When my girl-bro Erica texted me yesterday with the news that Adam ‘MCA’ Yautch had died my first reaction was to cry - yes, fucking CRY, even though I didn’t know the guy - and my second to reach for the Beastie Boys CD that just so happened to be within arms reach.


Anybody else just want to crouch and rap any time they see a video camera?

I’ve been blown away by the outpouring of grief on the usual social networks. For the first time I’ve felt like the sadness is genuine - people aren’t simply posting platitudes or competing to be the first to post a ‘RIP’ but they’re sharing stories, posting favourite songs or just saying how much the Beastie Boys’ music has meant to them.  I suspect this has a lot to do with the fact that my various timelines are stuffed with white, middle class 30-somethings like me who, until they discovered the Beasties, assumed music began and ended with a guitar lick and long greasy hair. They were our gateway to something different. 


‘we only play rock music here’

The Beastie Boys had a huge part in us - me, my husband and kids - becoming the family we are. In 2007 we traveled, me nine months pregnant, to Bestival on the Isle of Wight on a last minute press pass, just because we HAD to see the Beasties, even if it was a completely impractical venture. It was my daughter’s first ‘gig’ and during an encore of Sabotage, as we were running out to catch the last ferry to the mainland I got such strong (false, as it turned out) contractions that I thought I was going to have to name the boy Ad-Rock Heaps. To see Ted break out the robot and ‘mmm drop’ to Intergalactic you’d swear he could remember it and now the Beastie Boys are a regular request from both the kids - hence the nearby CD and one that Mr H and I are always very glad to fulfil.  


out of shot: me, dropping babies


Put this on and watch Ted robot 

The saddest, saddest thing about the death of MCA is that the Beastie Boys were still making great music and still putting on awesome live shows, well in to their 40s.  I can’t really see how the group can continue without him but at least until that announcement comes we can console ourselves with a seriously awesome back catalogue.
also, fantastical video

I could write forever about the long, long list of amazing, ear-pleasing or hilarious tracks that the Beastie Boys have produced over the years or about all the incredible charity work that MCA was involved in, not least campaigning for Tibet’s freedom.  But it’s all being written about elsewhere, and better too.  So instead I’ll leave it at my lame stories and the (actually rather obvious) Beastie Boys tracks that have soundtracked my life.