NOLA Jazzfest 2012

This photo ran with the review on Jambase

I was in NOLA for the first weekend of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on behalf of Jambase.com and my review went live not too long ago. Scott Fleishman got some great photos and I went as far as to say Bon Iver was better than Bruce Springsteen.

What I didn't get to write about was how great the food was and that NOLA Jazzfest is the only festival in the Union that will sell you a 24-rack inside the fair grounds. Who Dat Indeed. 

RIP MCA

Photo from my review.

The hip-hop community lost a true pioneer in Adam “MCA” Yauch of The Beastie Boys today after a bout with cancer that began in 2009. He lived a healthy lifestyle and should have lived to see his daughter grow up.

The Beastie Boys are one of the most commercially successful hip-hop groups of all time and if he hadn’t started the then-punk trio, the history of pop culture would be very, very different.

MCA’s love affair with Buddhism is known the world over as a result of the Tibetan Freedom Concerts he put on and his work as an activist and philanthropist is a major blow to communities that are in no way related to hip-hop.

On a personal level, MCA really showed me what a white Jewish boy could accomplish. Since I got License To Ill in 6^th grade, I’ve always been proud that a guy with such a similar background to me was capable of breaking free from what was expected of him and followed his heart.

I met MCA once, in the basement underneath the Opera House in Boston, and told him that as a Hebrew school drop out, it was an honor to meet him, and he joked that the honor was all his. Even as one third of a group that painted itself as intentionally obnoxious, he had a calming aura to him that I will never forget.

I don’t know enough about Buddhism to know where his spirit has gone, but wherever he is, he’s made the place a lot livelier. http://www.andrewbruss.com/2012/05/rip-mca.html?spref=fb