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June 23, 2006
Life and Times of a Lifetime Fan
J put up a great post yesterday about how this is the 20 year anniversary of The Beastie Boys' debut rap album, 'Licensed to Ill', which of course inspired me to make my own:
I remember hearing the album when it came out. My stepbrothers from my dad's second failed marriage were into whatever was hot at the time in music, so I got to listen to most everything of the time. If we weren't jamming out to Def Leppard or Iron Maiden, we were bouncin' to the B-Boys, Run DMC or The Fat Boys. I also remember trying to get my mom to buy the tape for me at one point, but she read the names of the songs and decided to buy me a Weird Al tape instead. I wonder which song title steered her away?
1. Rhymin' & Stealin'
2. The New Style
3. She's Crafty
4. Posse in Effect
5. Slow Ride
6. Girls
7. (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party)
8. No Sleep Till Brooklyn
9. Paul Revere
10. Hold It Now, Hit It
11. Brass Monkey
12. Slow and Low
13. Time to Get Ill
Mom, read those over again and lemme know, OK?
So, anyway, after the buzz of the album wore off, I didn't really think of them again until an 8th grade lip-synching competition, when three of my buds did "So What'Cha Want" and tore the house down. I was like, "Hey, I remember that song from Beavis and Butthead. Huh Huh, Cool." Then I didn't really think of them again until the next year, when Ill Communication dropped like a bomb on everyone's ears.
A friend and I were walking around Lees Summit, probably going to the comic shop, and he said, "Dude, I know what CD I want to get next."
"Cool, yo, which one?"
"Three Communication, man."
"I haven't heard of that, dude."
"With, uh, with that Sabotage song, Rob. IIIIIIII can't stand it! You know!"
"..."
"Shit's tight."
"..."
"You haven't heard it?"
"Ill, man."
"You not feeling good?"
"Ill Communication, genius."
"...Whatever. Shit's awesome."
And it was, indeed, awesome. But I wouldn't actually hear it for another three or so years. See, I was a rocker back then. I was totally into the Grunge scene, as well as the stadium rock stuff of Metallica. I needed my wailing guitars and angst-ridden fashion.
Fast forward to 1997, and I'm gainfully employed at Pappi's Pizza and Pub in Lees Summit (a job I quit five times altogether, but that's another legendary tale). I'm also a Senior in high school, with, I don't know how I managed it, but all art classes. I'm going through this phase (that I'm still in, really), of hunting down all of the creators who were 'first' in their field, or there at the beginning. So, after a while, I pick up 'Licensed to Ill', when I get to rap, and it blows my mind, man. "How the hell did I miss out on this all these years! Shit!"
So, anyway, Pappi's. That job introduced me to every vice I'd ever seen Crockett and Tubbs bust up in Miami. Drinking, drugs, sex, all the good shit in life. I was having a blast! But, it also turns out almost all of my coworkers were also B-Boy fans, so we'd all be busting out rhymes all night long, changing the names so we were singing about ourselves instead of MCA, Mike D, and Adrock. I was, of course, AdRob.
I did a mixed-media painting of The Beasties in-between projects at school (I always finished before everyone else, because, obviously, I had All Freaking Day to work on the stuff) on a lark, and then on another lark, entered it into my portion of the Senior Show exhibition. I'd won a few awards over the last year, but nothing really special. Seeing where I'm going with this? One of my buddies and I cut class to go check out the show, now that the judging was complete (At the time, I'd thought it strange my teacher OK'ed us going, and thought it even stranger the grin on his face). So, my buddy and I walk in and Lo and Behold, there's a gigantic purple ribbon hanging off my painting. Best of Show! Get outta town!
So, a few months later, and the new album is about to drop, 'Hello, Nasty'. There was a record store in Independence that was having a midnight opening to sell it, and I was god damned excited for this. Most excited I've ever been for an album, EVER. My friend Chris and I made it from my house in Lees Summit to the store on Noland Road in, I shit you not, five minutes. The gods favored me that night, I guess. We get there, and there's a line wrapped around the building. Ah, well, it was a party, man, I could wait a few extra minutes. The staff there was doing a good job of keeping the line moving, and we get inside to discover that they had hired a stripper to dance on the counter while they sold albums. Rad!
We get our copies, pop the fuckers into the radio, and drive around town just bumpin' to the awesome sounds. Great. Fucking. Album. I still listen to it all the time. My best time listening to it, though, was a few weeks later when, for my graduation present, my mom got me a trip to Chicago for the big comicon. There I was, 18 years old, walking around this awesome foot traffic metropolis, playing 'Hello Nasty' in my walkman. It was the soundtrack for my amazing experience in that trip. Every time I listen to it, I get amazing flashbacks of riding the El, walking around the city, and feeling so...Alive.
Then I came back to town, and my buddy Chris had bought me a ticket to their concert as a birthday present. Sweet action. We drove around the parking lot of Kemper waving Wiffle Ball bats around, pumping the bass for 'Paul Revere'. Best. Show. Ever. Seriously, I've never been to a better concert.
Flash forward a few more years, and I'd become a legal dumbass, having been in jail a couple times over some stupid traffic bullshit that was my own fault, and I'd taken the day off work to pick up the new album, 'To The Five Boroughs', as well as to make sure my mom got her bail money back by taking care of the last of that nonsense. The album wasn't great, to me, but still better than most other music, and hearing the new beats and rhymes from my boys put me back to those great memories of days gone by:
*Six years old, loving the xylophone of 'Girls', and trying to do it on glasses of water with my now deceased stepbrothers.
*Fourteen years old, wandering around the city of my childhood with a good friend long since moved away, talking music and comics and girls and art and becoming my own voice, my own man, but being so free and happy for a short while.
*Seventeen years old, driving around in the car of my two years since decased grandfather, listening to cassettes of B-Boys music.
*Still seventeen years old, smoking a joint with some friends who I haven't talked to since I moved away, pondering on what the lyrics in 'Paul's Boutique' really meant.
*Eighteen years old in Chicago.
*Eighteen years old, getting drunk on shots of Sex on the Beach with one of my employees from the gas station, rapping along with 'Paul's Boutique'.
*Nineteen years old, having just stolen some beer from said gas station which I had quit, speeding away with two friends, screaming to 'Sabotage'.
*Twenty One years old, having had an all-night drinkfest with my good friend Tom Denzer, listening to their instrumental album, 'The In Sound From Way Out', having had probably the longest and best conversation of my life.
*Twenty Four years old, my now ex-girlfriend moving out. I decide instead of being all depressed, I'm going to keep my head up and just have some fun. 'The Sounds of Science' is in constant rotation during this time.
*Twenty Five years old, and my eleven year old brother tells me that the B-Boys are his favorite group. Good taste, little man. I burn off all of their albums for him. The look on his face was just...awesome. I'm betting it was a mirror image of when I bought 'Hello, Nasty' lo those many years ago in Independence.
Full circle. Unbroken circle. Soundtrack of my life.
Posted by Schamberger at June 23, 2006 06:26 AM