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Original photo by Glen E. Friedman. According to a Beastie Boys article originally posted by Eric Ducker on Medium, “The Beastie Boys were set to use an illustration for the cover of Check Your Head, but one night in late November of 1991, they invited their friend, the photographer Glen E. Friedman, to G-Son. Friedman was from Los Angeles and had come home from New York for Thanksgiving. When Beastie Boys played their first shows in Los Angeles back in the mid-’80s, Friedman had shown them around the city and took some early shots of them with a boombox by the beach. As Friedman and the group played basketball and listened to songs from Check Your Head, the photographer says he was so taken with what he heard that he told them he wanted to to do a session with them the next day before his return flight. They all met at Capitol Records and Yauch had the idea to do something that encapsulated the same feeling as Friedman’s famous porch photo of the Washington D.C. punk band Minor Threat. Before heading to Yauch’s own porch at his log cabin in Laurel Canyon, they walked up Vine to Franklin Ave., carrying their instrument cases. “I loved hearing them play their own instruments, so I said, ‘I’ve got this image of you guys, like lots of kids you’d see in New York in the early ’80s, late ’70s, walking around with their equipment going to a rehearsal,’” Friedman explains. He only shot three images of them sitting on the sidewalk with their gear. After Friedman developed the film, he was so excited about the curb photos that he immediately faxed them over to the group and they decided to change the album’s cover. These days, the location is often used as an encampment by the homeless.”

LOCATION:

Check Your Head album cover by The Beastie Boys
6326 Franklin Avenue
Hollywood, California 90028