BLENDER 1.4: FEATURES:Belly of the Beasts

Team Blender takes a virtual stroll through G-Son,
 the mysterious Beastie Boys headquarters in suburban LA.


Text by Eric Gladstone
Video by Helen Wumbly


One two, one two, oh, my god, it’s the yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh, The Beastie Boys—livin’ large and fully in charge. You’ve heard the hits: “She’s on It,” “Paul Revere,” “Jimmy James,” “Sabotage.” You’ve seen the shows, the mega watt, sound-surround, production-arena blowout. But the question you’ve been asking yourself for the best part of five years remains unanswered. What are Mike D, Ad Rock and MCA really like in the downtime between tours? How do they spend those long Californian evenings?
	 
As is the case with most platinum acts, their baggage is filled with familiar things: the ladies, the cheeba, the A-list Hollywood parties. But life is not one long fiesta sitting by the poolside, snorting off mirrors and talking about your rock opera concept. Oh, no. See, the B-boys take their cultural cues from Brooklyn, and Brooklyn is about giving something back to the community.

And that’s what the Beastie Boys have done. And they do it right here at G-Son, home of the Beast. No, they don’t actually live together here like some weird Monkees trip—they’ve got their nice houses in the hills to throw parties in—but this is their home base, the center of operations, ground zero. 
	
So let’s take a stroll through the premises, housed over a corner drug store in a quiet area of LA, as Mike D and company take a break from their most recent tour to give us the lowdown and show us around the digs.
 
The Grand Royal label may not be a huge, fancy operation, but, like a Snickers bar, it’s packed with goodness and really satisfies. These humble cubicles house Grand Royal’s finest—the men and women who make things happen, who do the daily grind. And we’re not talking about brewing coffee.

Still, this room has the feel of a sweatshop. Mike, what kind of conditions do you expect your people to work under? 
 
You’re in Mike D’s office—the executive boardroom of G-Son. The two Adams and Mike share the spotlight on stage, but it’s Michael “The intelligent Beatle” Diamond, who runs the behind-the-scenes show. Adam Horovitz is more into hanging with his wife, Ione Skye, and appearing in road movies, and Adam Yauch spends his downtime mastering foreign cultures (right now he’s in Vietnam) or snowboarding in Utah. 

But Mike’s office ... kinda reminds you of Donald Trump’s place, eh? Maybe not, but you’re sure to find lotsa cool books and videos on the shelves behind stacks of LPs and enough seven-inch singles to blow the mind of any hard-core Indie rocker. And though the desk may look clean when Mike’s out playing golf on the local links, you can be sure that pile of faxes hides some major decisions about the stable of Grand Royal artists.
	
The Sistine Chapel of G-Son is festooned with murals in a variety of tributes to classic cartoon and graffiti styles, and also serves as the central meeting and eating spot. Work is already under way to have the area declared a national trust site—the work of Ione Skye (“She’s the cheese and I’m the macaroni,” sings Ad Rock) and other anonymous volunteers inspiring many rumors that G-Son was originally planned as a street-level art gallery. No one will confirm or deny these whispers, despite the faint smell of wine and cheese in the carpet. 
 
Tucked away in here is the dreaded office of Bob Mack, editor supreme of the fabled Grand Royal
 magazine. How he manages to put the thing together in these cramped conditions is a mystery  best left unsolved. Mack became part of Grand Royal by using an unorthodox integration technique not usually employed by working journalists—he simply refused to go away. On assignment for Spin 
magazine, he kept appearing backstage and in hotel rooms throughout a Beastie Boys US tour, until his presence drove the main men crazy and they offered him a job.
	
Mack’s brief was to put together a simple fan club newsletter, but the project ballooned into a full-on magazine. The long awaited second edition of the Grand Royal mag should be hitting the streets the same time you read this, and features an exhaustive cover story on reggae dub legend Lee “Scratch” Perry. No relation to Luke Perry. 

MCA’s interest in Buddhism and the Tibetan struggle for freedom from Communist China resulted in the creation of the Milarepa Fund —the Beastie Boys’ in-house charity organization—a couple of years ago. A dollar from every concert ticket is chanelled into the fund, and a group of Tibetan Monks repaid the favor by touring with the Beasties throughout last year’s Lollapalooza. Sharing this office with the Milarepa people is the on-line arm of Grand Royal, most notably the incredibly comprehensive Web Site run by computer genius Ian Rogers. Ian put the site together off his own bat while teaching code at SOMETHING university, and the B-Boys checked it out and liked it so much, they co-opted Ian into their weird extended family. To date, he’s working on a Beastie Boys CD-ROM project. 

There goes the neighborhood.

In here, ladies and gents, behind that glass-windowed door is the desk —the mixing console where boy genius Mario Caldato, Jr. captures the Beastie sessions on tape. Mario C signed up in the late eighties after a debacle at the fabled Powertools club (the joint with the sexiest go-go dancers in LA) in which the Beasties blew up the lame house PA. Mario was on hand, somehow managed to save the evening and ended up assisting on the Dust Brothers’ production of Paul’s Boutique. Thus encouraged, he coproduced the last two albums and even found the time to do sound on a recent Pink Floyd tour. It was there he discovered the joystick, and the Beastie’s Spring ‘95 tour went quadraphonic before you could say “Far out, man.”

The rather nice studio carpentry is the work of keyboard player Ramos “Money Mark” Nishita. Mark became an integral part of the Beastie Boys’ sound (check out some of those “Nishita” songwriting credits) after he was called in to fix a smashed gate over at the fabled G-Spot (the Beastie’s original LA headquarters, from which G-Son derives its name). That gate is probably history now, but you can appreciate his fine craftsmanship right here.

Feast your eyes on the royal court, the eighth wonder of the world in terms of space efficiency. Within this humble arena—a ballroom in its original incarnation—lies not only a live recording studio where almost all of Check Your Head and good portions of Ill Communication were taped, but also a half-pipe for skateboarding and a respectable half-court for basketball, the only two things the Beastie Boys do by halves. Recreation is an essential part of the Beastie’s creative process. How essential? Put it this way—they take a portable hoop on tour with them and set it up backstage, and don’t even think about bugging them during the ritual pre-show dunkfest. Naturally, the Boys shoot wicked hoops—just  ask their DJ, Hurricane—but, hey, isn’t that net a little lower than regulation?
 
Yeah, yeah, we know what you’re thinking. Why can’t these guys just kick back, get some tattoos and bitch about Courtney Love like the rest of the rock and roll world? What can we tell ya? The Beastie Boys are keeping real busy—and the action happens here.

Now go back and check out the whole joint again in fabulous Quicktime VR: a Blender exclusive. Ain’t technology a bitch? 
  

HYPERLINKS

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The Grand Royal artist roster runs thus:

Luscious Jackson —named in tribute to fine hoopsman  “Luscious” Jackson, the band released In Search of Manny as catalog number 001 on the Grand Royal record label. Luscious Jackson and the Beastie Boys go way back—drummer Kate Schellenbach slapped the skins in the original hard-core incarnation of the B Boys, way back in the early eighties. 

Dead Fucking Last—an old-school hard-core quartet Ad-Rock used to play bass with, who are now Grand Royal’s first major label sign-over. They’ve just been snapped up by Geffen.

Moistboyz—comprised semisecretly of two East Coast dudes from bands you’ve probably heard of (does “Push Th’ Little Daisies” mean anything to you?), who produce the most politically incorrect music on the planet. 

Noise Addict—a gaggle of prepubescent Australian boys who pay tribute to Evan Dando and the Pixies. Fronted by Ben Lee, whose solo album Grampaw Would has just been released on Grand Royal.

Hurricane—the Beastie Boys’ DJ turns the tables on the turntables, and handles the mic in his own right.

ENDS