Synopsis

A burst of Super 8 footage captures the Beastie Boys in their early New York hardcore-punk days. The video jumps between candid home-movie moments, informal performances, street scenes, and quick glimpses of the young band members and their friends. Its rough, homemade look matches the short, frantic song and offers a snapshot of the group before its hip-hop breakthrough. Rather than following a conventional narrative, "Holy Snappers" works as an energetic scrapbook of the band's formative period.

Factoids & Trivia

• "Holy Snappers" dates from the Beastie Boys' earliest period, when the group was still primarily a hardcore-punk band.

• The footage was shot on Super 8, giving the video its grainy, spontaneous home-movie appearance.

• The video preserves an early lineup that included Kate Schellenbach on drums. Adam Horovitz had not yet joined the group.

• The song first appeared on the 1982 EP "Polly Wog Stew" and was later included on the 1994 compilation "Some Old Bullshit."

• The track is extremely brief, and the video follows that same compact, all-action approach rather than developing a conventional story.

• "Holy Snappers" was included in the Beastie Boys' 2000 "Video Anthology," where the collection's supplemental material also featured a photo gallery connected with the video.

• The clip is notable as an unusually direct record of the Beastie Boys before their major-label success and before the polished, genre-parodying style associated with their later videos.