album,
Check Your Head
. “I still feel like what David and I were doing was way more revolutionary.”
* * *
Around this time, the Beastie Boys also acquired a manager, their first since splitting with Def Jam. Andy Slater was employed by Howard Kaufman Management—part-owned by Irving Azoff, who had failed to land the Beastie Boys on his label, MCA. “So Irving kinda got ’em through the back door, anyway,” says Tim Carr with a laugh.
Slater was an up-and-comer with a well-rounded resume. A native New Yorker then in his early thirties, he had been a college friend of R.E.M.’s guitarist, Peter Buck; spent time as journalist for
Rolling Stone
and
Billboard;
and got into production (at the time, he had just completed Warren Zevon’s
Transverse City
). He would go on to produce and manage the likes of Fiona Apple, Macy Gray and the Wallflowers, and in 2001 he was chosen as president and CEO of Capitol Records, becoming the Beasties’ ultimate boss.
However, Slater was a man who was “battling his own demons at that point,” says one observer close to the band. “In hindsight, I don’t know if it was really the right fit,” offers Diamond, with understandable diplomacy. Sean Carasov is more direct: “You were either down with this rolling practical joke that was the Beastie Boys, or you weren’t. And if you weren’t, you got picked on relentlessly. They were never close with him the way they were with Russell, even.”
Still, with a new album, a new label and new management, the Beasties were ready for the future. Now they only had to find a way to avoid endlessly discussing their past.
* * *
Leyla Turkkan was the ideal choice as the Beastie Boys’ newpublicist. No one in the PR business knew more about hip-hop; at age 21, she was stealing her parents’ Mercedes for late-night trips to the South Bronx, where she would pick up Grandmaster Flash and hang out at pioneering clubs like the Fever and the Broadway. No one in the business was tougher; during the summer of 1989, she would castigate Chuck D of Public Enemy for his failure to rein in the group’s anti-Semitic Minister of Information, Professor Griff. And no one in the business had a longer association with the Beasties; Turkkan had first met them during their mid-eighties Danceteria days, when her clubhopping partners were Russell Simmons and Lyor Cohen.
There was only one small problem: Leyla Turkkan hated the Beastie Boys. With a passion.
“When I got the call, I remember going, ‘Not these assholes again,’” Turkkan says. “I had been exposed to a lot of things, but the Beastie Boys were the worst out of the bunch. They were just horrible.”
Turkkan had despised the Beasties, in fact, since she first laid eyes on them. “Everyone else tried to control themselves a little bit around other people. They didn’t. And I remember Russell and Lyor saying, ‘You’re gonna see, they’re gonna play the Garden. They’re gonna be the biggest thing ever.’ And I was like, ‘You guys are so dusted. You’re crazy! And these guys are just gonna fuck themselves over.’”
Time, and
Licensed to Ill
, had proven Simmons and Cohen right, but that hadn’t altered Turkkan’s low opinion of the group. Besides, there were other reasons not to get involved. Turkkan’s PR agency was the country’s top choice for hip-hop acts seeking an independent publicist. And much of the business was supplied by Turkkan’s oldfriends at Def Jam—who were still fighting for their right to the Beasties, in court.
“We were extremely close to Russell and Lyor, and loyalty is extremely important in this industry,” she says. “So there was tons of discussion about that. Is this gonna be a problem? Is Lyor gonna get pissed?”
However, Turkkan finally agreed to travel to Los Angeles and meet the group. The experience melted her animosity. “We all had a lot in common—we all grew up in the same environment in New York City,” recalls Turkkan. “And we
Check Your Head
. “I still feel like what David and I were doing was way more revolutionary.”
* * *
Around this time, the Beastie Boys also acquired a manager, their first since splitting with Def Jam. Andy Slater was employed by Howard Kaufman Management—part-owned by Irving Azoff, who had failed to land the Beastie Boys on his label, MCA. “So Irving kinda got ’em through the back door, anyway,” says Tim Carr with a laugh.
Slater was an up-and-comer with a well-rounded resume. A native New Yorker then in his early thirties, he had been a college friend of R.E.M.’s guitarist, Peter Buck; spent time as journalist for
Rolling Stone
and
Billboard;
and got into production (at the time, he had just completed Warren Zevon’s
Transverse City
). He would go on to produce and manage the likes of Fiona Apple, Macy Gray and the Wallflowers, and in 2001 he was chosen as president and CEO of Capitol Records, becoming the Beasties’ ultimate boss.
However, Slater was a man who was “battling his own demons at that point,” says one observer close to the band. “In hindsight, I don’t know if it was really the right fit,” offers Diamond, with understandable diplomacy. Sean Carasov is more direct: “You were either down with this rolling practical joke that was the Beastie Boys, or you weren’t. And if you weren’t, you got picked on relentlessly. They were never close with him the way they were with Russell, even.”
Still, with a new album, a new label and new management, the Beasties were ready for the future. Now they only had to find a way to avoid endlessly discussing their past.
* * *
Leyla Turkkan was the ideal choice as the Beastie Boys’ newpublicist. No one in the PR business knew more about hip-hop; at age 21, she was stealing her parents’ Mercedes for late-night trips to the South Bronx, where she would pick up Grandmaster Flash and hang out at pioneering clubs like the Fever and the Broadway. No one in the business was tougher; during the summer of 1989, she would castigate Chuck D of Public Enemy for his failure to rein in the group’s anti-Semitic Minister of Information, Professor Griff. And no one in the business had a longer association with the Beasties; Turkkan had first met them during their mid-eighties Danceteria days, when her clubhopping partners were Russell Simmons and Lyor Cohen.
There was only one small problem: Leyla Turkkan hated the Beastie Boys. With a passion.
“When I got the call, I remember going, ‘Not these assholes again,’” Turkkan says. “I had been exposed to a lot of things, but the Beastie Boys were the worst out of the bunch. They were just horrible.”
Turkkan had despised the Beasties, in fact, since she first laid eyes on them. “Everyone else tried to control themselves a little bit around other people. They didn’t. And I remember Russell and Lyor saying, ‘You’re gonna see, they’re gonna play the Garden. They’re gonna be the biggest thing ever.’ And I was like, ‘You guys are so dusted. You’re crazy! And these guys are just gonna fuck themselves over.’”
Time, and
Licensed to Ill
, had proven Simmons and Cohen right, but that hadn’t altered Turkkan’s low opinion of the group. Besides, there were other reasons not to get involved. Turkkan’s PR agency was the country’s top choice for hip-hop acts seeking an independent publicist. And much of the business was supplied by Turkkan’s oldfriends at Def Jam—who were still fighting for their right to the Beasties, in court.
“We were extremely close to Russell and Lyor, and loyalty is extremely important in this industry,” she says. “So there was tons of discussion about that. Is this gonna be a problem? Is Lyor gonna get pissed?”
However, Turkkan finally agreed to travel to Los Angeles and meet the group. The experience melted her animosity. “We all had a lot in common—we all grew up in the same environment in New York City,” recalls Turkkan. “And we
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