No soft joke: 1982 Adam Horovitz interview

One of the editors at Beastiemania.com has discovered a short 1982 radio interview with Adam Horovitz and Dave Rubenstein on WNYU's "Life After Death," which was a New York hardcore and punk radio program hosted by Hal Jannen. Rubenstein (aka Dave Insurgent) and Horovitz, were on the program to promote a free show in which their bands — Reagan Youth and the Young and the Useless, respectively — were playing at the Mudd Club in New York City on August 2, 1982.

You may download and listen to an mp3 of the 5-minute radio interview HERE [DEAD LINK] or at Beastiemixes.com.

The audio comes from hardcore music fan Greg Fasolino, who recorded the "Life After Death" programs on audio cassettes and kept them for nearly 30 years before sharing them online. Four of Fasolino's recordings of "Life After Death" — including the one from which the Horovitz/Rubenstein interview has been extracted — are available to download from the blog More Than a Witness. It should be noted that Fasolino did not record full audio of the programs, choosing to stop the cassette player on occasion. Additionally, note that his recordings are two or more shows that were combined on a single cassette.

On the same program that Horovitz promoted the Mudd Club show, he supposedly premiered the Young and the Useless' 7-inch. Unfortunately, Fasolino's recording does not capture that part of the program.

The average Beastie Boys fan may not find the Horovitz/Rubenstein interview or the "Life After Death" recordings all that interesting; however, the over-40 fans who remember the hardcore music scene and 80's college radio will likely be highly entertained with the audio.

10 comments:

1:01 PM Saber said...

Cool shit. Amazing the guy kept the tapes for so long. They sound pretty good for analog tape.

1:20 PM Emily said...

Adrock was silly before he was..umm...Adrock. :D

3:12 PM Mercury92 said...

Do the other shows have any Beastie Boys stuff in them? Thanks.

3:14 PM Guest2151118 said...

younger times! i like it!

3:29 PM Hot Sauce said...

@Mercury92 Not really. Beastie Boys songs are played in the other programs, but they were not recorded by the taper. Presumably, the taper already had the Beastie Boys songs or he didn't like them. I'm guessing it's the former because who doesn't like the Beastie Boys? ;) The third recording has one lil interesting thing. Hal Jennen talks about The Young and the Useless playing a show in Astoria. It's a show that we don't have listed in the Beastiemania.com gigography.

4:03 PM Octopie said...

I second the cool shit comment. There's no mistaking Ad-Rock's voice. He sounds the same as he does today.

5:09 PM Greengerg said...

This is "the taper", Greg Fasolino! Found this via Google alert.
Anyway, of course I liked the Beasties---still have my copy of "Polly Wog Stew" I bought at Bondy's of Park Row in NYC in 1982.
I don't think there is more BB material on the "Life After Death" tapes, but the four tapes up on More Than A Witness are only a small selection of the 20 or 30 hardcore show tapes i recorded off WNYU back then...most were of Noise the Show, the predecessor to Life After Death. I know those at very least have a demo of "Egg Raid on Mojo." I sent my entire collection of tapes to the MTAW dude but he hasn't been able (time?) to digitize the rest yet.

7:10 PM Hot Sauce said...

Thanks for the additional info, Greg. I hope to hear those other tapes in the near future.

8:05 PM Fittonia said...

Oh memories!

8:12 AM pupso said...

he was just a babe!

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