling on the pot.
I can make a court a monkey and still stand still.
I'm ready to talk about license to you.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, yes, wrong and he's strong today. So
we're going to talk track by track about Licensed Ill.
Speaker 2: Just in case you're jumping in at this point, you
may want to go back to last episode where we
did kind of an overview of the Beastie Boys. We
introduced Dave, we kind of talked about our relationship to
the album, and then kind of how the Beastie Boys
got here. Okay, so this was the first rap album
of all time to hit number one on the Billboard charts.
I mean it's it's groundbreaking. Yeah, I think it hit
number one March seventh of e seven. You know what,
it knocked out of the number one spot. Not in sterio.
You're warm though, You're close, Dave. You know what it
knocked out of the number one spot.
Speaker 3: I think I do?
Speaker 2: Okay, what you got?
Speaker 3: It ended the seven week reign of Slippery When Wet.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And it was number
one for seven weeks and then it got knocked out
by an album that we have podcasted on. You know what,
It knocked it out of the number one spot.
Speaker 1: I got nothing, Dave.
Speaker 4: Joshua Tree, the Joshua Tree, but you too.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you something about that. First of all,
Licensed Ill matched Slippery When Wet with seven weeks in
the top spot. But here's the thing. Slippery when Wet
had the benefit of two number one hits. Joshua Tree
had three number one hits and Licensed to Ill had none.
It had seven singles and only won the top twenty.
And that was fight for your Right to Party and
it peaked out at number seven. So I'll look at that,
the same day that the album with number seven, the.
Speaker 1: Same day that the album hit number one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so what that tells me is radio was slow
to catch up with what was happening with kids all
across the country. We knew about the Beastie Boys and
we were buying up the album, but radio had not
caught up with this. And we see this album go
to number one and stay there despite lack of airplay
because there were no big hits that charted off of
this album.
Speaker 2: Pretty remarkable. I totally you get it. But you know,
despite the lack of radio play, Fight for Your Right
was on about every fourth song on MTV, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 1: It was absurd how often they were playing the song.
Speaker 2: But it was a great video.
Speaker 3: Oh we loved it.
Speaker 1: We loved it. Okay, so we'll get we'll get to that.
Hear that video when that comes in. Before we jump
full on into the album, let's talk a little bit
about the cover of the album. Yeah, all right, okay,
So it's it's iconic. You've got this American Airlines Bowen
seven twenty seven. You see the tail on the front
cover of the album, and then when you open it
up you realize that the plane is crashing into the
side of a mountain yep, and it kind of resembles
like a joint being crushed out or something like that.
The artwork was created by a guy named Steven Byram
and another guy named World be Omes and World be Ohms,
and it's been it's been kind of imitated, like Eminem
had an album where he imitated it. But one of
the things that you showed me that I did not
know about is the number on the side that if
you hold it up to the mirror or just read
it backwards, the threes become ease and it says, yeah,
it's it's.
Speaker 2: Three mt a e And if you turn that around backwards,
it's eat me. Even the album cover is making jokes.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So Eminem kind of duplicated it on his
album called.
Speaker 2: We would kind of be remiss if we didn't talk
about what the album was originally going to be called.
Speaker 1: Okay, we can't say that.
Speaker 2: I know we are family friendly. We'll dance around it
a little bit. I do think it's part of the
story how they sort of evolved from obnoxious teenage frat
boy crazy men to respected artists that we have later
on today. So the album was originally titled Don't Be
a f Right.
Speaker 1: And another name for a cigarette in England, right, and
Capitol Records said, no, we're not doing that, right, Okay,
So what does license to Ill mean?
Speaker 3: The word ill was simply the opposite of chills. So
it was just a part of the lingo. If you
were whack, right, if you were not cool, if if
you were doing something stupid, you were either ill or
you were illing. And there was a keep in mind
just after the Raising Hell album has come out and
there was a track on there called you Be Illing.
I think we're playing off the license to Kill phrase
and just went with the lingo.
Speaker 2: I've got a quick funny story on the title of
the album. Okay. So they were on the Joan Rivers Show. Okay,
this is a while back, think back thirty five years.
Joan Rivers had her own talk show and she was
introducing the Beastie Boys and she's like, and here they
are to promote their album License to Kill, and you
can hear these people off screen. They're like, it's it's ill,
it's ill. Joan she's like, I'm sorry, let me do
it again. So they're here to do the record License
to Kill. They're like, Joan, no, it's ill. She's like what.
So they finally get her to say license to Ill,
and she's like, that's a stupid title. She said, you
guys would have gone platinum in four weeks instead of
seven weeks if you had a better title than Licensed
to Ill. But I just thought it was really funny.
Joan Rivers thought it was a really dumb title.
Speaker 1: So out of touch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, out this album.
Speaker 3: I cannot overstate how massive this album was for me
mavel graduating class. We were in tenth grade at the time.
It came out in eighty six, Discovered in early eighty seven,
this took over our school. We absolutely went nuts over
this album and this group. It really defined that school
year for all of us. Not only is it still
the number one selling debut album and def jam history,
it is the top selling debut album for Columbia Records,
and it proved to be a perennial seller, stayed as
a top seller in their catalog list, and even as
of the two thousands, it was selling like five hundred
thousand units a year. So it has continued to be
a massive hit.
Speaker 2: What high school did you go to?
Speaker 3: I was at Hardway High School in Columbus.
Speaker 2: Give a shout out to the Fighting Farmers or whatever
they are.
Speaker 3: Shout out to the Hardaway Hawks class of eighty nine. Yes,
my crew, cool kid Chris clayboy E in Chiff Bad
Goldie Rocks the boyd wonder.
Speaker 1: So did you say that your mascot was the Hogs.
Speaker 3: Hawks Hawks like the Atlanta Hawks.
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: See okay, So here's here's the connection that Dave and
I discovered whenever he started emailing us about this, because
I don't even remember what it was that spawned the
original email where you said, Hey, if you guys ever
do Beastie boys run DMC, I'm all in. But he
pointed out that he was from Columbus, Georgia, which has
a good story which we'll tell later on. I was
actually born in Columbus, Georgia. I didn't grow up there,
but I was born there. Then I moved to Arkansas
where we were the Hogs, not the Hawks. But it's
just kind of crazy that there's a coincidental connection between
Dave and I and that it should happen to circle
itself around Wow.
Speaker 3: It was released in November of eighty six. By February two,
it was certified gold and platinum on the same day.
By April they had gone multi platinum at three million
units sold, and by twenty fifteen it had been certified diamond,
which means ten million units sold of just this first album.
Speaker 2: I saw it in the Walmart five dollars bind the other.
Speaker 1: That's the CD I have in my car, and once
again I will promote by that CD. Spend the five bucks.
The sound quality is much better on the CD than
it is on Spotify or YouTube or album music or
any of those things.
Speaker 2: There's something better about having a CD or record tangibly
in your hand, too, much more personal connection, I think. Okay, Dave,
you mentioned November of eighty six, it's actually November fifteenth
of eighty six. We just crossed the thirty fifth anniversary
two days ago today. We're recording. On November the seventeenth,
two days ago, this album turned thirty five years old.
Speaker 1: Now I just want to say this. We posted something
on Facebook about this, and they grew up after this album.
They've so much as said this was just kind of
a goof album and that they were being goofy and
that's how the songs came about. And we'll get into
all of that, but this and Dave is a testament
to it. Right now. This album was a huge, momentous,
life changing thing for a whole lot of folks out there.
When we did that post on Facebook, it lit up.
Everybody loved this album when it came out, and I
think it's that same kind of thing that happened, you know,
about five years later with the with the grunge movement.
It spoke to those people who they were ready for
something new, they were ready for a rebellion, and these
guys were obviously rebelling against the establishment.
Speaker 2: Okay, we ready to go. Ready, all right, we are
diving in. Track by track. First, one out of the
gate is a song called Rhyming and Stealing.
Speaker 5: The Rest.
Speaker 2: All right, they're coming hard right out.
Speaker 3: Of the gage.
Speaker 2: Let's be strong led Zeppelin rock samples. I think they're
doing the smart thing by catching the rock crowd right
out of the game.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. This drum beat is one of the most unmistakable
drum beats in drumming history. And they get a nice
little record scratch right at the beginning that plays as
a part of the rhythm. It's boom boom, blah blah boom,
and its kicking butt right out of.
Speaker 3: The game monster start to the album. You just immediately
top down, turn it up. Now. I'm fifteen years old
in nineteen eighty seven. I had never heard led Zeppelin,
never heard When the leed be Breaks. This was new
to me. I was offended later when I found out
that led Zeppelin had stolen from the hot start to
the album. The verses, everything they're written in a way
to kind of frame the Beastie Boys as pirates. A
love the song. It's a home run right out of
the gate.
Speaker 2: The idea for me, at least. The ryman and stealing,
I mean they're stealing hooks and stealing beats and stealing
bits of songs and then setting their own rhymes to it.
I mean, just the samples on this song alone. You've
got When the Levee Breaks by led Zeppelin, You've got
Sweet Leaf by Black Sabbath, and then you also have
I Fought the Law by the Clash.
Speaker 1: Let's just think about this just for a second. So
they're referring to Ali Baba and the forty Thieves that's unquestionable,
right they repeat that one. They start off by talking
about Mutiny on the Bounty and Captain Bligh. They're also
talking about Pieces of eight and these are all like
literary references, but they've obviously got this rap beat. They
talking about being an ill bee boy and already talking
about brass Monkey. So we party, we are intelligent, we rock,
and we also hip hop. It's like, here's all of
us all right out here in front, and we're a
little smart too, Okay, yea.
Speaker 3: I love the references. What strikes me, and this is
gonna be true throughout the album, is that even though
it's easy to kind of look at them as as
almost a comedy approach or a parody of hip hop,
they're bringing the goods. They are bringing the goods that
every track is awesome, and they've got the quality, they
got the skills, they got the production and the rhymes.
It's just I'm a big fan. It's awesome.
Speaker 2: I'm with you. I can tell the bridge where they
say Ali Baba and the forty Thieves about twenty times.
You can't hardly miss that reference. You know, the other
stuff kind of flies under the radar, do you guys?
Watch the thirty for thirty on ESPN. Yeah, I caught
one the other day. I was a big nineteen eighty
six New York Mets fan, and so I watched that
thirty for thirty and they were using Ryman and Steel
and as putting it to the highlight videos for that year.
So that was pretty cool.
Speaker 3: This is one of the few tracks on the album
that was not released as a single, but it is
one of my favorite.
Speaker 2: This one should have been a single.
Speaker 3: So when they went on the License to Ill tour,
you know, they only had this one album, so they
didn't have a large repertoire to bull from. They basically
performed this entire album. There was only one track off,
but they did not do They started with Ryman and Steeling.
I remember it very clearly. Their opening act was Fishbone.
They were a hardcore punk band, but when the VC
Boys came on, those lights came on and flooded the crowd,
and then the when the levee breaks, drum beat comes
in they come stomping out on the stage. The place
went absolutely nuts awesome.
Speaker 2: So with the drum beat for Ryman and Steeling.
Speaker 1: Ad Rock and Mike Dee went over to MCA's house
and he had set up the.
Speaker 2: Loot, had it strung all across his house where he
had looped manually the drum.
Speaker 1: Beat for when the levee breaks.
Speaker 2: Today, we would do that on a computer. It would
be no problem. This was a ton of effort, but
it sounded fantastic today.
Speaker 1: On garage band there's a button. There's a loop button,
and it'll give you a whole list of loops that
you can use. But back in nineteen eighty six, it
was a new thing. It was something not many other
folks for doing it. So even though these guys are goofy,
even though they're hip hop, he is still bringing some
smarts and some savvy to even the music that they're producing.
Speaker 2: All right. That brings us to song number two on
the album. This song is called the New Style.
Speaker 6: And on the cool check in set a stage on
the mic and with putting it on wax, it's the
News Style four and three and two and one on
the mic.
Speaker 5: The Stuffer's one.
Speaker 6: What they got more.
Speaker 2: Just a great song right off the back. This was
released as the third single, released November six of eighty six.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this one he actually they've sampled some other things.
What have you got on? Samples on this one?
Speaker 2: Just okay? So this song samples drop the Bomb by
Trouble Funk, Yeah, Peter Piper by run DMC, Yes cool
Is Back by Funk Inc. Two three Break by The
b Boys, Click of the Switch by ACDC.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 3: The song is great. I love the song. I'm down
with MCA, Mike D and U ain't I got more
juice than Picasso's Got Paint. It is the third single
from the album. So the part where it breaks down
and he says, let me clear my throat, that was
an inside joke. So last week I explained that Elo
Coolja had been making home demos and sending them to
record labels, and it was the one that was sent
to Deaf Jam that Adam Horovitz found and gave it
to Rick Rubin. Well, as it turns out, at the
beginning of that tape, the demo before I Need to
Beat starts you hear ll say on tape let me
clear my throat. Well, for whatever reason, the Beastie Boys
thought that was hilarious. They got a big kick out
of that. So that is the reference that's in a
new style when he says let me clear my throat.
That was an inside joke for them because it came
off of ELL's original demo that he had seen in This.
Speaker 2: One hit the US Hot Black Singles reached number twenty two.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm gonna throw this out there. It says
part of the lyrics say because I'm October thirty first,
that's my date of birth. I got the party and
you know what I did the smurf. Now I'll say
ad Rock was born on October thirty first. It is
actually his birthday October thirty first, in addition obviously to
being Halloween. But what's the smurf?
Speaker 3: It must be a dance. He does the smurf, the
Popeye and the Jerry Lewis. He likes Bullwinkle, but he
doesn't like Brutus love it.
Speaker 2: I feel like we've got like the fourth Beastie Boy
with us today. Moving on to track number three, the
song is called She's Crapty Around.
Speaker 1: So I just want to say. The lyric that always
jumps out of me at this one is the cab
driver recognized the girl from the back of her head.
Speaker 2: So wildly, Oh my gosh. The one that jumps out
to me is her name is Lucy, but they call
her Loose. What do you think about this one, Dave?
Speaker 3: I like it. It's catchy. I wouldn't put it in
the top tier of the songs on the album, but
I never skip it. That led Zeppelin sy ample drives
it again. I was ignorant of led Zeppelin when I
was experiencing this album. New it's kind of cliche for
rap at the time, but I loved it. I absolutely
loved what they did in this era, which is basically
brag about themselves. A lot of these tracks on here
come down the subject matter is just talking about how
great they are. She's crafty as an exception. She's crafty
actually tells a bit of a story. There's a couple
on here that tells stories, and she's crafty as one
of them. So it's a little bit of a of
a change up as far as that goes. What they're
doing is they're switching between lines, they're switching off parts,
and it's something that run DMC had kind of made
their trademark that was just with two MC's and VC
boys are taking the next level with three. All I
can say it's catchy, it's funny. I think it's a
funny story. He wakes up Nick in the middle of
the floor and he'd taken the bed and the chest
of drawers.
Speaker 1: This one is from led Zep The Ocean, which is
on Houses of the Holy. It's unmistakable Zeppelin, Like I
know you not all of us were familiar with it
at the time, but there's no question what it is
when you hear it.
Speaker 3: Rap developed out of a club scene and a breakbeat
culture which they were cutting between records and playing different
records and cutting between them, and that developed, as rap did,
into this sample based approach to the music. And we
were getting sampling and other tracks already before now. But
what Rick Rubin did was he just kind of brought
it out to the four. Instead of making it a
fill or a little extra gag in the song, he
built the whole song around these samples. He's coming to
the table with a love for hip hop and a
love for rap, but fully educated on rock and roll,
and he's able to take what he had already done
for Rundy and c and take it to the next
level with this album. So he's just I guess they
got clearance on these Led Zeppelin songs and all the
samples that are throughout the album.
Speaker 2: I read an article with Jimmy Page. They're asking him
about it, and he's like, well, we didn't really give permission,
and he goes, I briefly thought about doing something legally
about it. He's like, but in the end, I was
flattered by it, so I just let it go.
Speaker 3: The whole issue that legal issues surrounding sampling was forced
by the Beast of Boys second album, which was not
produced by Rubin. It was Paul's Boutique in nineteen eighty nine,
and that is a masterpiece of production and technique, and
it's just nothing but samples. But it's also an album
that could It's no longer possible today because the rules
and the laws have changed and it would be too
expensive at this point to ever do again with this album.
Man with Paul's Boutique really kind of shaped copyright law
and shaped entertainment law when it comes to sampling.
Speaker 1: I gotta say, I know that this isn't a big
a hit for you, but it was at this point
in the listening that I started dancing in my seat. Like,
as I'm going through the album, I'm like, this is
a good song. Next song, this is a good song.
By song number three, I'm starting to dance in my
see it is. I'm driving to work in the morning.
Speaker 3: You can't help but just enjoy yourself. They just make
it a fun vibe to the whole thing, all right.
Speaker 2: Now, then we are now onto the next song called
Pussy and Effect.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, you don't stop.
Speaker 6: Keep it in the place, see forgotten, nothing in mind the.
Speaker 2: Bottles of seconds between it and you don't stop.
Speaker 1: Did they sampled that later on? That's in another song,
isn't it?
Speaker 2: That's that's I want to sex you up by Color
Me Bad? Right? Are you serious? Let's check it.
Speaker 1: Rot Oh my gosh. The and you don't stop he's saying,
is in color Me Bad, I want to sex you up.
I gotta hear this. No, it's not it's very well.
Could do them. I don't know.
Speaker 3: No that that sounds like slit Rick and Lotty Dotty.
Slit Rick and Dougie Fresh teamed up to a song
called Lotty Dotty to the TikTok you don't stop, Okay, okay,
Lottie Dotty. We like to potty. We don't cross trouble,
we don't bother nobody with just some guys, that's on
the mic. And when we rock up on the mic,
we rock the mic. Yeah, wow, keep going.
Speaker 2: All right. So Posse in effect has three songs that
it's sampled, Catch a Groove by Juice, Change the Beat
by B Side, and pee Wee's Dance Yes by Jove. Yeah,
I remember pee Wee's dance as in pee Wee Harmon.
Speaker 3: Yes, he took the the from Joskie Love. You know.
That was pee Wee Herman's little dance routine and Joe
Ski was this guy's one hit wonder as far as
I know. But he had a rap about pee Wee Herman.
Speaker 2: That is awesome. We need to play a clip on
that right here. Call it pee Wee Herman.
Speaker 3: And that's from Tequila, I guess.
Speaker 2: Oh fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say that that may be what
pee Rehearman was whatever was in that song, but that
was originally from Tequila, okay, which is what, of course
she does the dance to on top of the bar.
Right in the movie.
Speaker 3: Yes, when Mike d says, I travel around the globe,
I'm keeping girlies dizzy. My name's Mike Dan, now watch me,
and then they sample Joskie Love when he says get busy, y'all,
that's Joskie Love.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, cool, nice. This one's really short. It's like
two and a half minutes where the song here.
Speaker 3: Isn't this the one that says I got a girl
in the castle and one in the pagoda? You know?
I got rhyms like abe fda.
Speaker 2: Any song that makes revererence to abea tom notch in
my bugs right there.
Speaker 3: There is redeeming value in this album because I was
educational for me. I learned what a pagoda was.
Speaker 2: Did you know who Ado was?
Speaker 3: When you Yeah, my dad was a Barney Miller fans
Arnie Miller.
Speaker 1: That's rights. He was in the Godfather and didn't he
didn't he play like Boris carl Off in a movie
as well?
Speaker 2: I don't know, but he definitely could. I do know this.
There is a Beastie Boys tribute band. I looked him
up on Facebook. They are called my Posse and effect.
Give them a lesson, give them a look see to
which you think that's.
Speaker 3: What I like about rap? And when I say I
like rap, I quit liking Wrap at the end of
the eighties. But the part that appeals to me. The
part that appeals to me is the cleverness of the
lyrics and the cleverness of the wrongs. And a lot
of times, you know, when you're talking about this album
is you don't have much more to say other than
I like the beat, and then you start quoting lyrics. Yes,
you know, if it makes you smile, it makes you laugh,
then then it's memorable. See in effect and the next
one's slow Ride to Me are among my favorite. They
were not released as singles, but to me they're almost
the purest rap songs on the album. Wear a hat,
not a visor, a drink, Budwiser, the turntables up on
the drum riser, Yes on the groove, and the finals
on the platter. You know that I'm Flymings, No need
to flatter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the rhymes keep coming and they don't stop.
Speaker 2: The drums at the very beginning of this the little
sample right there that sounds like the drum machine that
they probably paid for with their forty grand that they
got from British Air Wing.
Speaker 1: I think the forty grand with by their house, but
I think that I think Rick Rubin had the drum
machine that was that was really the selling point for
bringing him into the band.
Speaker 2: All right, Moving on to the next song. This one's
called slow Ride. Yeh, super catchy. It's making a great
use of that the Lowrider song right there. They sampled
that hard.
Speaker 1: There's Lowrider, okay, and then there's slow Ride, which was
a fog Hat song too.
Speaker 2: Yes, but they've.
Speaker 1: They've kind of borrowed, I mean, because it was the
same era as the Lowrider song. But that the drum beat,
you know where it's from. Tell me, I'm asking you.
Speaker 2: I want you to.
Speaker 1: I think it is called change the beat by the side,
but I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you one thing that I know about these guys.
These dudes love White Cast. It is unmistakable. I think
they mentioned it in about every other song, something about
White Cast.
Speaker 3: So what I'll mention here is that I think part
of the appeal of this group, you know, the whole
world's discovering this group with this album. And so not
only do you have the three mcs, but each of
their voices are very distinct, especially when you contrast King
ad Rock's wine with MCA's gruffness. It just adds to
the fun. But what it also does is it makes
them unique. And I think this is the reason why
the BC Boys, despite being white and despite being these
like a party hardy frat boy types and with all
these raunchy lyrics or whatever and all this rock and
roll in it, the reason they were so accepted by
rap fans and by the hip hop community, both professionals
and the fans, is that they were true to themselves.
They didn't try to sound like anybody else. You could
tell that they were coming out this with a true
love for hip hop, and they weren't making fun of anybody,
and they weren't treating it like a joke. They weren't
treating the form like a joke, even though there was
humor in their content. But again, just those the contrast
of those voices, I think it really carries both posse
and effect and slow ride.
Speaker 2: Yep, I'm totally with it.
Speaker 3: You know, we started off with some rock heavy, some
guitar bassed songs, but these last couple we get away
from that. You know, there's some horns and there's a beat,
but it's not really this driving guitar sound like we
like we started the album off with. So they've kind
of switched scars a little bit. Honest, and again we
stay away from the guitars mostly in this next song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they switch gears again right here.
Speaker 1: And I just got to say, for like songs, for
song three, and for song four and for song five,
I'm dancing through all of it. But then we get
to song six and not only only am I dancing,
but I'm smiling.
Speaker 5: Come already want to stop in the morning and stop.
Speaker 1: This is like a nursery rhyme song. You've got a
nursery rhyme song, except it is ad rock talking about
having the hots for girl that used to be interested
in mc A and so MCA wasn't interested in her,
and so he's like, yeah, go ahead, have at it. Girls.
Speaker 2: I totally agree with you. It sounds like a little
xylophone that you have in your church nursery. You know,
it's catchy, it's different. It's so inappropriate. It was so
inappropriate for a guy who's got two daughters. I'd be like,
what what you shut up? Shut them out.
Speaker 1: But back when I was you know, back when I
was thirteen, it was awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly. So yeah, when I was fifteen, you know,
I thought this was hilarious. I listened to it now,
and I'm like, yikes, you know, it's completely objectifying, you know,
talking about and it's chill to hear them talk as
if they're not real humans or something. But and then
you have them doing your dishes and and you know,
and doing your laundry and stuff like that, which you know,
in tenth grade, you know, we think, we think this
is hilarious, and we're and we're quoting this song in
the hallways just to kind of get at the girls
in school, just to give them a hard time. You know,
it is a song that tells a story, and it's
a song that instead of bragging about himself, it's a
song of failure. He ends up not getting the girl.
But it's one of those that they are embarrassed about.
And when I did catch the license to Ill tour
in February of eighty seven, they played all but one
track off the album for their set. Yeah, this was
the track that they did not play.
Speaker 2: I show this as the only song they've never performed live.
Speaker 3: I have no reason argue with that.
Speaker 1: So, just on the topic of whether they're feeling bad
about the subject matter of the song, did they still
have a stripper dancing inside of a cage on the
stage and mad.
Speaker 3: Yes, they had girls in cages dancing and they're in
their DJ setup looked like a giant six pack of Budweiser.
Speaker 1: I heard them talk about this and they thought it
was a joke. Russell Simmons introduced to guy and said, here,
tell him what you want for your stage show and
he'll get it for you. And they're like, all right,
we want a giant six pack of Budweiser. We want
a stripper in a cage, and we want a you
mouth stick in a box. And he said, all right,
no problem, and sure enough they showed up and the
guy I had gotten it all.
Speaker 3: I gotta tell you a personal story about this song.
There was a girl I was dating at the time,
and it was after school was out. We were all
in the hallways and one of the guys came in
to me and asked me where she was, and I
didn't know, but I thought I was hilarious, and I
just sat there and I just said, she's jocking Mike
D to my which was bad because I turned around.
She was actually right there. She heard it, and of
course we all love this album, so we gets a
big laugh. She gets you know, I didn't know she
was there. She's kind of sneak. She was, Uh she
was crafty, right, she was, she was, and uh that
was That was pretty much the end of us. She
did not appreciate the laugh at her expense, but you know,
if you ask her, she'll probably tell you that that
I'm cheaper than a hot dog with no mustard.
Speaker 1: So that's great.
Speaker 2: Hey, you know the fascinating thing about this so is
the way they wrote it and what they were trying
to model it after. So these guys were sitting around
with Rick Rubin one day they're on the bus and
he's like, I've got a great idea. Why don't you
model a song after Shout by the Isisley Brothers.
Speaker 5: You know you make me wone out?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I can totally hear that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, for sure, this song is modeled after Shout.
Speaker 5: I like the way that they walk.
Speaker 1: And it's my mind. You got it, that one, That
one went on the blowing mind.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, okay, well hang on just one more thing,
because Dave, you said this to me this week. I
thought this was really cool. The Goldie Blocks toy Company
in twenty thirteen did a commercial where they took this
song and they changed the lyrics to be like girl
positive about girls who didn't want to be princesses and
dress in pink and instead they want to be engineers
and be smart and they have all these super cool toys.
Speaker 3: It was specifically specifically to promote girls to go into
STEM academics. And the entire commercial was a giant like
the rude Goldberg device and was It was directed by
the same guy who directed okay Go video that does
the same thing.
Speaker 2: I love the okay Go videos. They're amazing. They suit them,
but they suit them.
Speaker 3: Here's the problem with that. Adam Yawk MCA died of
cancer in twenty twelve, and he had made it his
express wish and his last will that BC Boys music
never be used in commercials, right, And so ad Rock
and Mike d were in a position of having to
ask Goldieblocks like what are you doing? Like you didn't
ask us about this. They didn't need permission because they
had changed it up. It was it was protected as
a parody. Goldieblocks immediately sued the Beastie Boys somehow for
some reason. But the Beastie Boys are looking like they're
against promoting STEM for girls, But what they're really trying
to do was was to look out for MCA's final
wish and so it was a bad pr hit for
both sides, and it was just kind of an awkward
thing where this was a positive use of their music,
but it still went against what Adam y'all said he wanted.
So they came to an agreement. They settled. I think
it was like a million bucks or something. Goldieblocks agreed
to quit using the song. They kept the commercial but
just use different music, and they paid one million dollars,
but it did not go to the surviving Beastie Boys.
It went to a charity of their choice that promotes
stem education for girls. So it was kind of a
win win all the way around. But they were able
to get their music removed from the commercial, so everybody
was happy.
Speaker 1: Okay, are we ready the song that changed everything?
Speaker 5: Yeah, fer school man, you don't want now, but you
still said no you missed no classes, A no home
n you can bring this class song. Cher, you gotta fight.
Speaker 2: I You're right, this is the one. This is the
tenth pole.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I said, now you know, at song number three,
I start dancing as I'm driving in my chair. I've
done dancing up until I get the song six. At
song six, I'm smiling and dancing, and then when song
number seven starts, I start banging my head.
Speaker 2: We're getting kind of an awesome stretch right here.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: This was released as the fourth single in December of
nineteen eighty six, and as we said before, this was
on about every fourth song on MTV. This video was fantastic.
The song was super catchy. It got to number seven
on the Hot one hundred.
Speaker 1: It was one of the last songs to find its
way onto the album because, and I don't know how
many times we've said this, Rick Rubin comes to him
and says, we need just one more song, and we're
running on a deadline, so you gotta get it in
and in like two hours. Yeah, And so this is
what they come up with. There's a they talk about
a song from Brooklyn, like the band Brooklyn, not the
town Brooklyn, that this song is based on this idea
of you got to fight for your right to party.
But they've definitely got their own lyrics to it, and
it's a goof song again, but they're making fun of
frat guys and party bros. And then when they make
the video, they play the part of frat guy and
party bro, and then when they go do their stage
shows they become those guys, and pretty soon it's their
entire image. This is what I thought they were for sure.
I thought this was a genuine like, this is who
these guys are. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a hit of adrenaline when this song hits,
right because plusing effects, slow riding girls. We haven't had
that driving guitar yet. And it's catchy and you're dancing along,
but then it just opens with that power chord boom
a fight, right, giggott, I mean all of a sudden,
you wait, back up, it's a punch in the face
right in the middle of this album, and it rocks.
And yes, it took over MTV. You saw it in
almost every segment, and it was one you could jump
around to bang your head. It was easy to sing
along with. It was the tenth pole of this album.
It was the highest charting hit they had off this album.
This Yeah, this defined their image and this defined their sound,
and it was everywhere.
Speaker 2: This is where I enter the scene. So even though
it's the fourth single off License to Ill, I had
not heard anything prior to this. I mean maybe because
I was just whatever it was on MTV. That was
my intake. The video, for me is as much a
part of my nostalgia for this song as the song itself.
The song is fantastic and hilarious and headbanging and all
that stuff, but the video, to me, is equally as
impactful and fun and funny. Do you like parties? Yeah,
we can invite all our friends and have soda and
pot yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the video was directed by Rick Manelo and
Adam Dubin, right, yes. So these guys were roommates at
NYU where Rick Rubin was like the floor administrator guy.
What are they called Ara, the ra? Yeah, he was
the RA and he when they decide they're going to
do a video, he goes to I believe it was
Rick Manelo and says, hey, you're into all of these
old movies. I want you to make this video for me.
And Rick is like, no way. If this video is
a flop, I'm gonna be the one that gets blamed.
And so then they go to Adam Dubin, his roommate,
who is a film studies guy, and they said, hey,
will you co direct and that way nobody can blame
it on either of you. And so these two guys
co directed this video literally in the dorm rooms at NYU.
The guys, one of them, their mom is the one
who gets the pie in the face.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yes, And they've got they've got Flea, they've got Mutt Lange,
they've got Tabithasare and they've got Lall Cool Jay, all
of these folks who were not somebody yet but who
are in this video walking through the door and party long.
And they've got they've got Rick Rubin coming.
Speaker 2: In wearing a Slayer T shirt, right, which.
Speaker 1: Of course is ironic because we've got a song coming
up that's got a Slayer lead in it. Yep. And
Slayer was actually a band that he was also producing
the records fourth time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you had members of the Young and the
Useless we're also in this video.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I know that you're teasing carry King there, but
we got to say this. He played on this song too.
The solo in this song is Kerry King.
Speaker 2: Really Okay, I did not know that. Okay, nice.
Speaker 1: Good.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about Tabitha stre In for a second. This
is before she was an MTV personality. She was just
a NYU student who happened to be friends with Rick Rubin.
I think she's actually blonde in the video.
Speaker 1: She said she was doing everything she could not to
get a pie in the face because they didn't have
any money to make this video, so they went and
got the whip cream for the pies out of like
an old restaurant trash can. So it was like rancid
whipped cream, and she said it smelled like throw up.
Speaker 2: I saw the storyboards for this, and the funny part
about the storyboards were they were just barely even sketches.
I mean, you're talking like childlike faces, but they were
storyboarded exactly like you see the video.
Speaker 1: That's nice. Well, he was a film student. He's any
why will you film student? Of course he's in.
Speaker 2: Storyboards, storyboards the video, the guy getting spit on in
the face and you know, spiking the punch, burning stuff,
you know, kissing the girl and all that stuff. This
was a teenage boy's dream, burn stuff, kiss girls, party
while your parents are out of town. I mean I
was fourteen when this came out. That's all I wanted
to do.
Speaker 3: I gotta tell you this, this is the time for
this story. So this song was of course the biggest
hit they had on the album, and it was climbing
its way up the charts, and it would soon peak
at number seven on the Billboard Hot one hundred at
number seven. It would peak there on March seventh. Just
one week before that, they played a show February twenty eighth,
nineteen eighty seven, in Columbus, Georgia, and I was there
with pretty much my entire tenth grade class on the
floor close to the stage, packed in, absolutely living the dream,
soaking in this entire performance. It was a time of
our lives. It's a touchstone experience for our whole high
school years that we still talk about today. Fight for
Your Right was their big hit, It was their big finale.
They finished the show with fight for Your Right to party.
Before the night was over, they were on the news
before the week was over. City council had met to
discuss the Beastie Boys. So what you had was a
case of a bunch of families thinking that it would
be safe to take their kids to see some white rappers.
But what they got were some obnoxious punk rockers from
New York City who wanted to offend everybody in the house.
You could say they had another member on stage unveiled
himself at the end of the show. This is where
they had the stage prop that's so notorious for this tour.
It was I can tell you it's true. I saw
it myself, a twenty foot replica of an erection. It
came outside the box in the back of the stage.
It inflated up and it towered over the crowd and
waved back and forth. It was in embarrassing detail, and
we were all standing there in shock. We cannot believe
what we saw. And I just remember the Beastie Boys
on stage looking up at it and busting out, cracking up,
laughing like they'd never seen before. This did not go
over well. There were a lot of people clutching pearls
in the audience that night who said that there's no
way this should be allowed. So there were miners in
the audience that they had this prop waving over everybody
at the end of the show. They had scantily clad
women in cages throughout the whole thing. They had girls
and the audience that were lifting their shirts because the
beast of Boys were telling them to. It was highly offensive.
It did not fly in Columbus, Georgia. But as it
turns out, they could not find where they had broken
any laws. They had not done anything illegal, and the
leadership and the public said, well, that's not right. So
the very next city council meeting they passed a new ordinance,
the Lutinist Ordinance, that said basically that they nobody could
do this again. And so the Beast Boys got away
scott free, but now in their wake this Lutinist Ordinance
now existed on the books in Columbus. I was also
there in June of nineteen eighty seven when ll COOLJ
was headlining and during the song I Need Love, he
got really friendly with a couch that they had brought
out on stage and he was arrested under this law.
Speaker 2: After the show, Todd from Queen's was rubbing on a couch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, has done that.
Speaker 3: So this is this is something that Ello Coole J
went on Oursenial Hall at the time to talk about.
He still talks about it on his talk show appearances today.
So I've seen on the internet a clip where in
recent years he was on Jimmy Kimmel talking about in
this same incident. So it's not something Ll has ever forgotten.
He was arrested. A year later, Bobby Brown was arrested,
and then a year after that, Gene Simmons was arrested
because he apparently mooned at the audience. And after that
they quit enforcing the law. So so Ello Cool Jay
and Bobby Brown and Gene Simmons have the Beastie Boys
to thank for their their arrest record in Columbus, Georgia.
Speaker 2: Gene Simmons bear butt made them cow down and just
say this is not worth it anymore. Have you guys
seen Fight for Your Right revisited?
Speaker 1: You sent me the clip. I've caught a little bit
of it, but just I know who's in it and
what kind of the actions are, and I got to
watch the whole thing. I'm excited to see it.
Speaker 2: Dave, have you seen this? No, it's a thirty minute
video where they Adam Yack directed this right, but he
asked Seth Rogan, Elijah Wood and Danny McBride to come
up with what happened after the Fight for Your Right party.
So they leave the party. You see them leave the
room where they have the pie fight, and they come
downstairs and they run into people who are asking them.
It's Susan Sarandon. Yeah, who's asking them? What are you
guys up to? You guys are troublemakers. It's Seth Rogan,
Elijah Wood and Danny McBride, all wearing the same attire
that the beast Boys wore in the Fight for Your
Right video. They run into Will Ferrell, John c Riley,
Jack Black who addressed in the same attire. So it's
like you have Beastie Boys against Beastie Boys, Beastie Boys
the future, from the future in a Dolorean. Right, yeah,
there is a Delori, all right, and so they have
this weird dance off and then the cops show up
and it's the real Beastie Boys as the cops. The
video is great, it's really funny. I sent it to you.
You did watch. I'm sorry, but it's definitely worth a look. Okay,
are we done with Fife?
Speaker 3: You're right, don't fuck You're right, and we're done with
side one. Flip it over.
Speaker 1: Time to hit stop on your tape layer, kick.
Speaker 2: It out, Flip it over side two.
Speaker 1: Okay, Jason, let's take a quick break while we do
a Shirley showcase. We have a special one for today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is our friend Christopher Webber. He's been interacting
with us for a long time on social media.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he decided to weigh in on our Police Synchronicity
versus Journey Frontiers album. Let's see what he has to say.
Speaker 7: Hey, Jason INDI, this is Chris Webber down in New Orleans,
and I appreciate the opportunity to give my final judgment
on a previous matchup. The episode that I chose pitted
the Police is saying Chronicity album versus Journey's Frontier albums.
I have to admit when I first heard the matchup,
I thought it was going to be a landslide, But
after listening to the episode, I think both of y'all
brought some really good points that made me think about
both of these two albums. Prior to these two albums
being released, I was a somewhat casual Police fan.
Speaker 8: I had heard every.
Speaker 7: Little Thing she Does is Magic on the radio, and
I was probably somewhat familiar with Rock Sand due to
forty eight Hours. But for the most part, I was
listening to Journey Escape in the years before this, so
I was very familiar with Journey. I had that album
and I listened to it front to back. When Synchronicity
came out with the advent of MTV, suddenly I was
hearing the songs on the radio. I was seeing the
videos on MTV. I was starting to drive, so I
was buying cassettes to listen into my car journey Frontiers,
I was familiar, you're with the singles that were played
on MTV. We'll get to the video in a minute,
but really I did not own this album. However, picking
the album up and looking at the first five songs
on the first side, it's pretty hard to argue that
it did have a lot of radio hits. However, looking
at side two of Frontiers, I feel like the album
just drops off, whereas Synchronicity. I played that cassette tape
over and over and over in my car. Yes, mother
is on it, and that we will say is an
acquired taste. But if you say side two of Synchronicity
is the matchup between side one of Frontiers, I think
side one of Synchronicity with Synchronicity one and Synchronicity two
are stronger than anything that's on side two of Frontiers,
I agree the matchup would have been even closer had
Journey decided not to take off two songs and gave
them for soundtracks. Both songs that were taken off were
later featured on their greatest hits. So ask the Lonely,
which was in the Twist of Fate movie. Perhaps a
throwaway soundtrack there still could have bolstered side too of Frontiers,
but certainly only the Young, which was the leadoff track
on Vision Quest, which is just a fantastic soundtrack, one
of my two underrated soundtracks of the eighties. Certainly it
had only the Young, It had two songs by Madonna,
it had Don Henley, it had a breakout song with
Lunative Fringe with Bred Ryder, and it featured much maligned
singer by Jason John Waite doing his cover of Change.
Change is a Spider song written by Holly Knight, who
also wrote Better Be Good to Me, which was covered
Tina Turner, who also did a cover of John Waite's
Missing You. I believe Jason took issue with John Waite
and his criticism of Open Arms, which was a song
that was in though not featured in a movie whose
soundtrack I also think is a hidden eighties gem, that
being the last American version This soundtrack features Tommy twotone,
the Police, Oingo Boingo, the Cars, the gleaming Spires, and
you two. If you haven't heard this album, go check
it out. It's pretty good. Now this gets us to
the video for Separate Ways worlds apart. Yes, some of
those early MTV videos were pretty bad, and this one,
I will admit, is comical, but I do have a
particular affinity for it, as it was filmed in New
Orleans and in fact, it's just a little bit down
from where I'm currently working. I suppose my best defense
for it is the eighties were the decade where we're
all playing air guitars and air drums and perhaps even
air synthesizers or keyboards. So when that song first starts off,
who amongst us is not playing the opening keyboard solo.
In addition to that, I think this song features a
couple of wonderful drum fills that rank up there with
In the Air Tonight and Tom Sawyer. So laugh at
it if you must, but I do have a soft
spot for that video, which brings me to my final judgment.
I have to go with my initial reactions the Police.
I'm just more familiar with that album. All of those
songs I know from beginning to end, and I just
think from the beginning of the album to the end
of the album, it's a much stronger album than Journeys Frontiers. Guys,
keep up the great work. I've enjoyed the show since
the beginning and look forward to more episodes.
Speaker 2: Okay, another vote for synchronicity right there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this was the great part about this episode
was that you were confident that you were going to
be picking Frontiers on this one, and then after we
dived into him, you swapped sides and you gave him
to the right side.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I did.
Speaker 2: I switched sides after diving in. I surprised even myself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for John Waite, listen, I know that Chris is
coming to his defense here, but John Waite made the
biggest Wiener love.
Speaker 2: Song, and for him to dog Jonathan Caine is just
so funny to me. But the cool thing, Chris Weber
sent us pictures of the wharf down in New Orleans
where they actually filmed the Separate Ways video, So that
was really cool. Chris, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: The instruments. Yeah, thanks Chris, we really appreciated. We had
a great time listening to two year showcase.
Speaker 2: Matt Man, thanks for interacting with us and appreciate you listening.
All right, let's get back to side too of Licensed Ill.
Speaker 6: No Sleep two.
Speaker 2: Whoo, Let's go.
Speaker 1: Man, bring the hard rocks coming man. That is awesome.
So the music on this one, the guitar riff?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: The sample? It sounds so much like something? Is it?
Is it? I love rock and roll. I've a got
a strong I love rock and roll.
Speaker 2: Should we get the we get a sampling of Jones
Jett here in a minute, But I don't think it's
on this one.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, it's just dang good guitar.
Speaker 3: Then, well, the title is a reference to No Sleep
Till Hammersmith by Motorheads, but I'm not familiar with that song.
Speaker 2: And you were telling us that Kerrie King from Slayer
actually plays the guitar on this one as well as right,
You're right.
Speaker 3: Yes, he plays on both. Well, I'll just give you
my reaction to the song. Go ahead, I mean, boom,
you come right off a fight for your right, boom
you hit this, you got the boom, boom, wow the beat.
You cannot listen to this song and stay still so
nineteen eighty six was a busy year for Rick Rubin.
He not only produced Raising Hell and Licensed to Ill,
but he also produced the album for Slayer. He was
working with Slayer at the same time, and so he
brought carry King over to play the guitar solo on
this song. But he's more known for some reason for
this song for the solo that he brings in. And
I didn't know this until I was researching for the podcast,
but he's also playing the solo. I don't think he
plays throughout the whole song, but he does play the
solo and Fight for You right. Bring in that hard rock,
that true rock guitar bang your head element to both
of these songs back to back on this album.
Speaker 2: You know, the interesting thing I found about it is
that carry King didn't really like this song. He didn't
really like the Beastie Boys, and the Beastie Boys didn't
really like him. They didn't really get eachitty.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of like a Lemon to a Lime
or a Lime to a limit. I gotta say, the
guitar solo on this one.
Speaker 2: Is not good bad, it's terrible.
Speaker 1: It might be good in a different song, but it's
like it's I mean, you can't take the guitar solo
from you know, beat it and throw it into the
chords from Walk This Way or something. It just doesn't work.
Speaker 2: He intentionally played out of tune. Yeah, it just sounds
it sounds wrong, but that's what they were going for.
Speaker 1: I mean, I literally when I first heard this, I thought, Okay,
these are just the beastie boys just trying to fingertap
on whatever they can do on the fresh board, just
to sound as weird and crazy as they possibly can't.
Speaker 2: This is a parody of hair metal once again. We
have a fantastic music video. It starts out it's really funny.
They knock on the door, The producer answers the door.
They're like, hey, guys, where's the band And they're like,
where're the band? He's like, where are your instruments? And
they pull out a record. He grabs the record and he
smashes it over their head and he's like, get out
of here, you guys, you're not the band. And as
soon as he shuts the door, they knock on it again.
They opens it up and they're they're got the big
wigs on and they're like, dude, we're like the bend Man,
I've been waiting for you boys, Let's go. And so
they're parodying Cara Metal once again.
Speaker 1: And it ends with the hot girl going away with
the gorilla.
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, I think the gorilla was Rick Rubin, Right.
The lead dancer in this video. Her name is Ruth Collins.
Is that ring a bell with you? Guys?
Speaker 1: I'm going to say no on this.
Speaker 2: Have you ever watched Cinemax After Dark?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Yes, you have? You know you have? Yes, you have? Okay,
she's been in Cemetery, High Which Academy and Galactic Jiggalow.
She has known more for her then for anything else.
So if you're telling me she.
Speaker 1: Did not show her acting chops in the Jigglo from
Space or whatever.
Speaker 2: He showed more than her acting jobs.
Speaker 3: You know I might recognize her if you showed me
the back of her.
Speaker 1: Google, sirch Google.
Speaker 2: All right, well this is a legit song though, I mean.
Jay Z performed this song on his All Points West
festival in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I love the sequencing of this album because
you start out with some hard hitting rock, you kind
of slow it down a little bit and get away
from the guitar, and then right when it sucks you in,
boom it hits you with fight for Your Right and
no sting till Brooklyn back to back, and then they
change gears again going into the next song.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 2: This was the sixth single released March first of nineteen
eighty seven. Yep, cool, love this one, love this song.
Love these two songs rocking out all right. The next song,
song number two on side to Paul Revere, this a
little story I got to tell about three brothers.
Speaker 5: You know so well. It's Southern, way back in history
with that.
Speaker 2: Names Paul review.
Speaker 1: So the next song that we've got coming up has
an example of a backwards drum beat, which I'm not
sure that I have heard anybody before. These guys did
it do this style of drum beat in their song
as the underlying drum beat for the entire song.
Speaker 5: I ran into a guy his famous m said.
Speaker 1: He said, Hi, I love it, I love it. And
so this one, this is the story on this one.
How it was inspired is great. So it starts with
them they're waiting outside a recording studio for Run DMC
when all of the sudden they see Joe Ron Simmons
running run is running towards the he runs down the street,
he's screaming incoherently. He gets to the Beastie Boys and
he says, here's a little story I got to tell.
And after that he's they're confused, and he says, that's
the song, And from that point on worked up the
rest of the lyrics.
Speaker 3: And it mythologizes the origin of the Beastie Boys and
how they met, and it sets it in kind of
an Old West setting, at least the best imagery I get.
And it's the AH eight drum machine pattern that they
recorded and then strung up backwards on a tape machine
and played it backwards. It was the MCA's idea and
a unique sound. You know right away what song you're
listening to as soon as this thing starts.
Speaker 1: And again they're throwing in those kind of educated references.
Paul Revere's the name of the horse from Guys and Dolls.
Speaker 2: This was the second single, released August thirteenth to eighty six.
This is still three months before the release of the album.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: I got a quick funny story about this one. Okay,
So I was talking to my buddy Duddy. Yeah, shout
out to my buddy Doug Gray. Doug, He's like, hey, man,
what are you guys working on this week? I said,
we're doing Licensed Ill by the Beastie Boys. And as
soon as I got those words out of my mouth,
he came back with, here's a little story I'd like
to tell and just rolled out the words man. And
Doug is not exactly the guy that I would think,
oh my god, all the words to Paul Revere.
Speaker 1: No to see that. Doug is straight laced, typer intelligence,
you know, just a very cool cat kind of guy.
And he says some funny, dry stuff from time to time.
I love being around him. But to see him roll
out some Beastie Boys on Paul Revere, I would have
just I would have just been dumbstruck.
Speaker 2: It was unleashing of the lyrics right there. They were
all coming.
Speaker 3: I know this whole song. I could sit here and
do it from start to finish. Honestly, it's one of
my favorite.
Speaker 2: It's a great one.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: So let me tell you this. So that License to
Ill tour continues in nineteen eighty seven, and it continues
to create controversy wherever they go. They are in England
in May and They've already got politicians there wanting to
ban them from the country because they think they're so offensive,
which is exactly the publicity they want. While they were
in England on their tour, they played a show in
Liverpool and while there they got out on stage and
immediately the crowd turns hostile and starts throwing beer bottles
at them and stuff like that. So for their own
safety they have to abandon just like ten minutes into
the show, they run off the stage. They have to
come up with a way to continue the show, but
they've got to fend off all these bottles that are
being thrown at them, so they decide to do it
with a wiffleball bat.
Speaker 2: And they just happen to have a wiffleball bat on
tour with them backstage. I like these guys.
Speaker 3: While the music's playing, they are taking swings at the
bottles being thrown at them, trying to protect themselves and
knocking it back into The crowd love it. So this
did create a problem though. There was one girl that
took an injury around her eye, and she claimed that
Adam Horowitz had been the one to hit her, but anyway,
he ended up arrested after the show and spent the
night in jail.
Speaker 2: Hey, he might have spent the night in jail, but
at least he can hit Yeah. Love this one.
Speaker 3: I'm tempted just to wrap the whole thing, but it's
very catchy and it's it's like a one two three
punch in the middle of this album coming after five.
Y're right, there's until Brooklyn right into Paul Revere. I mean,
my goodness, the album does not stop. So Paul Revere
samples from It's Yours, the very first song that Rick
Rubin produced. He did it for Keila Rock. Yeah, you'll
hear that familiar sound from Paul Revere. You hear the
very beginning of It's Yours if you listen to.
Speaker 2: That awesome all right, we've done with Paul Revere.
Speaker 3: Well never but go ahead, hah.
Speaker 2: Now we're moving on to the first single release to
the album. This song is called hold It Now, hit
It Yeah. Yeah, it's time to get you.
Speaker 1: So talking samples. This one contains a bunch We've got
birtha Butt Boogie by the Jimmy castor bunch, We've got
Dropped the Bomb, and Let's Get Small by Treble Funk.
We Got Funky Stuff by Cooling, the Gang, We Got
Taken You to the Marty grab by Bob James, Christmas
Wrapping by Curtis Blow and Lotted Dob by Dougie Fresh
and mcrickeyde. The Lion Pump It Up Homeboy gets sampled
later on by Eric b and Rakeeem on their song
As the Rhyme Goes On, and by Iced Tea on
his song You Don't Quit. And then the Lion beer
drinking breath stinking, sniffing Glue was sampled by Doctor Dre
No the one You're expecting this time, not the fat
One on Easy Ease Boys in the Hood. Yes.
Speaker 3: So this was one of the very first songs recorded
for the album. It came out as a single I
Think you Can April Yes early Yes. So this was
ahead of most of the sessions for the album, and
it was one that Run in particular Run DMC, but
particularly Run absolutely loved and Russell loved it. This song
got them excited and really I think encouraged them to
push the BC Boys. It probably got them on the
Raising Hell tour and all of that. Now because of
all those samples, as you're reading that off, I'm thinking
to myself. This is probably one of the more heavily
produced cuts, and it probably took a lot of the
most work from Rick Ruben to be able to piece
all this together. And so I'm kind of putting this
timeline in my head and I'm going to guess that
this song is the result of Ruben coming off the
Madonna tour early, because by coming off the road he
was able to first songs to come out ahead of
the regular sessions and for it to be so heavily produced.
I'm thinking he was spending a lot of time really
nailing this down and getting the sound right. And I
love it. I love the energy of it. I love
the scratching on the whistle sound, and the lyrics are hilarious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's fun. It's really fun, all right, love
it a lot of fun, high energy. I'm with you
on everything. Are we done talking about? Hold it now?
Hit it?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 2: Let's go all right, I'm dying to talk about the
next song. The next song on the album is called
Brass Monkey.
Speaker 5: Monkey Smokey Monkey Monkey.
Speaker 2: This song was released as the fifth single January fifth,
nineteen eighty seven. It is so catchy. I love this one.
Speaker 1: Here the ingredients for a normal brass monkey. You're gonna
have one part dark rum, one part vodka, and one
part orange juice, which sounds delightful. But what was happening
back in the seventies, eighties and nineties is there was
a company called the Hubling Company that produced pre mixed
beer and other mixed drinks, and they had basically the
brass monkey in a can, and that was the drink
of choice for the Beastie boys, and that is where
the song came from.
Speaker 2: That sounds like a poor man's mimosa.
Speaker 3: There was also a homemade recipe for brass monkey that
was basically malt liquor and orange juice, and I cannot
imagine how awful that must be.
Speaker 2: Okay, So the term brass monkey comes from the phrase
it's cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.
Are you guys familiar with this term? This is a
nautical term. Back when ships had to carry cannon balls,
they had a stack of them in pyramids, right, okay,
But to keep them from rolling around on the deck,
he had a piece of iron that had concave like
spots for all the the foundation balls to sit in,
and that was called a brass monkey, and if it
got really called, those things would shrink and the balls
wouldn't fit right. And that is where the term brass monkey,
of which the drink was based on.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're learning something. I am learning something. Okay, So
so for real, if we're gonna get if we're gonna
do this, let's go even a little bit further. I mean,
if def Dave can go back to eighteen ninety, I
can go back to World War two. World War two.
A guy named Steve Donger.
Speaker 2: Steve Donger, Steve the Donger need food?
Speaker 1: What do you mention about? I gotta sleep under? A
guy named after a Dutch store. He was an advertising executive.
He named the drink after a World War two spy
named H. E. Rasky. Alan Kaufman, who crafted the series
of stories about this spy, created the ad campaign using
an old photo of his father as Rasky image. So
he was named after a purported World War two spy,
although probably fictional.
Speaker 2: Double ow brass monkey.
Speaker 3: Very good. Yeah, so we're coming off. Hold it now,
hit it and then that whatever that is we're hearing it.
The first sound of this song, that honking kind of scratching.
I don't know. Is that a sampled horn they're scratching in.
I don't know. But as soon as you hear it, boom,
you're dancing again. It's immediately just completely rejuvenates you. Even
though you're just coming off of a of a high
energy song, you're right back into it. But I was
at the concert in nineteen eighty seven. I everybody was
bringing in Brass Monkey. Everybody was sneaking in Brass Monkey.
You see it everywhere, and it was like the crowd
they love to fight for you right at the end
of the show. But that crowd was there ready to
get down with Brass Monkey. And when this song started,
when those opening notes sounded, there was a surge towards
the stage. It scared me. We got caught up in
it and everybody went nuts like that. The crowd went
to a whole other level right as this song started,
and we all got pressed forward, kind of unwillingly. I
think I was lifted off my feet just by the
press of bodies. There were at least two girls I
can remember that I was friends with that fainted. They
fainted and would have fallen out except they couldn't fall
There was no room to fall, and they had and
we kind of, like fireman carry kind of passed them
along and got them outside of the crowds they get
some fresh air.
Speaker 2: Okay, I got I got a song I gotta play
for you. Okay. This song is called Bring It Here
by Wild Sugar. Are you familiar with this?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 8: Check it out?
Speaker 3: Wow, they took it right from it, didn't they.
Speaker 2: They stole that right from them?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, unmistakably them for sure.
Speaker 3: Good find Thank you. What year is that from?
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty?
Speaker 2: Nineteen eighty?
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 2: Okay, I've got a great personal story I want to
share about brass Monkey.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, I'm.
Speaker 2: Gonna poke a little fun at our friends in Texas
for just a second. Okay, all right, So the University
of Texas has a special teams coach who left his
family to be with a stripper. Okay, stay with me now,
all right, I'm just gonna poke fun at them for
just a second. Okay. Now, the stripper's name, get this
is poll Assassin.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 1: I can just imagine poll As Sasson talking to your
friends like I got myself a college coach and they're like,
oh yeahhoo. And she's like, well, he's a Special Teams coach.
Speaker 2: So miss Pole Assassin has a stress animal that's a monkey.
I'm not I'm making this up. You guys can look
at this. I'm not making this up. So on Halloween,
missus Sassin and our good friend mister Special Teams Coach
have children come over for trick or treaty. So the
monkey bites a child. Okay. So that weekend, Iowa State
plays Texas in Ames. Okay, and what song do they play?
Fifty billion times? John Reed that one's for you, buddy.
All right, it is college football. Okay, so it's done well.
Speaker 3: Just quick note on Brass Monkey. It was the only
other single release from this album that cracked the top
fifty of Billboard one hundred. Okay, It peaked at number
forty eight.
Speaker 2: Forty eight okay, cool, Moving on, moving on, Okay, moving
on to the second last song on this album. This
song is called Slow and Low Let It Let.
Speaker 3: Go so.
Speaker 5: Good.
Speaker 1: This is the one that they sampled from Flip to
Switch for ac DC. Right.
Speaker 3: Right, So, this song was written by Run DMC and
it was intended for the King of Rock album, which
came out in eighty five. Run DMC recorded a demo
of it, but they decided not to include it on
their album, so they never did a finished track, but
you can hear their demo. You can hear the run
DMC version of Slow and Low on the expanded edition
of the King of Rock album that they put out
a couple of years ago. It's available on Spotify. You
can find it.
Speaker 2: Let's play it right here.
Speaker 5: Let it south Go.
Speaker 8: That is the boat.
Speaker 2: Wow, there you go.
Speaker 1: Different but still awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yep. And I think that they gave it to
the Bacie Boys, who of course had to rewrite just
a couple of lines. They the bat Boys, put their
own name in it, and then they added the rhyme
about uh white Castle fries only come in one.
Speaker 9: Side side what get you ain't seen nothing anything.
Speaker 3: Everything else came from run DMC's version of the song,
so I think it was the right move. I think
it's better with the BC boys. It's better with three
voices doing it, I think, and the finished production from Ruben.
I mean, this is a song where the bass drops hard,
we will get gone.
Speaker 9: With the.
Speaker 5: Fresh out the botch the crowd so lot.
Speaker 1: It's great dynamics to what you've had because I mean,
you've got amazing song after amazing song after amazing song
that are all rocking in your face. And yes, this
one's still rocked, but you're right, it's that kind of
more subdued rock. And at this point you absolutely bought
in and you can take this little break from the
hard and go in with this more funky style.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think one of the strengths of this album
is the sequencing to come off of Hold It Now,
Hit It and brass Monkey to this is a good move.
This was the oldest song on this album. They recorded
this in eighty five, so this predates Hold It Now,
Hit It. It was it was the first one they
ever did. There's something about this being released as a single.
I'm not sure what was different about this release. It's
not always listed as a single in their discography, but
it did get some kind of exposure in eighty five
prior to the album coming out. But that's all I
got on it before.
Speaker 1: We jumped to the very last song. There is a
song that was supposed to be on the album where
they had done some sort of version of I'm Down
by the Beatles, right, But this is interesting. It couldn't
make it onto the album because Michael Jackson, who had
bought the rights to all of the Beatles' music, said no.
Speaker 2: And pissed off Paul McCartney majorly. They used to be
friends until Michael Jackson brought up all the back Yeah
publishing for all.
Speaker 1: The Beatles songs and then told the Beastie Boys.
Speaker 2: No, okay. So that moves us to the last song
on the album. What's the time?
Speaker 1: It's time to get ill?
Speaker 2: What's the time?
Speaker 1: Time to get ill?
Speaker 3: Time to get ill lost?
Speaker 6: The ties to get hell wast the tie, time to
get hell lost? The time don a get hell?
Speaker 2: All right? I wanted to close it out with a bang,
but this one.
Speaker 3: For me, the star of this track is the production.
I love all the samples, the sampling and the scratching
they just this track. Of course, the interchange in the
voices and the contrast and the voices carries this also,
just like it has through the whole album. You're getting
Green Acres and Mister Ed and creams Water Revival all
at the same time.
Speaker 2: I Am Mister Edster.
Speaker 1: Fantastic album with two songs that have horses in them. Yeah,
the dynamics that they use on this one and the
crazy sampling for sure, But they have more dynamics and
more variation in this last song than they've had on
any other song on the album, and it totally knocks
it out of the park.
Speaker 2: Listen to the songs that they sample on this song. Okay,
I'm Gonna Love You just a Little More Baby by
Verry White, I Love Rock and Roll by Jone Jet,
That that scream That owl that's jone Jet Down on
the Corner by CCR green Acres, the Green Acres television
theme song.
Speaker 1: They must have been watching NI good Night when they
came over.
Speaker 2: And then they also did the Mister Ed TV theme
gucc you Time by Schoolly d, The Party Scene by
Russell Brothers, Rocket in the Pocket by Sharon Yes, Custard
Pie by led Zeppelin, and Nothing from Nothing by Billy Preston.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of samples. There's a lot of samples,
and I'm really glad that they finished off the album
with another led Zeppelin song because you got to you
gotta dance to the Lady that bray you man.
Speaker 2: Yeah. By the way, I've visited mister Ed's gravesite in Telequa, Oklahoma. Wow,
there is a Gravestone, says mister ed, you got anything
for us on this one, David.
Speaker 3: I don't have anything particular for the song, but it's
just a lot of fun. This album's over before you
know it. There's literally not a song to skip, and
it's just good. It's just good. It's fun, it's exciting.
Every track hits and and you just have a good
time where you got to smile on your face the whole.
Speaker 1: I agree, that's well said, you know, just a good,
great album front to back. And so next week we're
gonna be coming back with the other side of the
coin on this one, right, I mean, the two groups
that basically brought this music and this genre to it's
peak in the mid eighties. We're going to come back
with run DMC. Raisin hell excited. I'm excited, And we're
gonna come back with Deaf Dave again. David Wright is
going to be with us again to talk the history
of run DMC and probably Wrapped for that matter. And
then we're going to jump in track back back and
give and we're going to race him that and.
Speaker 2: Then we're all gonna give our final judgment.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna do the Wave and
maybe the Dolphin and probably backspin or two, and then
I will give my friend Dave.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. We will see you next week
for part two.
Speaker 1: Dear listener, if you are have been with us this long,
please the follow button, Please hit the subscribe button. Check
us out on Twitter and Facebook at Shirley Podcast. Check
us out on Patreon. If you want to be a
member who is a subscribed contributor to our podcast, you
will become an executive producer and you can do that
for as little as five bucks a month. But by
all means, engage us. Tell us what your favorite track
is on this album on Raisin Hell, and let us
know what you think of these two amazing bands and albums.
Speaker 2: We'll see you next week.
Speaker 3: See you next week, alsome. Thank you guys, Thanks Dave,