An Interview With AstroBBoy
Many of you may remember AstroBBoy (Brian) from when he ran the official Discography way back. He has the second biggest known Beastie Boys discography collection and the largest collection avaliable to see online at his website. He is now working on the Beastiemania discography keeping fans up to date with old and new releases.
This interview was conducted by Jim Gaunt in July 03.
How long have you been listening to the Beasties?
A friend's older brother had Licensed To Ill on vinyl back in 86/87 - that's when I first heard them and I was hooked. I made a tape copy and would listen to it all the time. I would have been 12-13 years old (yes I am that old).
When did you decide to start collecting?
I guess it was a gradual transition. When I got my own stereo I started to buy CDs for it, actually I remember back when Pauls Boutique was really hard to find on CD - totally different to now where you can get it in every music store in every city in the world. So anyway, I had some albums on CD and I used to go to the 2nd hand record stores a lot as there was one near school and you could find cheap CDs there. I wasn't really into vinyl too much, of course I had some vinyl records as I was growing up in the 80s/90s and it was hard to avoid them, but I was keen to buy CDs more.
I was in one of these 2nd hand stores and I found an old Def Jam compilation called "It's The New Style" and it had "She's On It" as one of the tracks. That's where all the trouble started - me buying that one record with a Beastie track on it because the song wasn't available on CD. I vowed that it would be the only Beastie Boys vinyl I would buy, and that I would concentrate on buying the CD singles etc so I could get all the mixes and b-sides. Obviously this didn't happen at all and now I have quite a few cds and records ;)
Did you ever imagine it would get as big as it is today?
No way, to be honest I don't know if I would have started if I had known how much stuff is actually out there. I am still finding out about new items that I had never heard of before all the time. An example is those Check Your Head LPs that were pressed in Ecuador that surfaced recently. It's really quite daunting checking the Discography and seeing what is available.
Is it true Beastienut has a bigger collection than you?
Haha - yes Mike has more records/cds that I do. Which one of us has the better collection? I'm not sure - we both have some really rare items that the other one doesn't. That's one of the reasons we have created the Beastiemania.com Discography together.
You used to run the official sites discography. How did you get that job?
That was quite a few years ago now. Must have been around 96-97? Hell I don't know now. Anyway, I was in contact with Nick (Campbeln) who was in contact with Ian (official webmaster at the time). Nick knew I had a fairly large collection (but looking back it wasn't THAT big) and so invited me along to help him out. He and Mark (9th Beastie) were the Live Recording kings and so they were looking after that side of things while I was into the official releases. I had a scanner at work so I was busy scanning in all my cds and records. Nick made a small editor for the site so I could go in and add items and edit stuff. There were problems though in that Nick only had certain access to the site and anything major had to go through Ian and I think he was always busy and so the Official Discography started to lag behind, especially when Hello Nasty came out. It was cool at the time saying "Co-Editor of the Discography on the Official Site" though. :)
Did you ever get nay free stuff? ;)
Ha, I wish. My name up in lights on the official site was all I got (well up in 8 point font anyway).
Actually I did get a free copy of the "Rhymin' and Stealin'" book by Angus Batey after Nick, Mark and myself were credited in it. So I got the sum total of one book - wow! I made out like a bandit!
How long have you been working on the Beastiemania discography now?
Mark (9th Beastie) and I were talking early 2002 about relaunching BM. He had created the initial site before that which contained a lot of the areas which grew into full sections at Beastiemania (eg the "Whos Who" section). We started working with a fiend of mine (Raul) and David (Mavsman), and gave ourselves the deadline of the end of July 2002 to bring the site back online in a whole new way. The Discography was based on a personal one I had created of my own collection, and then I added items that friends owned (like Beastienut, Bettadays, Xavier etc) to create the BM Discography. So I guess the BM Discography in it's current form has been around since early 2002. But we're including new additions every few weeks.
Do you do naything else on there?
We all do a lot of work on there, constantly updating the site and emailing each other with new ideas/info/etc. My main jobs are coding any new pages or databases that come along. I also do a lot of data entry, as Mark is always doing research and emailing it to me to enter. Hmm, I've conducted a few interviews (Peanut Butter Wolf, Egon, TMS 1). All of us pretty much have our fingerprints all over the site. It would be hard to continue if one of us couldn't do it anymore as we all work well as a team.
What other Music do you like and/or collect?
I also collect vinyl/cds by PWEI (Pop Will Eat Itself) - my favourite british band of all time. Them and the Beasties I am most obsessive about, but there are other groups I still collect to a lesser extent: Unkle, DJ Shadow, Avalanches, Nigo, South, Clint Mansell, Pixies, Breeders + various other MoWax label stuff. As for music I love that I don't particularly collect, the list is endless. A lot of classic indie stuff from the 90s, hip hop, electronica, industrial, all sorts really.
Why don't you collect cassettes?
I hate them. Always have. You can't jump to a particular track. I don't even own any tape decks in my house to play one if I owned one.
Whats your most prized possesion in your collection/s?
Thats hard, I can name a few of my favourites:
* Licensed To Ill 7x 7" : French Promo Set
* Intergalactic 10" Acetate : contains the unreleased Prisoners Of Technology mix on it (1 of a kind)
* Intergalactic 10" Acetate : contains the unreleased DeeJay Punk-Roc remix on it (1 of a kind)
* Pollywog Stew 12" Test Pressing
* Brass Monkey 7" : Pressed in Costa Rica - so far the only Beastie record I know pressed there.
Would you ever sell them?
At this stage I don't think I would sell any of those 5x items. Of course if someone wanted to offer me a few thousand dollars for one, then I might reconsider ;)
How many additions to your collection do you make each month?
Hmm, good question. Its hard to say, at the moment it's sort of a 'slow period' as it's between albums but there are also a lot of bootlegs coming out at the moment. Um, recently I think around 2-3 per month.
What do you like more or less of on the next Beastie Boys album?
I was never a huge fan of punk, so for me I don't really need too much of that on the new album. I don't hate it - I just prefer their other work. I like electronica so maybe more of that would be interesting. Something I do want is more of their creative lyrics.
Do you think IAWGM should a) be on the album as a main track. b) as a hidden track. c) not be on it at all?
I think leave it off the new album. That track has a used by date and that was a few months back. Just my opinion.
Which do you prefer CD or Vinyl?
I would have said CD a few years back, but at the moment I am really into vinyl. Great big picture sleeves, the limited numbers of vinyl being pressed, it's all good.