It must have been a Wednesday in 1988. I know that it must have been 1988 because  I have a feeling we were two second formers and there is a high probability that it was a Wednesday because that was our day off school. On that day back in 1988 my friend and I met at his house just off Gzira seafront and we retired to his play-room on the roof/attic to generally fool around and plan our next war games on Manoel Island (for such was the busy life of a twelve year old then).

I still recall the ruffling through the latest acquisitions of wartime memorabilia from the Sunday Monti in Valletta and the checking out of various gadgets that he would have obtained from Canada. There under a “naughty” poster of some anonymous model’s bum we got up to our usual nonsense. Then he got out the tape deck. He had a song that he wanted me to check out. A couple of revving of forwards and backwards to the right spot then there it was…

A couple of electronic xylophone notes then their voices came in “Girls” – a childish tune with a basic beat and a style that I would learn years later was fascinating to the frat boy era. It was a silly song about Girls and about how we all crave them “to do the dishes… to clean up my room.. to do the laundry and in the bathroom” and how preferably they would come two at a time.

I was hooked. Of course the miracle wonders of a double deck cassette tape meant that before long I would be one of the first young kids in Malta to own a copy of the infamous album Licensed to Ill. Together with bootleg copies of Eddie Murphy’s “Raw” and “Delirious” (thanks to other Canadian friends – ah the beauty of returned emigrants) Licensed to Ill would become my prized musical possession and would signify the beginning of a lifelong fixation on the Beastie Boys (or Beasties).

That was the album that included such immortal hits as “No Sleep till Brooklyn”, “Hold it now Hit it” and of course the galactic “Fight for Your rights to party”. That tape was burnt playing over and over in many a walkman or tape deck or car. In truth car plays were few and far between since rarely did the driver (aka Dad) concede to playing the masterpieces on a family outing.

I was hooked. I finally had a band I liked and the legends (urban or otherwise) about their antics reached me in drips and drops in pre-internet days. I still recall early London trips in which I “discovered” earlier works such as the “Cooky Puss” EP or their punk earlier works. I remember unwrapping Paul’s Boutique and listening to the full length on a catamaran ride in summer from Sliema to Marsalforn.

I’ve got all their albums. I mean all of them. I grew up with Ad Rock, MCA and Mike D and when a few years ago I got to see them perform live in Brussels it was the final step in a rite of passage that had lasted a couple of decades. The Beastie Boys were less about musical taste and lore and more about fidelity. I never quite understood their multiple directions in musical experimentation but then again I never considered myself anything like a music guru – what with my eclectic tastes.

The Beasties never sounded half as political as RATM, their hip-hop claim to fame only recently began to unravel fully in the mainstream with the rediscovery of the monumental jewels in the Paul’s Boutique album. They would have loved to disown their most instantly recognised hit (Fight for your rights to party) and cannot surely be called a highly productive music band on the whole. Yet they are legends. Inducted in the Rock Hall of Fame in April 2012 they have a place among the great milestones of musical history.

The death of Adam Yauch aka M.C.A. at the young age of 47 has shocked many of us who were prepared to enjoy more Hot Sauce in the coming years. A legend of hip-hop – a third of the group of white Jewish boys from Brooklyn who revolutionised hip hop – has left us. His “time to get ill” is come and gone but we like to think that the mark he has left on the music industry is still going strong.

RIP MCA
RIP Nathaniel Hornblower

Interesting in reading about how one album came to be a milestone in hip hop and pop music generally: check this out