Adam Yauch

Ad-Rock Hated "Faggots" and Other Beastie Boys Revelations Gleaned From Our Archives

Since October of 1955, when Norman Mailer and co. founded The Village Voice as a weekly paper for bros of the leftist pinko persuasion, we've done our dutiful best to preserve every word ever printed in our pages, tucking them away in our vast archival editorial library (pictured above). This summer ... More >>

Kathleen Hanna Puts the '90s Behind Her to Run Fast

In Defense of the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards

This Sunday is the 30th MTV Video Music Awards. The show's come a long way from the days of Bette Midler and basic-cable bedlam--it's one of the most influential award shows on television. Youth driven channel that it is, MTV itself seldom looks back at yesterday in favor of focusing on the future, ... More >>

Who's Worth Seeing at the 2013 Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival? EVERYONE!

Today marks the start of the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival. Entering its ninth year, it started at a time when the eyes of the hip-hop nation weren't as glued to the culture's birthplace as it once was, allowing the festival each subsequent year to remind the world why New York hip-hop is not only pivot ... More >>

Adam Yauch Park Opens in Brooklyn to Honor MCA

On May 3rd, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation renamed Palmetto Playground on Columbia Street in Brooklyn Heights "Adam Yauch Park" to honor the Beastie Boy who passed away one year ago. Our photographer, Mark Hewko, was there. (See more of his photos here.)

Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch Park Now Officially Open in Brooklyn

"This is Brooklyn's park. This is America's park. But specifically, this is the Adam Yauch Park," Ad-Rock told the New York City Department of Parks and Rec. The site will go down in city history as one more public space dedicated to a legend who made lasting art in the '80s and died far too young. ... More >>

H.R. of Bad Brains is Not Crazy, Insists Jamie Saft

With a monstrously flowing godlike beard, multi-instrumental guru Jamie Saft resembles a Hasidic mountain man who should be jamming on meaty blues licks with his beloved ZZ Top instead of the downtown avant-gardist and John Zorn ensemble vet for which he's known. The catch is, dude actually makes hi ... More >>

The Top 20 NYC Rap Albums of All Time: 20 - 11

Any list of the Greatest New York Rap Albums of All Time is, essentially, a list of simply the Greatest Rap Albums of All Time. The genre was invented here, after all, and over the years -- from early days to Golden Age and onward-- the city's hip-hop history has been an embarrassment of riches. Fas ... More >>

Live: Catalpa Offers A Little Bit Of Everything To The Soggy Masses At Randall's Island

PHOTOS: Sunday at Catalpa Catalpa NYC: Snoop Dogg, Black Keys, Matt & Kim, Matisyahu, A$AP Rocky, Hercules & Love Affair, TV On The Radio, Girl Talk, et al. Randall's Island Saturday and Sunday, July 28 and 29 Better than: Arguing over an iPod's shuffle function. Music festivals without a histor ... More >>

Q&A: Big Fun In The Big Town Director Bram Van Splunteren On The '80s New York Hip-Hop Scene

"The Beastie Boys were just silly," says Dutch-based documentary maker Bram Van Splunteren. "You couldn't do a serious interview with those guys. They were just goofing around. We had them rap down the phone but I don't remember any kind of content from that interview." Back in the mid-'80s, Splunt ... More >>

Ad-Rock Is DJing A Benefit For The Jailed Russian Band Pussy Riot At Death By Audio Tonight

Tonight at Death By Audio, Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz of the Beastie Boys will spin a DJ set during a benefit show for the Russian punk band Pussy Riot, who have been in prison since this spring for alleged "hooliganism" stemming from their public performances and might spend up to seven more years the ... More >>

Chris Brown Dedicates Video To MCA, Misses The Point (Yet Again)

Today the perpetually troubled R&B brat Chris Brown released the video for "Till I Die," a collaboration with Wiz Khalifa and Big Sean that waxes semi-poetic about the joys of getting fucked up and eating shrimp-laden pasta. (Is that a sex metaphor? Please say no.) The song itself sounds like a reve ... More >>

Donna Summer, R.I.P.

In the two-family house where I grew up in Bensonhurst, the two musical acts I heard most often, blasting from stereos at the top and bottom of the house, were the Beatles and Donna Summer. The former was more my parents' speed, although my teenaged cousins who lived downstairs played the Fab Four ... More >>

The Clip Of Kids Re-Enacting The "Sabotage" Video Is The Best Thing You Will See Today

To celebrate the memory of the late Adam "MCA" Yauch, Portland filmmaker James Winters enlisted his younger family members to recreate the '70s-cop-flick homage that is the Beastie Boys' video for "Sabotage." The tribute is really well-done, and as someone who used to just shout "COCHISE!" at her fr ... More >>

The Beastles And Let It Beast, dj BC's Beastie Boys-Beatles Mashups, Are Back Online

The Beastles, Boston-based dj BC's well-received (but ultimately unauthorized and subsequently yanked offline) Beatles-Beastie Boys mash-up, is now fully available online. In memory of Adam Yauch, Bob Cronin (dj BC's alter ego) has decided to face any potential legal wrath from publishing companies ... More >>

Live: Thurston Moore And John Zorn Offer A Brief, Noisy Sermon At St. Mark's Church

Thurston Moore/John Zorn Duo St. Mark's Church Friday, May 4 Better than: Bumming about MCA alone. Free improvisation always has religious overtones—the major free-jazzers of the '60s acknowledged this with album titles like Ascension and Spiritual Unity—so there is hardly a better spa ... More >>

This Weekend In New York: Wild Yaks, The Death Set, Woods, And Crystal Stilts Get No Sleep In Brooklyn

In Waste Of Paint, our writer/artist team of Jamie Peck and Debbie Allen will review goings-on about town in words and images. This weekend, Waste Of Paint caught four rather different bands united by their status as beloved standbys of the Brooklyn DIY scene. It also marked the beginning of uncomf ... More >>

Adam Yauch, R.I.P.

Adam Yauch, better known as MCA and one of the founding Beastie Boys, died today after being diagnosed with cancer in 2009. He was 47.

Clip Job: The Voice's First Impressions Of The Beastie Boys' Back Catalog

Today, the Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch passed away, and in memory of his group's New York legacy, we turn to our archives to see how the genre-breaking group's art was perceived when it first landed on turntables and in CD players. Below, scans of Village Voice reviews for the "Cooky Puss" EP and Licen ... More >>

SOTC March Madness: Larry Levan (7) Squares Off Against The Beastie Boys (10)

​The Round of 64 for Sound of the City's own version of March Madness—in which you, the Sound of the City voting public, help determine the quintessential New York musician—finishes up this week, with the Round of 32 scheduled to kick off Monday. (The schedule and results so far are he ... More >>

Holler! The Ten Loudest, Shoutiest Rappers

Waka Flocka Flame is the sort of of hip-hop artist who doesn't so much rap or flow as he shouts his ass off. It's a formula that imbues the Atlanta-based rapper's songs with a boisterous, visceral appeal—and one that he's looking to continue with the release of his second studio album, Triple ... More >>

The Video Music Awards' Nominations Play To The Internet (Again)

​Last night MTV announced the nominees for this year's installment of their annual pseudo-event extravaganza, the 2011 Video Music Awards, and once again, the nominees for Video Of The Year have three pop picks ("Rolling In The Deep," "Firework," "Grenade"), one sop to the olds in the crowd wh ... More >>

The Beastie Boys Get Back In Time In The Star-Packed "Make Some Noise" Video

​The Beastie Boys' video for their throwbacky new single "Make Some Noise"--off Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 2, which comes out May 3--picks up right as the rager chronicled in the "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party)" video is letting out, with Seth Rogen, Danny McBride, and Elijah Wood pl ... More >>

Week in Review: The F. Scott Fitzgerald of American Indie Rock

Photo of South Williamsburg's the Woods by Puja Patel​In the week in which everyone went to rock and roll fantasy camp--whether it be the one that takes place inside the Colbert Report studios with the Mountain Goats' John Darnielle or the one that takes place on the disco dance floor with Vin ... More >>

News Roundup: Jay Z/Rush Limbaugh, Chris Brown, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and New Music from Islands and Them Crooked Vultures

​ --As Bill O'Reilly did yesterday, Rush Limbaugh has responded to being name-checked in Jay-Z's new song, "Off That." (Quote: "This ain't black versus white, my nigga, we off that. Please tell Bill O'Reilly to fall back. Tell Rush Limbaugh to get off my balls.") On his radio show yesterday, L ... More >>

News Roundup: Jay Z/Rush Limbaugh, Chris Brown, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and New Music from Islands and Them Crooked Vultures

​ --As Bill O'Reilly did yesterday, Rush Limbaugh has responded to being name-checked in Jay-Z's new song, "Off That." (Quote: "This ain't black versus white, my nigga, we off that. Please tell Bill O'Reilly to fall back. Tell Rush Limbaugh to get off my balls.") On his radio show yesterday, L ... More >>

La Superior Celebrates Its One-Year Anniversary

​Gothamist has a lengthy interview today with Iris Avelar and Felipe Mendez, the co-owners of La Superior. The Williamsburg taqueria has earned a devoted following over the past year, thanks to its authentic carnitas, street-style quesadillas, and addictive, itty-bitty tacos. In the interview, ... More >>

News Roundup: Steven Tyler Isn't Dead, The Jay Leno Show, Them Crooked Vultures, Tenacious D Replace Beastie Boys at Outside Lands

​--Steven Tyler broke his shoulder and received some stitches in his head after falling off the stage during Aerosmith's show Wednesday in Sturgis, South Dakota (he's not dead, as some sites were reporting). Billie Perry, wife of guitarist Joe Perry, wrote on her Twitter: "[Tyler] hit his hea ... More >>

MCA Saw the Jay-Z Beastie Boys Tribute on YouTube

Well, the first thing to know is that Adam Yauch is doing well. "i'm about a week and a half out of surgery now and rapidly recovering from it," he writes in an email that was sent out this morning. Next up? Radiation, which apparently "involves blasting you with some kind of beam for a few minute ... More >>

All Points West Friday: No Sleep Till Jay-Z

For maximum poetic impact at the otherwise sodden, mudsoaked trench-fight of All Points West 2009's first night, let's go straightaway to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, whose luck it was to climb onstage at the precise moment the sun fought back, through the clouds, and then commenced immediately to set. Th ... More >>

Suggestions For A Beastie Boys Tribute On Friday at All Points West

So the Beasties aren't playing All Points West, and in their place Jay-Z is playing All Points West, and if that's not an even trade, musically speaking, then who knows what an even trade is, really. But parotid cancer is a grim diagnosis, and the Beastie Boys are the home team, and so it seems li ... More >>

Week in Review: Do Not Go to Siren Fest Hungover!

Look, it's a member of Das Racist eating food. Photo by Sam Horine.  In the week we spent the early hours of recovering from Siren Festival--highlights of which were many and varied and included a photo of Das Racist daring to eat a type of food the duo doesn't rap about--we were officially and ... More >>

Jay-Z Is Replacing the Beastie Boys at All Points West

Indeed. Earlier this week came the terrible news of Adam Yauch's cancer diagnosis and the subsequent cancellation of all upcoming Beastie Boys tour dates -- including their opening-night headlining spot at next week's All Points West festival in Jersey City. Their replacement: Jay-Z, making "his U.S ... More >>

News Roundup: Beastie Boys, Pearl Jam, Islands, They Might Be Giants

Islands--Islands have released the bubbly new track "No You Don't," from their upcoming third album Vapours, the one frontman Nick Thorburn once famously left on the C Train. The song features him switching between a falsetto and more conversational style, with lyrics like "Don't buy dope from the m ... More >>

Beastie Boys Cancel Shows/Push Back Album: Adam Yauch Diagnosed With (Treatable) Parotid Gland Tumor

Alarming news: Per the video update above, Adam Yauch has been diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his parotid (salivary) gland and will start treatment, including radiation, immediately, which will both set back the new Beasties record Hot Sauce Committee Part 1 and force the cancellation of the ... More >>

Gunnin' for That #1 Spot: MCA Films

An NBA draft preview, of sorts

Thursday Is Officially 'Thriller' Night

The Beastie Boys' The Mix-Up

Not trash exactly, but certainly heavily recycled.

Ill Communication

Beasties' fan-shot concert-vid experiment is so last year

Generation Ex

Some get a decade; we get a moment

Shell-Toed Superstar

Nas, Missy Elliot, and the Beasties celebrate the redesign of the Run D.M.C. Adidas

Stupid White Men

Get ready 'cause this ain't funny: Ad-Rock, Mike D, and MCA pay for their non-mistakes

Music

Labels and Labeling

Five Corporations Cope With Content

Generation Ex

Some get a decade; we get a moment

No Sleep Till Retrial

Dust in the Wind