Episode 78 – Jeff’s Unfortunate Terrorist Accident.
The Mars Volta, Mariachi El Bronx, Rodrigo y Gabriela

May 10, 2012 by The Polygraph Record No Comment

With the unfortunate passing of Adam “MCA” Yauch, I didn’t get a chance to talk about what the Beastie Boys meant to me and Yauch in particular.

Since I was a teen, I always wanted to play the bass. It was just a musical calling of mine and I loved the versatility that it brought to many types of music. The Beastie Boys weren’t my first foray into rap, but it was the first time that I ever realized how you could use a bass guitar to play rap music. Of course, MCA was my favorite because he was the bass player in the band. Check Your Head was really the first album of theirs that I listened to where I really thought about instrumentation and how the bass line affected the feel of the song. I would listen to the entire album in my dad’s truck. He had a pretty good subwoofer in there and I would sit, turn up the bass, and just listen to the bass lines played. Afterward, I would go to my room and play the lines from the album. It’s no exaggeration to say that it was one of the ways I learned to play. He wasn’t a flashy player but he was extremely good with note selection. Check Your Head is still my favorite Beastie album.

BUT HEY!

It’s our Cinco de Mayo podcast! The tequila was a flowin’ as I’m sure you can tell near the end. Also…

I’m alive! Due to unforeseen circumstances, I was not able to moderate the podcast. I left those duties to the capable Asher Loverdi who had a really tough task at hand. And Alex, you’re right: half of the recording is too loud and the other half is too quiet… I have to give a disclaimer that this isn’t the best sounding podcast we’ve done. We’ll have to talk to Kelly about her soundcard.

We do hope that you enjoy the show! It sounded like it was a lot of fun to record and I had a blast listening to it.