NME

Peace on earth

• 9th November 1998

World breathes sigh of relief as devastating war of words ends in a draw...

PRODIGY and BEASTIE BOYS (pictured)have buried the hatchet over their Reading Festival row. The Beasties have even given permission for some of their tracks to be used on LIAM HOWLETT’s new mix album.

The album, called ‘Dirtchamber Sessions Volume 1’, is due out early next year – once all the samples have been cleared. The two Beasties tracks which look set to make it onto the mix are ‘Time To Get Ill’ and ‘The New Style’, both from the Beasties’ debut album ‘Licensed To Ill’.

Liam told NME that there was now no bad blood between his band and the Beasties.

Rows erupted between the two following August’s Reading Festival when headliners the Beasties asked the Prodigy not to play ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ because its message “wasn’t cool”.

But the band went ahead with the song and MAXIM REALITY told the crowd: “I do what the fuck I want.” Prodigy later branded the Beasties “hypocrites”.

But speaking to NME in an exclusive feature to run next week, Liam said the matter had finally been resolved and the two parties had agreed to differ.

Liam continued: “Whatever happened between me and AD-ROCK, there’s no respect lost as far as the music goes. I don’t think anything less of them as musicians over what they’ve done. And basically, if I’m making an old-skool record, it would be stupid of me to not have them on there.”

Liam explained the idea for the album came about when he was asked to come up with a mix for MARY ANNE HOBBS’ Breezeblock show on Radio 1. He recorded the original mix – which was broadcast in October – at home rather than live in the Radio 1 studio. He has since been working on it to produce the LP.

He continued: “If I’d gone into the studio and done it, it would have just sounded like PETE TONG on a Friday night, so I thought I’d try and do something a bit compact and different from the normal mix album.”

The album is just under an hour long and contains 50 fragments of tracks taken from Liam’s record collection over beats he has created.

As well as the Beasties, artists featured include PUBLIC ENEMY, THE KLF and COLDCUT.

Meanwhile, Liam said the Prodigy were taking most of next year off, apart from playing South Africa in March. He added that last year’s ‘The Fat Of The Land’ album might still be their last unless he came up with some “good new material”.

Speaking to NME this week, the Beasties’ ADAM YAUCH put their side: “I think it all worked out fine. We just wanted to let the Prodigy know that we felt like that song had a real meaning, has a definite meaning with those lyrics… We were kinda more going to them saying, ‘We’ve been through this and we feel weird about this stuff and we’d like to suggest or ask you guys not to play it.'” The band concluded they had decided to let the matter lie, though they still disagreed with the song’s content.

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• Reading incident
• Beastie Boys
• Smack My Bitch Up

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