With the debut of the Beastie Boys’ new album Hello Nasty in a couple of days I’ve been doing much bouncing and wiggling in anticipation.

Yesterday I spent some time reviewing the lyrics of Paul’s Boutique. If you’re a fan of the album, check out this kickass site.

We love the hot butter on what?

The popcorn!

Instant better mood. But last night it was a different memory.

I remember being at the seventh grade dance…I went to a junior high that was very inner city in Jackson, MS, and being a lil’ white girl was definately in the minority. Our dances usually consisted of rap and slow jams. Every dance we’d plead with the DJ to play something we knew, something we saw on MTV, something we could jump up and down to…and they’d play Debbie Gibson or Tiffany. We’d spend the entire dance running around the dance floor, trying to get one person to dance with another, and the ongoing joke was, “I’m waiting for a good song.” I remember one night when we were all sitting on the bleachers trying to decide where to have the slumber party, “Brass Monkey” came on. Bliss. All the freaks of the junior high took over the dance floor. For a few minutes, we had musical freedom. Chaperones were confused. We were rowdy. The DJ had bought a selection just for us. The Beastie Boys meant to me at that time being my own person. Being funky-fresh. (as a sidenote, the DJ followed up that selection with G N’R “Welcome to the Jungle,” the best song in the world when you’re twelve and gawky…side sidenote: the DJ forgot to turn off the tape when that song was over…”It’s so Easy” came on, which we all knew by heart, and we got to mosh (or “slamdance” as it was known back then) until Axl told us to “fuck off,” at which point the tape was thrown into the trash.)

Paul’s Boutique was a completely different experience. Instead of me and my friends against the world, I was the only one I knew listening to the album. My two groups of friends (which is best summed up by calling one sect the “New Kids on the Block” and the other group the “Red Hot Chili Peppers”) were both skeptical of trying out the new album by the taunting New Yorkers that gave us the inane “Fight for Your Right to Party.” But I knew. I secretly knew in my bedroom, while pouring over geometry, that I had found a perfect album. The album that was well ahead of it’s time. Paul’s Boutique is absolutely perfect. Kickass samples, groovin’ beats, the funky-funky-flow, as Parappa would say. It wasn’t until I was at a Porno for Pyros concert three years later when the Reverend Horton Heat had finished and we were waiting for Perry’s set that I found out the album’s penetration level. The quiet lull of “To All the Girls” started coming over the speakers, and by the time “Shake Your Rump” started, everyone in the house was jumping and singing in unison. I was not the only one to know the fun of the Beastie Boys. My junior high years revisited in one quick flash so fast I thought the guy behind me smoking a joint was going to ask me to “go” with him.

The Beastie Boys are now more generally accepted, and that’s fine with me. On the Strength of the Doo Rag. They are now music producers, activists, and actors. I love them all the more for it.

My playwrighting teacher passed away this past December, but I remember one of the last times I was in his class I was wearing my B’ Boys T-shirt, and he looked at me and said, “You know, I used to babysit Adam Horovitz when he was a child. I never would have thought he’d grow up to be a Beastie Boy. He was a pretty quiet kid.”

And so was I.

Sqwak! Sqwak! Is my disco call!
Want to share your first B’ Boy experience?