When I was in high school, I used to pass around my copy of The In Sounds From Way Out as though I were a Jehovah’s Witness, preaching the way of the boogie. It was pretty much the CD I would put on in my car when I needed to look cool for a girl or sound like I was at all hip around my friends. “Who’s this you ask?” “Oh, you ever listen to the Beastie Boys?” “Yeah, I know, its crazy. They really are pretty funky.” I would play it at parties, while hanging out, or while thinking of what I would play if I ever got down with a lady. It was a serious go-to disc in the lineup.

Now, almost 10 years later… oh shit… over 10 years…. It doesn’t seem that long ago… anyway, they decided to release another funky instrumental album because they are tired of being grey haired dudes rapping about keepin’ it fresh. It’s understandable. The rapping game is a young man’s game. With the advent of misogyny, greed, and all sorts of other youngster sins, old family men like the Beastie Boys must have a hard time fitting in their spitting. 2004’s To The 5 Boroughs was the first release by the trio that didn’t turn heads across the globe, so why not try something different. It seems like all the music they release climbs towards legendary status as long as it isn’t too political or religious.

The Mix Up makes me wish I had a DJ night at a local dive bar. A place where youngsters come to buy cheap drinks and listen to old Motown vinyl and all things pre-disco. It makes me want to own a convertible or roller-skates and be near a boardwalk with sweat bands wrapped around my head. It makes me want to take a giant bong hit and chill out in a beanbag chair. I suppose that classifies it in the realm of dude-rock.

Dude-rock is dangerous territory. Your CD ends up in a frat house cellar with a cigarette butt floating atop it or jammed in someone’s Xbox after watching the laser-light-show screen saver rock out for 10 hours or is misplaced inside a Sublime or Bob Marley disc sleeve in the back seat of a tinted Civic. However, if anyone can survive the dude-rock whiplash it’s the Beastie Boys. Most of them are Buddhists and/or have children, so the only things they are doing in beanbag chairs is giving their kids Superman rides or meditating. This offers the dude-rock vibe on The Mix-Up a bit more soul. It makes the Beastie Boys valuable Fresh Air interviewees on NPR and it means families can all gather around their turntable and listen to the disc at supper. Then brother and sister can bump hips dancing as one washes the dishes and passes the plate to the other to dry while mom and dad get stoned on the back porch.

The album is comprised mostly of dub and funk influences, heavy on the wah and echo. They then pepper in some record scratches, keyboard and guitar lines and jarring sound effects. Sometimes you want to fall asleep, but other times you want to wake your roommate up and tell them to pull the Twister game out. The standout track comes with the title “Off the Grid.” It starts with a churning synth and the sound of a bunch of people just hanging out in the background, they clap, hoot and talk about something that sounds like it might be a debate on the funkiest Motown record. Then the synth carries the rest of the instruments along as if it were a long game of Snake on an old graphing calculator. It slithers about picking up those little dots, but instead of being dots they are drum kits and fuzzed out guitars and bass guitars and a lot of echo. Then it ends just short of five minutes, which is pretty important when you are listening to an instrumental jam album.

Overall, the Beastie Boys achieve a great follow up to 1996’s In Sounds From Way Out. They are presenting a whole new generation of high school kids with a record to play in their Bose iPod dock when their parents go visit their aunt for the weekend and the whole senior class crashes in and turfs their lawn and makes out in their little brother’s bed and vomits in the silverware drawer. “Who’s this you ask?” “Oh, you ever listen to the Beastie Boys?” “Yeah, I know, its crazy. They really are pretty funky.”