Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique by Dan LeRoy Read Free Book Online Page B

album on the label’s spring 1989 release schedule, were finally demanding to hear the music. Carr was dispatched to get it, but instead received proof of that age-old saw about payback being a mother.
    “I go there and I say, ‘I gotta hear it.’ And they say, ‘We can’t give it to you, but you can hear it,’” Carr recalls. “And Yauch says to me, ‘Yo Tim, can I have your key? I need to stuff this joint.’ So I give him the hotel key, he stuffs the joint and slaps it back in my hand. And someone says, ‘Hey Mike, why don’t you drive Tim around?’”
    The ride that followed, around the holiday-lit streets ofLos Angeles, gave Carr the Christmas present he’d wanted most. “I listen to what they have, which is basically all of the basic tracks for
Paul’s Boutique
. I feel this sigh of relief—it’s
so
great,” he remembers. “All of the samples are underneath the perfect rhymes, and it’s this perfect mixture of New York memorabilia and hip-hop knowledge.”
    The warm and fuzzy feelings ended the moment he returned to the Mondrian. “I realize I don’t have my room key. And I go, Oh,
shit.’”
Carr’s L’Eggs prank of months before now seemed like foolishly stirring up a hornet’s nest.
    After getting another key, Carr would find his room completely destroyed, the handiwork of Horovitz and Yauch. “They had even taken the phone cord from the receiver, so I couldn’t call out. I was like, ‘These thorough fuckers! I have learned my lesson. I will never, ever, play you boys again!’”
    * * *
    With the album nearing completion, the Dust Brothers had been instructed to submit to Mike D a list of all the samples used. What happened afterward depends on who you ask.
    Sample clearance is the greyest of the many grey areas surrounding
Paul’s Boutique
. Finding someone involved with the album willing to fully discuss the dozens, if not hundreds, of samples used to create it, 18 is impossible. It is easy to understand why.
    At the time, the Beasties had already been targeted in one sampling-related lawsuit; in 1987, they settled out of court with musician Jimmy Castor, who sued the band for a sample used in “Hold It Now, Hit It.” A pair of further, high-profile lawsuits against hip-hop acts De La Soul and Biz Markie would not stop sampling, but they helped set guidelines for sample usage, and insured sample clearance would no longer be optional.
    In addition, the Beasties would later endure a long legal battle with jazz musician James Newton, over a sample used on the 1994 song “Flute Loop.” (The sample had been cleared, but Newton wanted publishing rights as well.) The band would win the suit, but at the cost of a half-million dollars in legal fees.
    It may well be understood that the samples on
Paul’s Boutique
are now exempt from litigation, as Adam Yauch explained to
Wired
in 2004: “If ten years have gone by or whatever it is, and there hasn’t been a problem, then it’s not an issue.” But Adam Horovitz’s response—“At least that’s what we’re hoping”—reflects the uncertainty of that claim.
    Thus, Caldato begs off discussing samples—“It might not be cool”—while Mike Simpson offers, “I know lots and lots of samples cleared, and I know some samples didn’t clear.” Tim Carr, on the other hand, counters that “none of the samples were cleared, as far as I know. But in that day, drums weren’t part of sample clearance, and now they are.” Later, Carr amends his statement: “They cleared what they had to clear.”
    In a 2002 interview with
Tape Op Magazine
, Caldato recalled the band paying a quarter-million dollars in sample clearances for
Paul’s Boutique
. Mike Simpson also remembersthat when he and John King received their first royalty statement for the record, “there was a huge deduction for sample clearances.” And Diamond contends it was the first hip-hop album where an attempt was made to clear every sample.
    What all parties involved agree