The great Adam Yauch is gone. And if you believe in the same spirituality that he did, we should start checking newborns right now because I want to know exactly what lucky child got to inherit his soul, talent, and enormous heart.
This isn't meant to be a proper obituary of Yauch, just a few scattered memories of talking to and meeting him that I've built up over the years.
When someone who has given us so much joy passes, we want to personalize the experience--explain what someone meant to us. And if we were lucky enough to actually cross paths with that person, it makes the memories (and the pain) so much stronger. If my memory is right, I spoke with Yauch four times in the last few years, including a couple of times shortly after he emerged from seclusion after his first round of cancer treatment back in 2009.
What was funny about getting to know him over the last couple of years was that we almost never talked about music. I was an enormous fan of The Beastie Boys, and their influence on me and the music world is undeniable. But every time we spoke, it was primarily about movies because Yauch had just launched Oscilloscope Laboratories as a full-blown distribution house with GUNNIN' FOR THAT #1 SPOT, a doc that Yauch directed and was clearly proud up. The interview I did with him for that film can be found HERE. The date on this interview was July 2008, so this was before his diagnosis.
The following March, I ran into him standing in the back of a meeting room at SXSW. I don't recall what the panel was about, but there he was all by himself, so I went up to say Hi, and we chatted about films that we'd seen that week. Not surprisingly, he wanted to talk mostly about unsigned movies, including the documentary FRONTRUNNERS, which I had seen and he was planning to check out (Oscilloscope did eventually distribute the film). We chatted for about 20 minutes, and then I had to go. But that memory lingers because I know we could have gone on chatting for longer, and was whatever I was scheduled to do next really more important that getting a few more minutes with Yauch? I'm guessing not.
The last two times we talked were after his diagnosis. Oscilloscope was launching a kind of record-and-tape-style club on its website, and wanted to promote it. Yauch had just come out of self-imposed seclusion after his first round of treatment, and while he was still in recovery (with his family in Hawaii), he was well enough to chat. I didn't know if it was appropriate to ask about his condition, but I didn't see how I couldn't; he had issued an email to fans not long before our talk saying things were looking up, and I have no doubt they were.
I was grateful and relieved with his honesty, despite knowing he was a private man. Re-reading the text of that December 2009 interview breaks my heart, because I have such a clear memory of how positive he was about his recovery. I had gone to Lollapalooza earlier that year, where the Beasties were supposed to headline and had to cancel, and I pretended to give him grief about that. I think he got that I was kidding. I just wanted him well again, doing the things he loved to do like make music, play for fans, and discover independent films like THE MESSENGER, DEAR ZACHERY, WENDY AND LUCY, HOWL, A FILM UNFINISHED, BURMA VJ, THE THORN IN THE HEART, RARE EXPORTS, CHASING ICE, WUTHERING HEIGHTS, and the Oscar-nominated EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP.
The funniest thing about our fourth and last exchange was that it took place just a few days after our third talk. I had blatantly forgotten to ask Yauch about The Beastie Boys finally licensing one of their songs to a movie--in this case it was J.J. Abrams' STAR TREK. A few after our initial interview, I simply emailed my Oscilloscope Labs contact, and within a couple hours I was back on the phone with Yauch, still in Hawaii. The first thing he said on the phone when we were connected: "Steve! It seems like only yesterday…" It certainly does.
I guess when I check the calendar, it's been more than two years since our last exchange, but I kept close tabs on his progress, good and bad. When Yauch didn't appear at The Beastie Boys recent Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame induction, I suspected things had gone from bad to worse, but I didn't want to believe it. Today's news is crushing, but I'm truly glad this sweet, talented, funny man isn't suffering any longer. My heart goes out to his family, bandmates, friends and legion of fans. Rest in Peace Adam Yauch, and long live Nathanial Hornblower.
