FLOOD Issue 06

In conjunction with the label of the same name, the Beastie Boys launched “Grand Royal” magazine without much of a plan. But with the help of a ramshackle editorial team that included Spike Jonze and Bob Mack, they didn’t need one.

Looking back at the unlikely history of the Beastie Boys–affiliated clothing line.

The filmmaker—and expert in all things Beastie Boys—gives us an inside look at the music video career of MCA’s Swiss uncle, who was definitely a real person. 

Great record collectors make great records. Uh, sometimes.

All eyes are on the first-time actor who was born to play the part of Tupac Shakur.

On their third album, Seattle’s funniest punks come clean.

Three years after his debut the LA-based singer-songwriter questions whether bearing witness to history is enough.

What once started as a series of essays about the ruins of civilization eventually turned into a full-blown graphic memoir—”Imagine Wanting Only This.” But it’s not as apocalyptic as it sounds.

Back in 1992, Abe Wool, the writer of “Sid and Nancy,” got a very weird film made starring John Doe of X and Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys. John Doe remembers some of it.

The Beastie Boys’ longtime organist and resident savant talks “Check Your Head,” carpentry, and keyboards.

Behind the boards with Mario Caldato Jr.

It’s no mystery. It’s not rocket science. It only looks like it.

To the Five Freeway.

Go wall to wall with Helen Johannesen from Helen’s Wines and Jon & Vinny’s.

Twenty-five years later, “Check Your Head”‘s influence still looms large.

It didn’t just help define a band: It formed how a generation would abandon singularity for fusion. A quarter-century after its release, we can trace our cultural evolution to the Beastie Boys’ third record.

In addition to a cover story on “Silicon Valley”’s Thomas Middleditch, our latest print issue also features an extended celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Beastie Boys’ “Check Your Head.”

Their audience didn’t understand them. Their label didn’t want to talk to them. Not to worry: For the Beastie Boys, it was a brand-new morning.

Sad streaks, fatal flaws, and new generations of bullies are all laughing matters when you own it and clown it like Thomas Middleditch.

For a songwriter known for his inability to write a bad song, it’s easy to forget that Britt Daniel was once pushed to the brink. And whether he wants to or not, on “Hot Thoughts,” his group is bridging back to the beginning.