Part 2: Beastie Boys! by Larry C. in Flipside Magazine

Soho, home of more than a million pretentious New Yorkers, most of whom profess to be "artists". Situated amongst all these struggling art cows is the Kitchen, an "experimental" video/performance space. The trouble with art cows is that they think too much, react too little, they are what they've been conditioned into being, passive spectators (on the other hand, the trouble with hardbores is that they don't think, and act uniformly) as was evidenced when Beastie Boys opened a bill with, amongst others, ex-members of DNA playing. Then again, I've always thought the best gigs were the ones where pure contempt exists between audience and band. Anyway:

Kate (drums): Well, ask a question.
Larry: I want to ask a question out of THE FACE...Yo...yo, ratty haired girl. (Collects the Face from a fascinated reader). Question one; (from the FACE #32, interview with Phil of the Human League), "What are you working on at the moment?".
Michael (Vox): A new record, it's going to be a 12 inch. (N.B.: Tentative title, "Balls o cheese" or something like that - L.C.).
Kate: A 12 inch forty five.
Michael: With a game in the middle.
Larry: "You sound very sensible, how old are you?".
Kate: I'm going to be 17 in a week.
Adam: (bass) I'm 18!
Michael: I'm 17 as of last month.
John: (Guitar) I forgot.
Adam: I have an I.D. that says I'm 21.
Michael: John's 18.
Larry: (no longer reading from the Face) What did you think of the audience there? (gestures to stage)
Michael: They were gems. I loved them, they were dolls.
Adam: They suck moose pride.
Larry: What do you hope to accomplish with this band?
Michael: Not much. I hope to graduate from high school and then leave the band.
Adam: And I hope to get a donut factory in Amsterdam and make donuts for the rest of my life.
Michael: Come on, there must be more questions.
Larry: ...All questions are stupid...
Kate: (reading from the FACE) What kind of things annoy you?
Michael: This music that's playing right now...this band, Dave Silken (everyone applauds) the ignorance of the audience tonight, Adam?
Adam: (bewildered) nah...uh...well, yeah
Larry: Why do you say the audience was ignorant tonight?
Michael: Basically because they all had beards and it seemed like they didn't know how to shave...other than that they seemed to be compleatly apathetic to everything that was going on.
Larry: So, do you think that physical appearance constitues ignorance?
Michael: I don't, but they were visibily apathetic to everything that was going on around them, and they only reaction we got was that someone threw a bottle and another woman said "I hate all of these kinds of kids".
Adam: I wanna eat a trimwich.
Larry: Arn't you pleased that you got to them?
Kate: We should go back to L.A........
Michael: I don't know how we really go to them, another man told us to go back to L.A..
Larry: Arn't you glad you got a reaction out of them? I mean, one the one hand you say they're apathetic and then you say they threw bottles....
Michael: See, the thing is those were the three exceptions to maybe 200 other apathetic thirty year olds who've all graduated from prestigious universities I would have been happy if they all bombarded me with bottles or if they all tried to punch me...or if they all applauded and slam danced on each other....
Adam: They really only threw one bottle at us.
Kate: Yeah, and it was that one guy.
Michael: Yeah, so there was one guy who threw a bottle, another, a lady who called us a name, and another who told us go back to L.A.(for the uninitiated, Beastie Boys are not from L.A. -L.C.)
Adam: That must have been .01% of the audience.
Kate: They said there weren't chairs there for any of the other nights, just for us.
Michael: But actually I liked doing this show because it gets pretty boring playing for hardcore audiences constantly.
Larry: What constitues a "hardcore" audience?
Michael: A bunch of people with mohicans and shaved heads dancing around and moshing on each other. Actually, playing for a hardcore punk audience can be fun because they know all the lyrics to our songs. But on the other hand they might be just as apathetic and ignorant as this audience. Is that profound or what?
Larry: That's pretty fucking profound.
Kate: But they dance anyway.
Larry: Do you play your music primarily for people to dance to?
Kate: To have a good time and throw beach balls.
Adam: Hillary once ate a bucket of cheese.
Michael: As me how we went to Bard College and all the girls had smelly trim there.
Larry: Tell me about the time you went to Bard College and all the girls had smelly trim there?
Michael: Yeah, how about that....
Adam: It was a wild time, I mean really.
Kate: Ask us about how we all slept together in the lounge.
Michael: We all slept together in the student loung until a police officier told us to move....
Adam: That was a security guard.
Kate: And your friend (Adam's) who wanted to pay for all the drinks at the bar.
Michael: And there was this heroin addict who tried to pick us up and pay for all the drinks at the bar.
Adam: His names Mark and he goes to Bard College & everyone hates him.
Michael: He takes heroin.
Adam: Now that john is out of the room I'd just like to say that he carelessly left the distortion box on stage and now is curious where it's gone to... and so I sent him off to get it and that's how I'm able to say this behind his back.
Kate: No shit.
Larry: Were you satisfied with your gig.
Michael: This gig... I don't know... I was looking forward to reach a different audience than we usually do.
Larry: Do you think you reached them?
Michael: I don't know how we reached them. I mean, a lot of twenty year old women came afterwards and seemingly shoved their breasts in my face and told me how much they loved the set.
Adam: I think this interview would go much more suavely in a small, quiet, alcove somewhere.
Larry: This is a small quiet alcove (it was the video viewing room-cum-dressing room of the Kitchen).
Michael: You know, the overriding paradoxical thing about this show is the irony in that the seeminly "art" audience rejects the Beastie Boys whereas the seeminly "hardcore" audience seems to equally reject the "art-homosexual" band. I find that to be the overriding paradox...how about you Kate?
Kate: I think we should become the darlings of the Village Voice.
Larry: You are... you got a write up.
Kate: We did?
Larry: By Christgua....he recommended the show. What constitutes an "art-homosexual" band?
Adam: Sarah Cox's hamster.
Kate: Crosty Spiegelbaum.
Larry: Kate, where did you get your pants?
Kate: Marco Polo '82 Import/Exort.... at Walter's world famous Greenwich Famous Village Emporium, 52 Bleecker Street, New York.
Larry: How much were they?
Kate: They were $16.
Adam: They're very sack style.
Kate: They're comfortable as hell.
Adam: Well, they definitely don't rub hard on your crotch.
Kate: They leave me room for my massive dick.
Larry: Where do you get your clothes?
Michael: I inherit most of them, because I have this endless closet that always yields some clothes. Every now and then I buy a pair of blue jeans.
Larry: Where do you buy your clothes?
John: My mother usually buys clothes for me (a long discussion of clothes follows, then a long discussion on haircuts, then clothes again then....)
Michael: Yes, I do look like Eddie Munster with my widow's peak hairline. Wait, since this is our first interview in awhile, I'd like to clear something up. One; some people have termed us racist and said I hate Rastafarians when such rumors are not true at all. I really despise all sorts of dogmas and various....racist and sexist leanings.
Adam: I would like to clear something else up...we got really screwed over on that "N.Y. Thrash" tape. Tim Sommers wrote cold things about us because we didn't thank him on the record, Dave Hahn didn't pay us because he doesn't like us that much, they fucked up our sound, they wrote the name of our song wrong, it's not "Beastie" it's "Beastie Boys".
Kate: And they didn't give us any liner notes.
Michael: I think the entire "N.Y. Thrash" compilation was a complete ripoff, a complete scam put together by Tim Sommers, who generally masturbates with Dave Hahn....and by ROIR Cassettes. And ROIR is a rather dubious name since it's sort of rumored, I don know if it's true at all, that the owner of ROIR Cassettes is involved in cocaine dealing and the mafia.
Adam: And he shook Haile Sellasies hand.
Michael: It's true. Neil Cooper did shake Haile Sellasies hand.
Adam: Imagine touching Jah?
Michael: Neil Cooper is basically Lurch.
Someone: Oooooooo....
Michael: But he is a cool guy.
Adam He smokes a pipe and he's probably got a big dick.
Larry: Nick or jah?
Adam: Neil Cooper...but I'm sure Nick Cooper and jah do the same. Have the same....
Larry: What do you think jah feels like?
Michael: He must feel pretty dead.
Adam: I think he must feel pretty sly having all those people grow their hair funny for him and generally write music about him and...the guy must be feeling pretty slick.
Michael: The guy must be real high on himself since he had a couple of pet Lions, a lot of women laying around, he met Neil Cooper, what more could you ask for?
Adam: I heard that he was short and that people had to bow down to him anyway, even though he was short.
Kate: Oh, and I wanna say that I've always been in the Beastie Boys. I'm not "the new girl drummer". So there!
Michael: It's true. Jack Rabid take note.
Adam: The new girl drummer is someone else.
-silence-
Adam: Uh, well, this is great, let's say something.
Larry: Say something.
Kate: Something.
Adam: Could I bum a cigarette off of someone as long as were having an interview?
Kate: Oh, and I don't smoke cigarettes.
Larry: We should end on that. (Click).