Trip Magazine, a Brazilian men's magazine (read: lad mag), recently conducted an interview with the Beastie Boys. The interview will be published in the October issue of the printed magazine and at the magazine's web site (in both Portuguese and English).

The official Bue Festival web site has been updated to reflect the festival schedule. The Beastie Boys will be headlining the first day of the festival on Friday, November 3.

Ticketek.com.ar is now listing the Bue Festival in its upcoming events listing.

Update: Tickets will cost 90 pesos (approximately US$30). Locals can find a 15% discount coupon for tickets in this week's Clarin newspaper.

New on record store shelves today is The New Leader by DJ Starscream (aka Sid Wilson of Slipknot). The Beastie Boys and Mix Master Mike are featured on the first track on the album, titled "Introducing the New Leader."

Audio snippet: Introducing the New Leader [mp3]

Getting the Beastie Boys to appear on his album was a wish come true for Wilson. When asked what band he would like to play or tour with in a 2004 interview, Wilson replied, " It wouldn't go in with the genre of Slipknot, but me personally, it would be the Beastie Boys. At the point where I got into DJing, break dancing, and hip hop, the Beastie Boys were a big part of that. I have always listened to them."

DJ Starscream on Myspace.com

The New Leader on Myspace.com

An organizer with the Tim Festival has revealed the complete performance program for the Brazilian music festival to the press. The Beastie Boys are scheduled to perform on October 29 in Rio de Janeiro and on October 31 in Curitiba.

Tim Festival Program

São Paulo (Auditório Ibirapuera e Anhembi)

October 27
Auditório Ibirapuera (20h30) - Stefano Bollani, Ahmad Jamal, Herbie Hancock

October 28
Auditório Ibirapuera (20h30) - Ivan Lins/Tributo, Jennifer Sanon, Maria Schneider

October 29
Anhembi (18h) - Mombojó, TV On The Radio, Thievery Corporation, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Daft Punk
Auditório Ibirapuera (20h30) - André Mehmari Trio, Roy Hargrove, Charlie Haden

Rio de Janeiro (Marina da Glória)

October 27
Tim Club (20h) - Ivan Lins, Jennifer Sanon, Maria Schneider
Tim Lab (22h30) - Céu, Amadou & Marian, Devendra Banhart
Tim Stage (23h) - Daft Punk

October 28
Tim Club (20h) - André Mehmari Trio, Roy Hargrove, Charlie Haden
Tim Lab (22h30) - Bonde do Rolê, TV On The Radio, Thievery Corporation
Tim Stage (23h) - Mombojó, Patti Smith, Yeah Yeah Yeahs

October 29
Tim Club (20h) - Stefano Bollani, Ahmad Jamal, Herbie Hancock
Tim Lab (22h30) - Marcelo Birck, The Bad Plus, Black Dice
Tim Stage (23h) - Instituto, DJ Shadow, Beastie Boys

Vitória
October 27 (20h30) - Roy Hargrove
October 28 (20h30) - Yamandu Costa, Herbie Hancock
October 29 (20h30) - Amadou & Marian, Devendra Banhart

Curitiba
October 31 (19h) - Nação Zumbi, DJ Shadow, Patti Smith, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Beastie Boys

A concert or performance is never official until confirmed by the band or their representative.

Photo credit: croki

Money Mark is currently on the road, playing a number of festivals and club dates in Europe (see the performance dates on Mark's Myspace.com page). Today's Irish Times reviews Mark's show in Dublin on Tuesday (August 22):

REVIEW: Money Mark, Crawdaddy, Dublin
By Ali Bracken

Mark Ramos Nishita (or Money Mark) became the latest victim of airline misadventure when United Airlines lost his keyboard and varying other musical equipment en-route to his European tour.

To most people, this would be a major inconvenience, but to Money Mark, it's like chopping off an arm and a leg and offering only a vague promise of reattachment. But he soldiered on.

Somehow, I doubt he's likes the "fourth Beastie Boy" label he's been tagged with but he's most revered for his collaboration with the trio on such releases as Check Your Head and Ill Communication.

He's really a solo keyboardist though, who likes to team up with lots of artists to keep his style fresh. Nowadays, he's best known for creating atmospheric records that incorporate pop appeal.

But musical fame wasn't always part of his game plan.

He's originally a carpenter - he met the Beasties while doing some hammer and nail work at their studio - and he's just put down his toolbox momentarily to make some obscure tunes.

He played an assorted mix of hip-hop beats, blues, jazz and rock 'n' roll that was never repetitive and spanned from style to style with ease. Between songs, he floated about the stage haphazardly but his musical capability shone through as he moved from his keyboard to pick up a mouth organ, theremin, guitar and whatever else came to hand.

Back on stage for a weird but wonderful encore, Money Mark put the microphone in his mouth to create feedback and banged hard on the drums. He's one of those people who looks around a room and sees everything as a potential instrument.

Money Mark plans to travel to every part of the world in search of new inspiration because he has grown bored of the sounds in the Northern hemisphere.

It's sold as music for the open-minded and is created by an exceptionally talented, if somewhat dazed, musician.

Watch video of Money Mark performing live in Dublin at Youtube.com (courtesy bridub):

• Video 1
  
• Video 2
  
• Video 3
  
• Video 4

In other Money Mark tour news...Mark has been added to the performance line-up at the Arthur Magazine's Arthur Nights Festival to be held October 19-22 in Los Angeles. Tickets are available via Ticketweb.

Statue of Liberty replica in Buenos Aires
Photo credit: ATENCION

I spoke with a Bue Festival organizer about the Beastie Boys performing at the festival in Buenos Aires. The organizer insists that all acts listed on the Bue Festival official web site are 100% confirmed to perform. Additional acts (mainly local ones) will be added to the line-up in the coming weeks.

Background on the festival
The Bue Festival is a two-day music festival held at Club Ciudad de Buenos Aires, which is an open-air venue about 30 minutes from the city center. Although indoors, the festival is organized much like an outdoor festival with food, art, and merchandise tents. The festival is general admission; there is no seating. Fans typically queue outside the venue in advance for good spots inside. Unlike some festivals in South America, the Bue Festival has a good reputation for its security.

Tickets
Ticket price has not yet been set for the festival, but you can expect tickets to cost approximately US$40. Tickets are normally sold at the Ticketek box offices in Argentina and at Ticketek.com.ar.

In South America, concert ticket sales are often controlled by the sponsors, who can dictate how tickets are sold (e.g., only a Visa credit card may be used to purchase tickets or tickets may only be sold at a particular outlet such as a supermarket chain), so fans located outside Argentina might experience difficulty purchasing tickets.

Although a confirmation from a festival organizer should be enough information for any Beastie Boys fan to go ahead and plan to attend the festival, I would warn against investing money in those plans until the Beastie Boys officially confirm their appearance on their official web site or mailing list. A concert or performance is never official until confirmed by the band or their representative. Unfortunately, the Beastie Boys do not have a good record for communicating information to their fans in a timely manner, so fans risk missing out on airfare deals, etc., if they wait for the band to make an official announcement. I can only hope that the reason the band has not yet made an official announcement is they will be announcing additional performances.

''I see music in different shapes and different colors, so I try to come up with certain kinds of manipulation so it makes it [a song or sound] so different from the other, so that it's pretty overwhelming -- you know, kind of like Baskin & Robbins. All the flavors are there. You get the cocoa, the cappuccino, cookies and cream -- and it's all there and it's all ice-cream, but it's all so different, you know? That's me. I'm a taste maker. Forget the turntablism, I'm a taste maker."
--Mix Master Mike

To publicize his upcoming appearances at the Parklife festivals in New Zealand and Australia, Mix Master Mike has been doing some press interviews recently. In the August 17 edition of Go Magazine in the Gold Coast Bulletin, Mix Master Mike talked about the art of turntablism, or taste making, and some of his future projects, which include a new album that will be released in early 2007 and a television show supremely titled "MMMTV." Mix Master Mike described "MMMTV" as an educational DJ show:

"We have live DJ battles, mixtape contests and interviews with superstar DJs. It'll be the first of its kind. It's time to have something educational as far as for aspiring DJs and for musicians who don't know that the turntable is a musical instrument. It's airing soon on MTV, so look out for that."

Mix Master Mike had little to say of his three rapping buddies, except their concert film Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That! is now available on dvd. "It's good, real good -- so go pick it up," said Mix Master Mike. "It's dope."

Alan Light, author of The Skills to Pay the Bills: The Story of the Beastie Boys, will be interviewed about the book on WFUV 90.7 FM radio in New York tonight at 9 pm EDT. WFUV streams its broadcast live on the internet.

Sorry, there will be no site updates or email replies while I'm following the As the World Burns Tour for a while.

According to the Bue Festival official web site, the Beastie Boys are among the artists performing at the two-day music festival in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on November 3 and 4.

Although no ticket information has been made available, Ticketek is the agency that normally handles concert ticketing in Argentina.

Photo credit: ! peat ¡

After experiencing three days of great music by loads of artists at Lollapalooza in Chicago this past weekend, writing about the Beastie Boys -- a band who wasn't there -- seems sort of wrong.

Although the Beastie Boys weren't at Lollapalooza this year, someone they know very well was. Mix Master Mike performed a hot (literally and figuratively) set on the Mindfield Stage at Lollapalooza on Sunday evening. Anyone in the city could come down to the park to see Mix Master Mike's set because the DJ stage was not gated/security-controlled like other areas of the festival. The scene was pretty laid back, with most of the audience dancing to the muy bueno master.

Overheard in the crowd: "Man, he's fast!"..."Fuckin' fantastic!"..."Whoa, is he for real?!"..."Where are the Beastie Boys?"

Download: Mix Master Mike Live (San Francisco, September 16, 2004) [mp3] (47 MB)

A few more interviews with the Beastie Boys have surfaced while I was Lollapaloozing. Toronto music site andPOP.com has an interview with the band that begins and ends nowhere, unless you count silliness as going somewhere.

Orlando radio station O-Rock 105.9 has an audio interview with Adam Yauch that you may download [part 1 // part 2]. I haven't listened to it yet, so I can't grade the silly factor.

Crookedtongues.com has an Awesome competition going, for which the grand prize is a copy of the Beastie Boys concert dvd and a limited Adidas Money Mark tracksuit. To win, you must answer a question about what shoes Mike D wears on the cover of the Check Your Head album (see above). Send an email with your answer, name, and address to charlies@crookedtongues.com.

Other contests
411mania.com has a contest to win the dvd and a t-shirt. Email stone9cold@aol.com with "Beastie Boys" in the Subject/Title field.

dvdinmypants.com has the same contest. Email your name and address to dimpcontests@gmail.com.

Beastie Boys on CTV's eTalk

On Monday (July 31), the Beastie Boys completed another round of media interviews in Toronto. Among them was one with eTalk, for CTV's web site. In the interview, the band described their next project, which will involve handing out 50 guns equipped with cameras to fans and a celebrity kill subject (possibly Brad Pitt). Click on the image above to see the video. Alternatively, download and listen to an mp3 (12.7 MB) of the interview. [Highly recommended]

The Beastie Boys also appeared on CTV's morning television program "Canada AM" on Monday. Although I was unable to find video of this television appearance, I did obtain a transcript of the interview. Amusingly, only Adam Yauch is identified in CTV's transcript; Adam Horovitz and Mike Diamond both are described as "unidentified man."

Canada AM, CTV
Interview with the Beastie Boys
ANCHOR: SEAMUS O'REGAN
GUESTS: ADAM "MCA" YAUCH, BEASTIE BOYS

O'REGAN: The Beastie Boys have released their first ever concert film. The first of its kind. It's a feature length film that's shot by the fans for the fans. The trio handed out 50 cameras to audience members at their sold-out show at Madison Square Gardens. The result was "Awesome, I Shot That," a smash hit at this year's Sundance Film Festival. I've never seen anything like this DVD, where you empower fans and where 90 percent of this concert has been filmed by the fans themselves. Tell me where you got the idea.

ADAM "MCA" YAUCH (Beastie Boys): I saw something somebody shot, like a clip that somebody shot on their camera phone and then upload on our website, and just felt like it captured the energy of the show really well.

O'REGAN: Off their phone?

YAUCH: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Just off their cell phone.

YAUCH: I think it was a 30-second clip.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: It was like Lucas running on stage or something.

YAUCH: It was the beginning of the show.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: There's a certain energy to it.

O'REGAN: Cell phones are like the new lighters or something. When you look at it now, all you see are people using the cameras on their phones and capturing whatever they can.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: It got to be kind of surreal on the tour that the DVD was shot from. Yeah, it kind of became this, almost like we became used to it by the end of the tour.

O'REGAN: I see lots of leaves underneath the poster, which means that you've won a lot of award.

YAUCH: A lot of accolades. We actually won second place for best dressed at [inaudible] City Movie Contest.

O'REGAN: Sundance must have been a bit wild. Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, The Police, they were all there.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: They’re all big, big fans.

YAUCH: Surprising for us to beat them out on all those award.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: At Sundance there were all these music films this year for some reason. Happening coincidentally.

FILM CLIP: You all ready for the Beastie Boys?

O'REGAN: MTV just turned 25.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Wow.

O'REGAN: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: We're right in line with them, in terms of an aging race.

O'REGAN: But you have followed the progression of videos yourselves and you've seen the trends. You've either led them or you've been right at the cusp of it. How have videos changed in your mind over 25 years?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Early on they were just like mostly like just some weird video effects through a special effects generator.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: A lot of the music video channels, whatever, don't actually show music videos so much, or they do just a little bit.

YAUCH: And translate them.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Exactly. And so now I think if people are watching them on You Tube or whatever, they're watching them on the internet more and so bands have gotten back to, okay, we're just going to make something that we're into making, an extension of the song or whatever.

O'REGAN: They listed the top 50 most innovative or trendsetting videos and Madonna got three of the top five. You opened up for her in '85 or '87.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: '85. On the "Like a Virgin Tour." I believe that Madonna kept us on tour in '85 because the audience hated us so much that it made her so much better.

O'REGAN: Are you serious? You didn't get good audience reaction?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: We got booed every night.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: It was a full-on adversarial match. We would go out there and just a battle from the second we stepped on stage.

O'REGAN: You guys have never been afraid to speak your mind about Bush or the Iraq war. You did that with "That's It, That's All." Any thoughts on what's going on right now? You guys watch the news like everybody else.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yeah, it's very sad. Just like you kind of hope things in the world are turning in one direction and then you watch them go in a completely different direction.

Note to CTV: The Beastie Boys won second place best dressed at the LeFreak City Movie Contest.


Beastie Boys on Dose.ca

The band did another video interview with Canadian online magazine Dose.ca, where they discussed different aspects of Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That! Four separate videos segments are available to watch at Dose.ca. Alternatively, download and listen to mp3s of the segments:

Segment 1 // Segment 2 // Segment 3 // Segment 4

Fianlly, my bgirl buddy Midzi pointed out to me that Edge 102.1 radio has posted photos and a short video of some of its interview with the band from last week at its web site.

After what seems like an eternity, Mix Master Mike's official web site has finally been updated. A number of performances have been listed in the On Tour section, and there's a note that a new web site is in the works.

Upcoming Performances
August 3 - Coors Light Summer Elevation Tour, Granada Theater, Dallas, Texas
August 4 - The Lizard Lounge, Dallas, Texas
August 5 - Hard Rock Hotel, Chicago, Illinois
August 6 - Lollapalooza, Chicago, Illinois
August 10 - Coors Light Summer Elevation Tour, Hammerstein Ballroom, New York
August 12 - Hard Rock Casino, Stuff Magazine Party, Las Vegas, Nevada
August 26 - Club Mighty, San Francisco, California
September 22 - Parklife Tour, Auckland, New Zealand
September 23 - Parklife Tour, Melbourne, Australia
September 28 - Parklife Tour, Hobart, Australia
September 30 - Parklife Tour, Brisbane, Australia
October 1 - Parklife Tour, Sydney, Australia
October 2 - Parklife Tour, Perth, Australia
October 7 - VH1 Hip Hop Honors, Hammerstein Ballroom, New York

In the fall of 1987, after fulfilling the Beastie Boys Licensed to Ill tour obligations, Adam Yauch formed a band with friends Tom Cushman, Dougie Beans (Murphy's Law), and Daryl Jenifer (Bad Brains). Named after the "homeland," the band Brooklyn recorded a collection of demos at the Hit Factory in New York City and Yauch's Brooklyn apartment. Although the demos were distributed to a number of labels that expressed interest, the band was never signed and the songs were never commercially released. In the late 90s, the demos fell into the hands of a trader, who made them public to the fan community.

The demos, commonly referred to as the Brooklyn Sessions, are sought after by Beastie Boys fans for one particular song in the collection. It was during the Brooklyn Sessions that Yauch developed and first recorded the famous bass line in "Gratitude."

In The Sounds of Science anthology book, Yauch described the song's origins:

The bass line was something that I had made up early on as I was learning to play the bass, maybe around 1980. I think it grew out of a pedal that I'd acquired called a "Super Fuzz," and the tone of the box begged the line.

In late '87, in the aftermath of Licensed to Ill, we [Beastie Boys] decided to take a little break. I bought a Fostex reel-to-reel 8-track and started writing songs with a friend named Tom Cushman. Tom reminded me about the old bass line. I found the Super Fuzz, and we wrote a song around it. The song was called "Gratitude." That version was over an 808 drum machine and had me singing on it...

By request, download and listen to Brooklyn's version of "Gratitude":

Gratitude [mp3]

A second version of the song, which was circulated as an incomplete file in the collection for reasons unknown, offers a slightly different sound:

Gratitude (Version 2.0) [mp3]

If anyone's interested in the complete demo collection, holla at me and I'll post it -- although I must warn that the quality of the recording is dubious in spots.

A good source for other Beastie Boys-related oddities and rarities is the Beastie Boys Hub at jtcann.serveftp.com:1090 (Direct Connect software required).