#polly wog stew

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"THRASH GARAGE PUNK WITH AMAZINGLY SHOTTY VOCALS..."

PIC INFO: Spotlight on the "Polly Wog Stew" 7" EP by then NYC hardcore punk band, BEASTIE BOYS, released independently under the Rat Cage label in 1982. The journey to full-blown Beastiemania begins here.

TRACKLIST:

1A.) "Beastie Boys" - 0:56

2A.) "Transit Cop" - 1:18

3A.) "Jimi" - 2:06

4A.) "Holy Snappers" - 1:22

5B). "Riot Fight" - 0:30

6B.) "Ode To…" - 1:33

7B.) "Michelle's Farm" - 1:38

8B.) "Egg Raid On Mojo" - 1:20

MINI-REVIEW: "Thrash garage punk with amazingly snotty vocals. The instrumental raunch perfectly complements the singer, who sounds like he��s right on the edge of sanity. You’ll be singing the chorus to “Beastie Boys” for days after hearing it, and the psychedelic (“Jimi”) and country (“Michelle’s Farm”) satires are really silly. The best of the new crop from New York."

-- MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL #2 (review by Jeff Bale), September/October 1982

Sources: https://mainthreat.tumblr.com & www.maximumrocknroll.com/review/mrr-2/polly-wog-stew.

[vaspider]

According to member Adam Horovitz, since the men knew she wouldn’t accept the money if she saw it as a charitable act, they claimed they owed her royalties from their EP Polly Wog Stew. ... “So if you’ve ever worn a ‘lightning bolt’ t-shirt or listened to Victim in Pain or found yourself fondly recalling a Beastie Boys show you went to, you have a transgender woman to thank for that. And we should know her story. If you call yourself a hardcore kid, Donna Lee Parsons touched your life.” [said Norman Brannon in his anti-matter newsletter]

[thatstormygeek]

Brannon's description of coming out is so good (it's in the second pull quote if you don't want to click through).

I'm thankful Donna was able to be her true self for some time, but she deserved more. And it's 100% bullshit that MCA organized the funding for her surgery only to die of cancer himself at age 47. The universe fucked up in multiple ways here.

Part of it, of course, is that Donna didn’t have a language to describe her experience, and in fact, she says that it wasn’t until January of 2002 that she first heard the word “transgender.” As soon as she read about it, Donna saw herself—perhaps for the first time—and began transitioning almost immediately. (“I saw the light at the end of a very dark tunnel and I ran straight for it,” she wrote.) Tragically, not long afterwards, Donna was diagnosed with colon cancer. She had an operation to remove the cancer that year, followed by six months of chemotherapy, but the cancer came back. “My understanding was that she was pretty much dying, and that she wanted to live out the rest of the little time she had left in the body of her choosing,” recalls Beastie Boys’ Adam Horovitz in Beastie Boys Book. “So [Adam] Yauch took care of it. He organized it so we gave her the money for the [gender-affirming] operation, but it was under the guise of reimbursement and unpaid back royalties for the Polly Wog Stew record from 1982. Donna got the operation, and then within a year passed away.”

As someone who quit my own band in 1997 rather than come out as a gay musician and make an attempt at becoming whole, I watched Laura’s experience play out almost fifteen years later with both envy (for the strength to do it) and concern (for the way becoming a public trans figure almost overnight could affect her). I was elated by the success of Transgender Dysphoria Blues, which incredibly turns ten this year, but I was also curious about how the pressure and attention was affecting her own ability to process coming out, and more importantly, grow into the person she was becoming. One of the greatest misconceptions that people have about coming out is that simply doing so is an end of some sort when, in reality, it’s a humble beginning. As I say to Laura in our conversation, which will be published in full on Thursday, “it’s more like once you do it, you’re staring at a fucking group of broken pieces all around you, trying to put yourself back together, and trying to figure out what was real and what was not real.” For her part, Laura looks back on that moment knowing that she had just reached a place where—for better or for worse—there was simply no other choice. “Ultimately, I don’t think it’s healthy to come out in the public eye like that. You should not do that, really!” she laughs. “But in a way, it’s almost like sobering up—where you can sober up and you may not be ‘fucked up’ anymore, but you’re still fucked up. And then there’s all this work that needs to be done. One of my therapists told me, very early on, ‘You need to understand that the person you think you’re becoming is not who you’re going to be.’ I think, subconsciously, I realized that before they said it, but that was what’s so ultimately terrifying. I realized that I had no idea what was about to happen, really.”

[teffiebell]

The forgotten trans history of the first Beastie Boys record - Boing Boing

"In fact, according to Beastie Adam Horovitz in The Beastie Boys Book, it was the Beasties themselves who paid for Parsons' gender-affirming surgery (under the guise of repaying her for royalties owed from Polly Wog Stew, knowing she would never take the money as a charity offering)."

https://boingboing.net/2024/04/04/the-forgotten-trans-history-of-the-first-beastie-boys-record.html#:~:text=In%20fact%2C%20according%20to%20Beastie%20Adam%20Horovitz%20in%20The%20Beastie%20Boys%20Book%2C%20it%20was%20the%20Beasties%20themselves%20who%20paid%20for%20Parsons%27%20gender%2Daffirming%20surgery%20(under%20the%20guise%20of%20repaying%20her%20for%20royalties%20owed%20from%20Polly%20Wog%20Stew%2C%20knowing%20she%20would%20never%20take%20the%20money%20as%20a%20charity%20offering).

[mothlm]

Her name was Donna Lee Parsons and she owned the record label that first signed the Beastie Boys, Rat Cage Records,

"According to member Adam Horovitz, since the men knew she wouldn’t accept the money if she saw it as a charitable act, they claimed they owed her royalties from their EP Polly Wog Stew.

Parsons died from colon cancer a year after the surgery but spent the last year of her life proudly living as the woman she wanted to be." (source: lgbtqnation)

[c-40]

A-T-4 156 So Def So Def So Def...

It's a Def Jam. It's 40-years since the first hip hop records from one of the genre's definitive labels Def Jam came out. The first two albums I bought as a kid were on Def Jam so the label holds a special place for me

Def Jam Recordings actually debuted as a label two years earlier. Before the hip hop records the label, which was being run out of Rick Rubin's NYU dorm, had released two punk rock records. The iconic hip hop track It's Yours was produced and put out by Rick Rubin before he meets manager and promoter Russell Simmons and they become business partners

Rick Rubin's friend Ed Bahlman encouraged him to out his own records independently and Bahlman's label 99 Records handled the distribution of the first two Def Jam releases. The first two Def Jam Recordings records are records by Rick Rubin's punk rock band Hose. The inaugural release carries the Def Jam Recordings logo that is still used today on the record label and its sleeve. The logo was designed by Rick Rubin who was studying art at NYU at the time. Because of Def Jam's significance to hip hop these releases are nearly always written out of the label's history but they have Def Jam catalogue numbers and a Def Jam Recordings postal address (Rick Rubin's dorm)

As well as being the year Rick Rubin released the first Def Jam record 1982 was the year the Beastie Boys put out their debut the "Polly Wog Stew EP". Like Rick Rubin's band Hose the Beastie Boys were punk rock. Adam Horovitz wasn't a Beastie Boy yet he was in another punk rock band The Young and the Useless. Both bands played the New York hardcore circuit sometimes opening for each other and they shared the same manager, Nick Cooper

Why is the early history of the Beastie Boys important to the Def Jam story?

In 1983 guitarist John Berry leaves the Beastie Boys. Horovitz, who was still a member of The Young and the Useless,  takes his place. DJ Anita Sarko is described by the NYT as a 'crucial bridge between the city's punk and disco scenes', this is certainly true for the Beastie Boys who would dance to the records she spun at Manhattan club Danceteria. One record was "Buffalo Gals" by Malcolm McLaren and the World's Famous Supreme Team which the Beastie Boys loved so much they decided to make a parody of sorts. This became the group's next release "Cooky Puss" and amazingly it became an underground club favorite

Why am I still on about the Beastie Boys?

Having a club hit meant playing that track at club appearances. "Cooky Puss" is unlike their earlier punk rock material to perform it the band decided they needed a DJ, like RUN DMC had. The Beastie Boys manager Nick Cooper contracted Rick Rubin to be the Beastie Boys' DJ who used the name DJ Double R

A television commercial made for British Airways uses a segment of "Cooky Puss" b-side "Beastie Revolution" without permission and the Beastie Boys and their manager, being the middle class children of art gallery owners, art dealers and collectors, and playwrights, sue British Airways for copyright infringement. The case is settled the out of court for $40,000. This gives them the financial freedom to concentrate on their music. With his share of the payout Adam Horovitz buys a Roland TR-808 drum machine

Adam Horovitz, Adam Yauch, and Michael Diamond begin spending a lot of time with Rick Rubin in his dorm. They share an appreciation of hip hop. Adam Horovitz is bringing round his 808. It's the beats Rick Rubin makes on Horovitz's 808 that convinces Russell Simmons to go into a partnership with him and provides the beats for many Def Jam Recording releases, including all of those featured on this page. With the success of "Cooky Puss" Rick Rubin convinces Horovitz, Yauch, and Diamond to ditch their drummer Kate Schellenbach and punk rock in favour of becoming three MC's and one DJ

The last thing I want to say about "Cooky Puss" is the Beastie Boys logo on the sleeve is made by Cey Adams who will become Def Jam's first art director

Boom Bap

Rick Rubin is deejaying for the Beastie Boys and creating beats on Adam Horovitz's TR 808 and he wants to make a credible hip hop record. This record would be "It's Yours"

"First I met Kool Moe Dee from the Treacherous Three, who were my favorite group. And I said, “Let’s make a record together. Let’s make a Treacherous Three record.” And he said, “We can’t really do that. We’re signed to Sugar Hill, but talk to Special K, another guy in the group, because he has a brother who can rap, and maybe he’d be good for you to do this with.” I didn’t know that there were contracts, I didn’t know anything. I had no experience whatsoever. I was just a fan. So I met with Special K, and Special K introduced me to his brother T La Rock, and he wrote the words." - Rick Rubin interview for Vulture in 2014

"It's Yours" isn't by T La Rock alone, it's T La Rock and legendary DJ, member of the member of Soulsonic Force, Jazzy Jay. But Jazzy Jay wasn't the first DJ considered for "It's Yours". T La Rock had a DJ named Louie Lou (who would co-produce later tracks like "Breakin Bells" with T La Rock.) According to his brother Special K and Louie had a falling out over the demo recording and Louie was out. Luckily Rick Rubin had a connect with Jazzy Jay and the rest is history

Jazzy Jay tells a different story he's pretty bitter about the record and Def Jam Recordings in general. He doesn't think he gets enough credit for his contribution or royalties. Jay Quan asks Jazzy Jay about making "It's Yours"

"[Jay Quan] Whose idea was it to use the Uncle Louie break in the [intro]? That “Da-na Da-na Na--?”

"[Jazzy Jay] It was mine. Every bit of scratching was done live--no takes or punch-ins or whatever. Everything other than the beat and the rap, I put in it. There’s so many tracks… The scratching on that is meticulous.

"Louie Lou had done a draft on a cassette… Rick gave him the beat and he did some scratches, but it wasn’t full orchestration like the way I did it, where you had scratches coming in and I’m complementing everything. He just had a couple of scratches going in and out and that was about it." - check out Jay Quan's interview with Jazzy Jay here

The beat on "It's Yours" was made by Rick Rubin on the aforementioned 808. Jazzy Jay claims it was him who taught Rubin to program the 808 and that he also did additional work on the beat for "It's Yours." On the record label Jazzy Jay gets a co-production credit just like Special K gets credit for writing the lyrics

Something there's no disagreement on is that the Beastie Boys were in the studio when the track was being recorded and were conscripted into providing the atmospheric crowd response on the chorus and on the Scratch Party Death Mix version

As I've said Rick Rubin didn't know Russell Simmons at this time. The record label Rick Rubin had used to distribute his first two Def Jam releases, 99 Records, was in a legal dispute with Sugar Hill Records in 1984 and struggling financially. So Rick Rubin approaches Streetwise to see if they will distribute the record. Streetwise is run by Arthur Baker who produced "Planet Rock" and "Looking For The Perfect Beat", Jazzy Jay was also involved with those records as a member of The Soulsonic Force. Streetwise like "It's Yours" so much they offer to release it on their subsidiary Partytime. "It's Yours" becomes a massive hit and gets a 2nd pressing, the difference between this and the first press is that this one has the Def Jam Recordings logo underneath the Partytime logo on the label. All subsequent 1984 represses also include the Def Jam logo. The picture sleeve for "It's Yours" features Rick Rubin's now legendary Def Jam tone arm (according to Stacy Gueraseva, the tone arm was created by "a girlfriend of Hose’s lead singer, Mike Espindle," working under Rick’s direction), there is a Def Jam catalogue number on it's spine, the Def Jam logo on the back and most importantly a postal address (still Rick Rubin's dorm)

When did T La Rock realise he's made a hit? He was working in a pharmacy and heard it on the radio

"There was a DJ named Tony Humphries who played it around noon when they’d do a master mix hour. So Humphries mixed in my song and it was so unexpected that I damn near lost it. Back then, you might hear Kurtis Blow or Run DMC occasionally on the radio but that was it. After the song was over, they said that it was the most requested song of the day!" - T La Rock interview with David Ma 

T La Rock & Jazzy Jay - It's Yours

T La Rock & Jazzy Jay - It's Yours (Scratch Party Death Mix)

[blueisthecolorofmysoul]

Twosday Tuesday! Let's Talk About... Red Hot Chili Peppers - By The Way / Californication 2LP This group has come a long way since 1983. The first time RHCP came into my view was when they had a short clip in the 1986 film Thrashin'. Catching even the shortest glimpse of them was certainly an attention grabber. A year later a friend of my parents had come to visit and discovered that I was into heavy music. He gave me cassettes of Black Flag First Four Years, Beastie Boys Polly Wog Stew and the self titled RHCP (no cassette sleeve). This was an absolute breakthrough in my musical life. Having read about these bands in Thrasher Magazine, seen glimpses of them through all of the articles and various t-shirts seen within, now I was holding the physical artifacts. Those cassettes are still in my personal collection. Like some weird shrine to the day the music of my future had arrived. RHCP are now swarming the radio waves with hit song after hit song. Most of those can be found on these two records. It may not be the mosh pit madness of "Blackeyed Blonde" first heard in Thrashin' but these songs truly are some of the greatest songs on the radio today. Grab one in store at @collectiveclothing or on our web store at InherentRecords.com Check the links in our bio for website and Discogs How long, how long will I slide? … By The Way https://open.spotify.com/album/6deiaArbeoqp1xPEGdEKp1?si=1l8NRYSmTDqmiR03WbW_Kg Californication https://open.spotify.com/album/0fLhefnjlIV3pGNF9Wo8CD?si=m-dTzXlZTAiMeU7FQ0deEQ #redhotchilipeppersvinyl #rhcpvinyl #RedHotChiliPeppers #rhcp #ByTheWay #Californication #vinyl #collectiveclothing #inherentrecords #chattanooga #records #nowplaying #vinylrecords #yournewrecord #chattanoogavinyl #hiddengem #recordsofinstagram #vinylcommunity #mailorder #vinylmailorder #monumentsinruin (at Collective Clothing) https://www.instagram.com/p/CjkqKUrr97w/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[jinshit]

09/07/2017 Beastie Boys "Polly Wog Stew EP" (1982?) #recordaday #record #recordcollection #recordcollector #vinyl #vinyljunkie #vinylcollection #vinylclub #vinylcollectionpost #vinyligclub #vinylsocialclub #vinyljunkies #vinyladdict #vinylcollector #onevinylcommunity #instavinyl #jinshitcollection #45rpm #12inch #レコード #BeastieBoys #PollyWogStewEp #GrandRoyal #mca #miked #kate

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"NOBODY WANTED TO SING. SO I GOT STUCK WITH THE JOB."

PIC INFO: Resolution at 1007x1024 -- Spotlight on NYHC youth Michael Diamond (vocals) and Adam Yauch (bassist) of then American hardcore punk band, BEASTIE BOYS, c. "Polly Wog Stew" era, early '80s/1982-'83. 📸: Robin Moore.

Source: http://theharderthey.blogspot.com/2019/01.

[hmcrecords]

[nollywoodmagazine]

Beastie Boys’ John Berry Dies aged 52

Beastie Boys’ John Berry Dies aged 52

John Berry, a founding member of rap group Beastie Boys has died at the age of 52.

According to statement from his father, he had been suffering from frontal lobe dementia, a form of dementia that occurs when the frontal lobes of the brain begin to shrink, which had worsened in recent months as it affects behaviour, language and thinking.

The American country artist originally formed the ‘Beast…

[atelier-populaire]

+ Beastie Boys. Hip Hop. Punk. Same ethos. Polly Wog Stew.

[nicolascas]

Holy Snappers | Beastie Boys

[katastematicpleasure]

Notice to Everyone The Beastie Boys were originally A Hardcore Punk band before they went softer and made classics like "You gotta fight", "Sabotage", and "No Sleep Til Brooklyn".

[lethargikboss]

For some reason I ended up on Wikipedia at 3AM this morning reading about the history of the blast beat. Thank the Beastie Boys (specifically Kate from Luscious Jackson) for being one of the first outside of the jazz world to get the iconic repeated sixteenth notes on wax. This old bullshit is so good. R.I.P. MCA.

off the EP Polly Wog Stew (Rat Cage Records / 1982)

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

PICK YOUR TOP THREE -- ANY THREE.

PIC INFO: Spotlight on assorted '80s hardcore punk seven inch vinyl releases, all original pressings, from all American hardcore punk bands. Featuring, from left to right, and almost in alphabetical order:

ADOLESCENTS -- "Welcome to Reality" (1981) EP

ARTICLES OF FAITH -- "What We Want is Free" (1982) EP

ARTIFICIAL PEACE/EXILED -- 1983 split 7 inch release

BEAVER -- "Beaver" (1981) 7 inch EP

BAD BRAINS -- "Pay to Cum" (1980) 7 inch vinyl single

BEASTIE BOYS -- "Polly Wog Stew" (1982) EP

CRUCIFIX -- "Nineteen Eighty-Four" 1982 EP

C.I.A. -- "God. Guts. Guns." (1983) EP

CODE OF HONOR -- "What are We Gonna Do?" (1982) 7 inch single

Source: www.picuki.com/media/3295353544860048385.