by LeRoy, Dan
Paul’s Boutique
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Dusty in Memphis by Warren Zanes
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The Piper at the Gates of Dawn by John Cavanagh
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Exile on Main Street by Bill Janovitz
Grace by Daphne Brooks
Murmur by J. Niimi
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In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Kim Cooper
Music from Big Pink by John Niven
Doolittle by Ben Sisario
There’s a Riot Goin’ On by Miles Marshall Lewis
Stone Roses by Alex Green
Forthcoming in this series:
Court and Spark by Sean Nelson
Daydream Nation by Matthew Stearns
London Calling by David L. Ulin
The Notorious Byrd Brothers by Ric Menck
Loveless by Mike McGonigal
Bee Thousand by Marc Woodsworth
Highway 61 Revisited by Mark Polizzotti
In Utero by Gillian Garr
The Who Sell Out by John Dougan
Paul’s Boutique
Dan LeRoy
2010
The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc
80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038
The Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX
www.continuumbooks.com
Copyright © 2006 by Dan LeRoy
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers or their agents.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
LeRoy, Dan.
Paul’s boutique / by Dan LeRoy.
p. cm. - (33 1/3)
Includes bibliographical references.
eISBN-13: 978-1-4411-2819-5
1. Beastie Boys. 2. Beastie Boys. Paul’s boutique. I. Title. II. Series.
ML421.B39L47 2006
782.42164092’2-dc22
2005035036
Acknowledgments
Without the love, friendship and support of the following people, this book would not exist: Stephen, Rachel, Thomas and Henry Catanzarite; Drew and Angie LeRoy; Nancy, Alex and Matthew LeRoy; Heather and Eric Lewis; Michael Lipton; Brenda Smith Nutter Schanie, John D. Nutter, Devin Nutter and family; Paul, Gina, Abigail, Amanda and Drew Martin-Ryan; Mr. and Mrs. C. Thomas Tallman; Jamie Tallman; and the editors and staff, past and present, of The Charleston Daily Mail, especially Monica Orosz and Chris Stirewalt.
One of the best things about this experience has been the people I have met as a result of it, who have been almost unfailingly helpful, thoughtful and kind. I thank everyone who agreed to be interviewed for this book, including Bill Adler, Gil Bailey, Lisa Ann Cabasa, Madelyn Clark, Eric Haze, John King, Donovan Leitch Jr., Madlib, Dan Nakamura, Prince Paul, Max Perlich (a hat tip as well to Martin Perlich and Linda Perlich Porter), Matt Robinson, Mike Ross,. Ione Skye, Pam Turbov, Paul Weller and Marvin Young. Ricky Powell also unearthed some of his old, unpublished photos from the Paul’s Boutique era, three of which are featured here.
In particular, I extend my gratitude to Cey Adams, Mario Caldato Jr., Tim Carr, Matt Dike, Jeremy Shatan, Jon Sidel, Mike Simpson, Leyla Turkkan and Brian Williams. Many of these people patiently answered several rounds of questions; many pointed me in the direction of valuable sources; and each of them always went the proverbial extra mile. So did Jennifer Hall of SAM Entertainment, and without the inimitable Sean ‘The Captain’ Carasov, I can’t imagine how any of this would have gotten done.
My sincere appreciation as well to Dr. David Barker at Continuum for commissioning this book, and for all his subsequent encouragement and assistance. Meanwhile, Mark Laudenschlager at the peerless Beastiemania.com was invaluable, sharing rare documents, recordings and advice. In the always-sage words of The Captain, Mark and his co-conspirators—Brian Chambers, Kristine Sivacek, David Ensinger and Mike Klenke—“know shit I bet the Beasties don’t”
And thanks to Mike D—who graciously offered his recollections of this little-documented era—and to the Beastie Boys, for Paul’s Boutique. I have tried to tell the story of the album I consider their greatest as accurately, but entertainingly, as possible; I hope they will agree, and that you will as well.
Finally, I give special thanks:
To my wonderful parents, Louie and Polly LeRoy, who have never questioned my decision to write about music, instead of run for president.
To my lovely wife, Kiena Nutter, and my three beautiful children, Carys, Greer and Grant, who patiently gave up a husband and father for long stretches while this book was being written.
And to Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Dan LeRoy
Autumn 2005
Beasties on Capitol Records rooftop, June 29, 1989. Copyright © Ricky Powell. Used by permission.
Matt Dike. Copyright © Ricky Powell. Used by permission.
The Dust Brothers: John King and Mike Simpson. Copyright © Ricky Powell. Used by permission.
Chapter One
When the Shit Hits the Fan, There Won’t Be Any Umbrellas
&nb
sp; The afternoon smog couldn’t hide the spectacular view from the roof of the Capitol Records building. To the east lay the silver and white towers of Los Angeles; to the west the Hollywood hills. And as the Beastie Boys surveyed the city from their thirteen-story eyrie, with the summer stretching lazily before them, it seemed they owned all they could see—and perhaps the rest of the world as well.
Up on the windy rooftop, Mike Simpson wandered around with his friend and fellow Dust Brother John King, both of them amazed at the reception for Paul’s Boutique, the album they’d helped create. While an MTV news crew shot footage of the Beastie Boys, who were perched on the edge of the roof, an airplane lazily scripted the band’s name above in the blue, a Dixieland combo played and chefs spooned up gumbo. High spirits were infectious among the Beasties’ friends; at one point, photographer Ricky Powell climbed the Capitol Tower scaffolding to its peak and lit up a bowlful of pot, getting someone else to snap the picture.
As the Dust Brothers mingled with Capitol staffers, Simpson couldn’t help noticing most of them seemed “bewildered by the whole thing,” but he was reassured by the speech from a label executive who praised the new album and its psychedelic hip-hop collages as the Sgt. Pepper’s of its era. All in all, thought Simpson, it was a glorious afternoon, the triumphant end to a year and half’s groundbreaking work on behalf of the Beastie Boys.
The MTV coverage of the release party revealed a few changes to the group that had terrorized Middle America two years earlier with the hit “Fight for Your Right (To Party).” Adam Yauch, known as MCA, had grown his familiar stubble out into a full billy-goat beard. Meanwhile, Michael Diamond—Mike D for short—now sported the look of a thrift-store pimp, with a macramé pendant replacing his trademark Volkswagen medallion. Only Adam Horovitz, the King Ad-Rock, appeared much the same as before, in baseball cap, T-shirt and jeans. But as Mike D lectured his listeners—“I take the risk being a member of this group, so people should have to take a risk to listen to what this group does”—it was apparent the band’s abrasive attitude hadn’t altered much either.
Those who hated the Beastie Boys, of course, would have seen the pomp and circumstance of the day as frustrating proof that these three New York assholes were living charmed lives and would be around to torment decent folks forever. After all, Paul’s Boutique was one of the most counterintuitive records ever made. The band’s initial success on Def Jam, with the rude, crude and multiplatinum 1986 debut Licensed to Ill, had been unlikely enough; a trio of white Jewish kids and their white Jewish producer became hip-hop’s biggest stars overnight by offering a primal fusion of metal, rap and teenage rebellion.
But Paul’s Boutique abandoned the producer, the label, and the formula, instead smashing apart hundreds of old records and pop culture references, then Scotch-taping them back together in unexpected new combinations. With a trio of unknowns at the production controls, it was a suicidal way to follow up a number one hit.
Yet the music was simply the soundtrack to, and was indeed inseparable from, the Beastie Boys’ riotous California adventure. Somehow they had convinced Capitol to pony up more than a million dollars for a year and a half-long pranking spree in Los Angeles. Now the label was rewarding this lunacy by allowing the group to plant its flag—in this case, a 25-foot-long creation that read “Beastie Boys Records”—atop the once-proud home of the Beatles and Beach Boys. Horovitz and his actor friend Max Perlich, who had skipped out on a movie role to DJ the party, even tagged their names on the hallowed roof, graffiti-style. For the many offended by the Beasties, June 29, 1989 was a date that would live in infamy.
Unless, of course, they knew what was happening just a few floors down. Within the Capitol building, sentiments had turned decisively against the Beastie Boys before the album hit the streets. Even while their flag fluttered on the rooftop, Capitol CEO Joe Smith was furiously declaring that the trio had made his label “the laughingstock of the industry.” A purge of the band’s supporters, beginning with president David Berman, was imminent, while the Beasties’ A&R man avoided the axe only by staying out of sight half a world away.
“When the shit hits the fan … there won’t be any umbrellas, man,” Yauch joked, shortly after the album was released in July. He was right. Despite a series of glowing reviews and respectable initial sales, consumers quickly realized what the chastened Capitol braintrust had already figured out: this was in no sense the Licensed to Ill, Part II everyone had been expecting. It would spawn only one single that grazed the top 40, and there would be no major tour to help generate more hits. By November the album had fallen off the charts, and Paul’s Boutique was, for all practical purposes, closed.
The Golden Age of hip-hop would continue without the trio, who stayed out of sight in Los Angeles as Vanilla Ice became the new pale face of rap and quickly rolled back the credibility the Beasties had won for white MCs. And Def Jam could hardly resist kicking its old stars while they were down, trotting out the Beastie-bashing duo 3rd Bass as replacements.
“Capitol really thought they had stolen the goose that laid the golden egg,” recalls graphic artist Cey Adams, one of the band’s oldest friends. Within five years, the Beastie Boys would prove Capitol had been right; within ten, Paul’s Boutique would be universally recognized as a landmark achievement, a masterpiece of rhyme and collage that changes in sampling law had insured could never be repeated. But as the summer of 1989 disappeared, along with the Beasties and their album, the popular view was that Capitol’s golden goose was cooked—and that its former owner, Russell Simmons, had been wise to let it run squawking away.
* * *
In the fall of 1987, an exhausted Sean Carasov returned to New York, shaking his head as he reflected on the Beastie Boys’ first headlining tour, and wondered whether there would ever be another.
His British accent raised eyebrows in the hip-hop world, but Carasov had been an inspired choice as the band’s road manager. A Londoner with a razor-sharp sense of humor and a pet theory about nearly everything, Carasov had started as an associate of the Clash, departing for New York in 1984 after the punk legends fractured. At the time, the Clash shared a Big Apple dope dealer with the fledgling Beasties, which was how Carasov met the three rappers and joined them as they began their improbable ascent.
Eight months of Licensed to Ill debauchery had earned Carasov the nickname “Captain Pissy,” later shortened to “The Captain.” The Beasties’ DJ Hurricane coined the handle: “‘The Captain’ cos I was in charge of the sinking ship,” Carasov says, “and ‘Pissy’ cos I was pretty much always pissy drunk.” So was nearly everyone else involved, but the Budweiser-guzzling image that had helped the Beasties score hip-hop’s first number one album had nearly drowned them as well. They were sick of screaming “Fight for Your Right (To Party)” to inebriated frat boys; they were sick of the giant beer cans and the infamous hydraulic penis1 from their stage show; they were sick of sensationalistic press and police scrutiny; and finally, they were sick of each other.
Relations with their label, Def Jam, had also deteriorated over a variety of issues. Many of them concerned the Beasties’ friendship with Rick Rubin, their old DJ, and Def Jam’s cofounder. Rubin was widely hailed as the Svengali whose metallic rap hybrid had sent the trio to the top of the charts. But the Beasties, who produced the single “Hold It Now, Hit It” and had taken an active role in making Licensed to Ill, “found it vexing that Rick got a disproportionate amount of the credit,” recalls former Def Jam publicist Bill Adler. “They didn’t have the credit they deserved early on for being creative,” Def Jam’s other cofounder, Russell Simmons, admitted years later.
Further complicating the situation with Rubin was his involvement in a proposed Beastie Boys MTV special and a movie, provisionally titled “Scared Stupid.” The band would chafe at the control Rubin reportedly planned to exercise over both projects, neither of which came to fruition. Meanwhile, Rubin’s closeness to Horovitz had also caused friction within the group.
And then, there was the not inconsiderable issue of money. “They worked like hogs that year, every day,” says Adler. “One of the things they were looking forward to was getting fucking paid!” It didn’t happen. Simmons withheld an estimated $2 million in royalty payments from the multiplatinum Licensed to Ill; why he did so has become a matter of some debate.
The Beastie Boys’ massive success had exposed the weaknesses of a label that, just two years earlier, was being run from Rubin’s dorm room at NYU. Hamstrung by an unfavorable distribution deal with Columbia, and dedicated to reinvesting profits into the company, Simmons was left shorthanded when the Beastie Boys demanded their money, says Carasov. “He wasn’t trying to rip anybody off; they would have gotten paid eventually. But he wasn’t expecting them to call his hand.”
Simmons, however, claimed he was withholding royalties because the Beasties had failed to honor their contract. Ever since the band had returned from the road, Simmons had been demanding a follow-up to Licensed to Ill. This, says Michael Diamond, was the last thing the group wanted to hear.
“You haven’t even gotten off the roller coaster, and the record company says, ‘OK, here’s your ticket for Round Two. Give us more of the same right now,’” he remembers. “And you say, Wait a minute, I’m dizzy and sick. I’m taking a break and getting some popcorn.’” It was this insistence on new material, Carasov thought, that drove the final wedge between the group and Def Jam.
“The rest of that shit—the movies, the money, and whatever else—might have been part of it, but this was the catalyst,” Carasov says. “They needed time off. But Russell wouldn’t listen to me. He refused to see what was right in front of his face, which was a band on the verge of breaking up.”
After returning to New York after the tour, the Beasties had indeed gone their separate ways. Horovitz, then dating actress Molly Ringwald, scored a starring role in the 1989 film Lost Angels, playing a troubled Los Angeles youth. Yauch, meanwhile, recorded an album’s worth of classic rock-inspired demos with a new band, Brooklyn, featuring Bad Brains bassist Darryl Jenifer, Murphy’s Law drummer Doug E. Beans and old friend Tom Cushman.