12/16/10
beeradvocate.com rating- B
Magic Hat Howl Winter Lager- Key Food, Forest Hills Queens-12oz bottle into Brandy Snifter- 4.6% ABV- Poured a dark brown with hints of red around the edges when held to the light. Pretty nice dense head yellowish in color. Medium carbonation with a medium to light mouthfeel. Poured like a stout but has more of a lager feel in the mouth. Taste and aroma have bits of coffee and dark chocolate. This was a good beer but I would like less of a lager feel, with more body in the mouth. Also the coffee qualities make this a beer I wouldn't really reach for under normal circumstances but not bad for a winter night which this is designed for. Was a little more pleasant when it warmed up a bit.
On the turntable is Paul’s Boutique- Beastie Boys- Released by Capitol Records in 1989- I looked up on the wall at one of my regular record stores buying some LP's to give as gifts and there it was! I was momentarily speechless, I had some reservation this may have been a reissue when I first saw it. But upon further inspection it proved to be the real deal, a first pressing Paul’s Boutique LP by the Beastie Boys. This was definitely a cool find and for under $20 it was no doubt a steal. I don't really understand why it was less than $20 condition wise the record had no real imperfections but there was some schmegma on the sleeve but nothing that really took away from its presentation. I have never seen this record in any store or at any show and even on Ebay I haven’t seen it to many times for a reasonable price. The Twentieth Anniversary reissue on LP and CD were out two years ago and I actually bought the CD (which was sadly lack in extras, but I needed a new copy anyway. This record unfortunately will not be staying in my collection it is definitely going to be gifted to my friend who gave me my first record player and records and to my knowledge does not have an original pressing of this LP despite having all the other original Beastie Boys LP’s. However since it is temporarily in my possession I figured why not do a blog about it since I don't expect to see this one again anytime soon.
This is record without much comparison. It could have been the Sgt. Pepper’s of my generation, but not enough people heard it the first time around. After the runaway success of Licensed To Ill the Beastie Boys went west and landed in Los Angeles and with the help of the production team known as the Dust Brothers brewed up this masterpiece of modern music. Dense layers of samples and swinging lyrics created an unparalleled record that begs to be listened to from beginning to end. With one song blending into the next sometimes seamlessly occasionally abruptly these songs were connected through a series of samples, guitar riffs, sound effects (i.e. drumbreaks, bonghits, etc.) and in one instance Johnny Cash. When I first heard this record it was shortly before Check Your Head was issued in 1992 and I was a bit taken a back. I certainly had known of the Beastie Boys from Licensed to Ill as a grade school kid but I didn't buy this album till my friend showed it to me in the spring of 1992. I have to say it took me a few listens to really get my head around it since I had never heard anything like it before. But soon enough Egg Man, High Plains Drifter and Looking Down The Barrel of A Gun captured my attention and I was hooked. Alot of the cultural references were a bit lost on me as a 17 year old and the music sampled therein was for the most part foreign to me. Frankly I don't know if I could have named any of the songs or the artists who sung them when I first heard this album. In the end it didn't matter, it was music that captured my imagination and probably in someway steered me towards a life in New York City. The Beastie Boys are also in part responsible for me becoming a bit of a record/music fiend. I always loved music but the diversity that was going on on the Beastie Boys records really opened my ears to the variety of music out there. The Beastie Boys also don't get enough credit for their "musical" influence on a whole generation of music fans who were unwittingly exposed to a wide range of music and artists who had been largely ignored in the era of MTV and corporate radio. Some of my favorite records which I found early on when I started buying records were records sampled by the Beastie Boys and I didn't know it until I heard them (i.e. Johnny Hammond, Sly Stone to name a few). This was in the days before the internet. Now all their samples are compiled on websites, a good one being, for those interested is http://miscreant-productions.blogspot.com. I love their lyrics but more importantly I loved the music that supported the lyrics. Not just the heavy stuff, which I was accustomed to, like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin but more unfamiliar genres like jazz, funk and dare I say the Eagles. The only way to find some of that music at the time was to go out and look for the records which I did, and restlessly in a sense, continue to do.
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