Spike Jonze filmed this live show, a sort of in-conversation by the two surviving members of the Beastie Boys, created to support the publication of the band’s book in 2018.
Mike Diamond (Mike D) and Adam Horovitz (Ad Rock) are expert curators of their own past. A dramatic highpoint, in their wryly shambolic nostalgia trip peppered with fantastic vintage footage, is the bit where they discuss the band’s falling out with Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons.
Those Def Jam legends, who controlled practically everything about the Beasties’ rise to stardom, sound as shrewd as My Fair Lady’s Henry Higgins.
As Def Jam clamoured for the trio to make Licence to Ill 2, our heroes realised they were basically pawns in a lucrative prank (“They just needed some white rappers … We could have been anyone”).
Not that this is a pity party. Diamond and Horovitz openly acknowledge their privileged status and the dick moves they made in those early years, which included ditching their down-to-earth female drummer, Kate Schellenbach. She comes out of this well. As you’d expect, so does Adam Yauch (aka MCA), who died, age 47, in 2012. Horovitz chokes up when discussing his protean friend. It’s properly moving.
More input from Jonze would have been nice (although we do hear his goofball voice on two occasions , the visionary director keeps his head down, in every sense).
Still, a few celebrities in the audience give the story a happy ending. When the camera settles on the ramshackle face of Steve Buscemi — a proud New Yorker, just like the Beasties — you can’t help but smile.
