Where would I be without Adam Yauch?

By Oscar Barajas, NewsTaco

Last week Adam Yauch died after his battle with cancer. Unless you have been living under a rock since 1987, you would know that he was one of the three members of the Beastie Boys. His talent will surely be missed. When I first heard the news, it was a couple of days removed from the death of Junior Seau, and the feelings of disbelief left a powerful taste of disappointment in my mind.

When I was a kid, I remember listening to the mixed tapes my friends would record off the radio. “Brass Monkey” was one of the songs that were on heavy rotation. I remember laughing maniacally without knowing what the lyrics were about. I just remember there was a complete lack of songs dealing with monkeys. That song was so ham-fisted, and yet we all liked it. Looking back at it, I figure we were all victims of our individual tastes.

Those were the times before Vanilla Ice and M.C. Hammer. There were only two camps. You either fell into Camp Run D.M.C. or Camp Beastie Boys. Camp Run D.M.C. took their music too seriously, while Camp Beastie Boys just wanted something silly to sing along to.

I grew up in a household that was similar to the movie “Footloose.” That is to say, my parents felt that music was taboo. They felt that music can only be enjoyed when someone was in love or in the mood to dance. Either way, they discouraged me from listening to “that kind” of “music” because I was too young to be in love. After all, they felt they were too young to be grandparents. Secondly, they were more than certain that if I was dancing to “that kind” of “music”, they did not want to have it in their home.

But like all teenagers, I wore my parents down. It started with a pair of headphones. Then that evolved into listening to music at a moderate volume which gave way to blasting the stereo when they were not home. Eventually I found short spurts where I could rise the volume knob up under the guise that it was helping my homework skills. The Beastie Boys were there to forge my musical personality during my formative teenage years. They were the architects of the foundation of music that drove my mother crazy. Although for the record, it was Adam Horovitz’s voice which drove her mad. Alas, there was no love for Ad-Rock.

As I grew my tastes grew slightly more refined, although in retrospect, they were just fancier ham-fisted attempts to grasp an understanding for depth and personality. I felt that I had outgrown the Beastie Boys and had to say that I liked bands like the Cure and Joy Division in order to have girls pay attention to me and my bad poetry.  My best friend Gerardo had introduced me to the Ramones, and I pretended that I did not like them although the Ramones took me on to discover the Clash and Sex Pistols. This was the cornerstone of my identity – as a clandestine unknown nerd without feelings with an ear to the ground in case a girl happened to walk by.  Many girls passed by, but none were impressed.

But with the 1994 release of “Ill Communication” the Beastie Boys sparked a comeback at a time when they were destined to be remembered as a 1980’s novelty act. The sensitive nerd act became stale, and I simply resorted to being the antisocial satirist you see before you. I was the last holdout of my social strata that still preferred tapes over compact discs, even though CD’s cost about a dollar less. Those were dangerously lean economic times. I remember buying this album by telling my parents I needed money in order to take the SAT 3. I feel bad about it now, but back then it cost about $9.99 to fight for the right to party, and that was a little too rich for my blood.