There are additional words being exchanged about last Saturday's incident between the Beastie Boys and Prodigy at the Reading Festival in England, when the Beasties tried to persuade Prodigy not to perform its best known hit "Smack My Bitch Up."

Although the Beasties started out as a classic beer-and-babes band, once touring with a female cage dancer as part of its live show, they are opposed to bitch-smacking.

The Beasties have released a press statement saying they had hoped not to make a big deal of their attempted set-sanitizing, but felt that the song "clearly promotes violence against women."

The group also adds that nowadays it is actually changing lyrics to some of its older songs for stage use and that "some of the the things we did in the past that we thought were a joke ended up having lasting negative effects.

Prodigy claims that the track is metaphorical, perhaps even subversively so, but the Beasties weren't buying that, and called the English band before the show to ask Prodigy drop the song from its set (see "Beasties And Prodigy Exchange Words At Reading Over 'Bitch' Flap").

"I still respect their music," offered lead singer Liam Howlett to MTV News about the Beastie Boys, "but I think they should respect other people's freedom to express themselves."