As far as being a Beastie Boys fan goes, you could say I’m getting my Master’s in Beastology from the University of Kickin’ It B-Boy Style, and I’m writing my thesis on their influential punk years. I’m talking early 80s, when the Beastie Boys were still barely out of their teens, but they frizzled with noisy punk energy all over New York City.

One of their frequent haunts was Max’s Kansas City, an eccentric hangout for avant-garde artists, poets, punks, drag queens, and queers. Off-beat types who didn’t exactly fit the 70s and 80s mainstream mold were sent to the fringes of society to nurture the city’s rich cultural underground.

That being said, Max’s—and Mothers and CBGB—were crucial to the evolution of the New York punk scene. And it makes sense that the Beastie Boys, who loved remin

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