Saturday, May 05, 2012

Check your head

The Beastie Boys toured to NZ a lot - they played here in the early 1990s at the Powerstation, and later tours called in at the Logan Campbell Centre with Helmet, the North Shore Events Centre, the Big Day Out....

I remember when my old band Hallelujah Picassos got the opening slot for the Beastie Boys show at the Powerststaion, we were hanging round waiting for soundcheck and one of the band was skateboarding round the dancefloor of the Powerstation, so we gave him a copy of our album. Wish I could remember which band member it was.

On that visit I also remember seeing the Beasties around central Auckland a bit, up on Victoria st by the offices of Stratford Productions, the film company that shot their music video in Rotorua for the song Gratitude , watch it here.

Here's Yauch talking about his debut feature as a director, a b-ball documentary called Gunnin' for the #1 spot... at 1.10 he talks about how he got into film making, shooting super 8 film to project behind the band... he had his own film  production company Oscilloscope Laboratories, who were getting into film distribution too....




Download: Mick Boogie’s Beastie Boys: Grand Royal Mixtape "In honor of the Beastie Boys being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame...I thought it’s finally the right time to do a Beasties mixtape. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time… something people have asked me to do for a long time, actually...but I wanted it to mean something. Now, it’s finally the right time. 

I present to you Grand Royal. 80 minutes of my favorite Beastie Boys rarities, remixes, demos, live versions, out-takes, and more... I called my friend Jonathan Mannion, the legendary photographer (8 Jay-Z albums, 3 Eminem albums, Lil Wayne, Nas, Aaliyah, the list goes on and on), and we decided to re-shoot the iconic cover from the Beastie’s 1989 classic Paul’s Boutique...."



The Beastie Boys put out their own magazine Grand Royal, from 93-97 - Grand Royal was also the name of their record label. It was an intermittent thing - the second issue came out a year late. I've got 4 of the 6 issues, they are great reading. From interviews with Lee Scratch Perry to Robert Moog... read Remembering Grand Royal magazine, from Atlantic Monthly...

Plus photographer Glen E Friedman has posted some previously unpublished photos of his of the band... hanging with David Lee Roth, Billy Idol and others... 

3 comments:

Lee said...

i think the north shore events center gig for the hello nasty tour was cancelled cos one of the beastie boy's mothers was sick

Peter McLennan said...

I saw someone I follow on Twitter mention they'd seen them play at NSEC.

Lee said...

oops my bad. did some research and figures they postponed the gig a few months.