January
On a positive note, the 15th of January sees the
official website relaunch. But, on January 22nd 2004 the Bid4Assets.com auction for the Grand Royal Record Label concludes with a high bid of $65,000.00. The fate of all of the master recordings and unsold merchandise continues to be in question, because the seller's auction reserve was not met.
April
April 28th 2004 is a red letter date in history for the Ch-Check It Out video premiers on Launch.Yahoo.com and the song is used as background music on the popular FOX television show "The O.C.;" introducing the Beastie Boys new sound to a new young audience.
May
The Beastie Boys kick off their pre-release tour in Europe by playing a small venue (Club Maria) in Berlin, Germany on the
10th of May. Following the concert in Germany they travel to London, England to record a live performance to be later televised on
Top of the Pops and perform at another
small venue. After leaving England, the band plays a few more promotional shows as the tour takes them to
Amsterdam, Netherlands and
Stockholm, Sweden before concluding in
Paris, France.
June
Fans in Japan see the release of the Beastie Boys long awaited
To The 5 Boroughs album on the 4th of June. Whereas the rest of the world waits until June 15th to pick up their copy. Although a couple of different online sources attempted to leak free mp3s from the Japanese, the beastieboys.com webmasters and their 24 hour surveilance keeps the file sharing to a minimum.
Razor sharp after their short European tour, the Beastie Boys perform their new single "Ch-Check it Out" before a celebrity packed audience at Sony Pictures Studio in Culver City, CA at the MTV Movie Awards show on
June 5th. The show later airs on June 10th. On the 7th of June the
"Ch-Check It Out" single is released in the UK. Meanwhile in the United States, impatient fans continue their wait. Finally after a six year wait, Beastie Boys fans around the world storm record/cd/tape stores to purchase the new album.
October
Just a couple of weeks prior to the United States Presidential election (November 9th, 2004) a previously unreleased Beastie Boys song entitled
"This Government Needs a Tune Up" surfaces online. A suspicious story about how the track surfaced (i.e. it was said to have been found in a rental car) leads fans to believe it was purposely leaked by the band through the official site's message board.
On October 8th 2004, BeastieBoys.com message board annouces that fans are wanted to help videotape the band's upcoming performance at
Madison Square Garden in New York. The concert which is scheduled to take place the next day (October 9th), does indeed get recording by a legion of videocamera packing concert goers and later is edited down and released on DVD in 2006 as the feature film
"Awesome I Fucking Shot That."
November
On November 8th 2005, the Beastie Boys are nominated for the 2005 Grammy Awards for Rap Performance by Duo or Group and Rap Album. Also, Nathanial Hornblower and Dechen Wagndu are dominated for best recording package for their work as
art directors on the album "To the 5 Boroughs."
