Beastie Boys Book

If you are a fan. Must have tells a great history of the Beastie Boys over the years

The subject line of my review is the perfect Beastie Boys pun for this book. I couldn’t put it down. It’s one of the most creative books I’ve ever read. I loved the chapter that changed fonts and colors to illustrate how high he accidentally got on tour before a show. The cookbook and comic book sections are really cool too. Great story and very cool book.

Great read about the behind the scene and away from the cameras and spotlight.

UPDATE: I take back my disappointment with Amazon. They refunded my $5.00 extra I had paid when I pre-ordered it without me even asking. Good job Amazon.“And you know he weighs in pretty hefty…”Hefty is a perfect word for this book. More Chicago style pizza than NY.I’ve not read the book except a few pages I’ve skimmed since I got it a couple of hours ago. So my review is on the Book structure and printing…and unfortunately Amazon’s declining care of products it sells.The Book. As said above it’s huge. Not tall or wide but thick. “Ah, like a thick-ass book that's filled with wack rhymes”. Unlike most biographies where there are about 20 pages in the middle devoted to photos, this book has the photos and illustrations are throughout it’s entirety. It resembles a Fanzine more than a book. Plus there are tons of little extras throughout that only Beastie Fans will appreciate.The binding is quality and seems like it will stand the test of time. From what I can tell it has smyth sewn binding which make it lay fairly flat when opened on a table. This is nice because you can actually see the middle parts of this gigantic book.The paper and printing are quality as well. The paper is a non-coated stock (matte) which allows the ink to absorb into the page creating rich deep colors in the photographs. Plus the paper has a nice nostalgic smell. There are a few glossy sections but only used when appropriate, or to break up the pace of the book.Now onto the Amazon not so Prime deal I got on this book. Note: This is just me being picky. But needs to be noted in case others got the same damage on their book and paid more for it. I pre-ordered my book months ago for $35 through Amazon Prime. I now see it’s $30. “Knucklehead deli tried to gyp me on the price” I get it, prices change blah blah blah. I wouldn’t be so upset except that although my book was on my doorstep at 8am this morning which was sofa king Rad to wake up to, it is damage. The top right corner all the way through the pages to the back cover (see photos). I’ve tried to mend it myself the best I can. I’ll probably keep because it’s a waste of natural resources to ship this back because of a bent corner. I know I sound like I’m being silly about this but when it’s delivered damaged (no way this happened in shipping, the box was in perfect shape) and then you see that you could have waited and saved $5…it just gets under the skin.Anyways, if you love the Beasties and have been with them since the 80s like me, or even if you are a newer fan of this millennium…get this book. R.I.P. MCA.

Most Excellent Adventurious Tale of the Single Greatest Rap Group of All Time!!!

When this book came out I already knew that I was going to own it. I am a huge fan of music biographies and I am willing to read just about any of them. I knew this book in particular was going to be special as I wasn't the biggest fan of the Beastie Boys, I respected them as a truly creative force that stood out among the hip hop groups of the early 1980's.I originally picked this up on Audible while I was travelling for work but I went ahead and bought the book as well. Let me say that the audio format is really cool. They have a slew of musicians, actors, friends and the surviving members of the group reading this book. Like their music the book took it's self serious while maintaining the sense of humor that the Beastie Boys were known to have.As biographies go this is just one of the best. It starts at their childhood and takes you on the journey of their ups and downs as musicians. What comes out of this book is an honest reflection of their careers, mistake and creative process. You get stories of them being forced into the party band persona when they were young and their disdain of having that image. How they broke free from that and started to reform their image to become the pioneers of hip hop, social justice and equality.Learning their start as a band to their love of music and their time in the studio had me in awe of the Beastie Boys. My respect for their craft tripled and after I finished the book I sat down with their albums that I blew off years ago and listened with a new found appreciation.This is a great read for the casual to the hardcore fan. It's thoughtful, funny and just an all around engaging read. I see myself revisiting this book later on down the road. This is a great way to close out the career of the Hip-Hop legends!

I started this book with the Kindle version lent by my local library. After 1/4 of it I realized I was missing much of the content found in illustration and pictures. I was thrilled to see the Hardbound price 1/2 of its original and I ordered a copy. It showed up the next day with one corner a little bent but nothing compared to many shipments. This book is one of the finest printed and presented material I have seen in decades. I have a large library and few of my books are to this standard. The binding, choice of paper and format is remarkable. It is as creative as the other parts of this Genre and authors. The content is like no other music related books I own. This is encyclopedic in the way it provides insight into the period and career of the creators. It has everything from Maps, a cookbook, and memory of arcane musical techniques and instruments. The passage about limited storage of samplers was like a TARDIS (time travel). Thank you Beasties, I recommend this book to anyone regardless of your interests or tastes. It is the bargain of the year and instant joy.

This book was a pleasure to read, tons of pictures and plenty of stories to make any fan happy. I enjoyed the free style it had, not a chapter based book but rather flowing from one story to the next.

Now here's a little story I've got to tell. Back when I was 14 in 1985 I first heard the "She's on it" 12" round my friend's house and that was it - I was hooked on the Beasties. I bought the 12" for myself that weekend, and it's a record I still have to this day 34 years later. Since that moment I've been a huge fan buying all the early singles, with the release of "Licence to Ill" being a huge moment for me back then. I was there for the infamous Brixton date in 1987 with the go-go dancers in the cage and the hydraulic 'thingy' and I'm slightly ashamed to admit that I was one of thousands up and down the country that stole a VW badge or two (the technique, dear reader, was to use the brake level on your bmx for leverage to get them off. Sorry VW owners in my hometown, I was young and stupid.)Fast forward a few decades and we come to the release of this book. I pre-ordered this to get it on the day of release and then sat it on my book shelf for a while as I had tickets for the "Live and Direct" tour and I wanted to hear the stories within it told firsthand initially before reading them in print. That live and direct date was an absolute delight from start to finish, equal parts funny as hell and moving when speaking about MCA, and a real highlight of recent times for me. It's also sad realising that I'd never get to experience them live again and that was as close as I would get.On to the book itself - I'll refrain form spoiling it too much but it's been years in the making and it really shows, it's a fantastic heavyweight tome full of moments of brilliance and you don't need to be a hardcore fan to appreciate it. There's some amazing photos in there and my only regret is that I'd have liked some sort of deluxe edition with larger glossy pages to really show them off - but hey, thought might well be prohibitively expensive. I suspect that everything will find something in here and the tales of excess are stupidity are a real delight.It's a big old book but one that's east to dip into. You'll find yourself dipping in for long periods a lot though - to paraphrase it's because you can't, you don't and you won't stop reading this book until you get to the end.

Awesome. Years in the making and its been worth the wait. Takes me back to when I was a long-haired skate punk listening to Black Flag and Slayer and having my mind blown by a 12” called Its The New Style. That was 1986. Life was never the same afterwards.

The level of detail, sense of humour, honesty and integrity blew me away. I've been a fan of the Beasties since the 90s mainly but had forgotten much of what they did, especially at the finer detail level. This book tells a personal account from the 2 remaining members, presents a fantastic, and funny, tribute to the late Adam Yauch and presents it in such an engaging and exciting way. Hats off to the designers on this one. This brought me back to street level and tuned me in once more to their skill, charm and amazing musical talent. Wish I had a signed copy, but you can't have everything!

The immediate and heartfelt tribute to Yauch seemed appropriate to put at the start of the book. And then the prologue brilliantly sets the scene of NYC in the 80s. It was my NYC too at the time and their description had my head swimming in sights sounds and smells of that era... The perfect start to a great read... Very easy to pick up, read a few stories (no more than about two pages per chapter) and put down for later. But you won't do that because Adam's and Mike's writing style is so conversational, honest, funny, nuts, touching, that you just won't want to put it down... Clear your calendar for a few nights and be prepared to get whisked away.

This fantastically entertaining book tells the story of a band who consistently broke the rules and confounded everyone's expectations over and over again. The bitesize chapters, numerous illustrations, archive material, recipes (yes, really!) and contributions from friends and collaborators make for perfect dip-in-and-out reading. Personally, I ploughed through it in just a few marathon sessions; it really is a page-turner.Heartfelt and hilarious, geeky and insightful, stupid and clever, all at the same time - in other words, everything you could ever want from a Beastie Boys biography.