Archives reveal Beastie Boys photo trove from S.F. club
It seemed as if the Beastie Boys went from unknown artists to rap/punk kings overnight in the 1980s, touring large arenas with a giant inflatable penis and enough clout to openly insult their record label — and still get shepherded around in a Rolls-Royce limousine.
From a fan’s perspective, their journey to the upper echelon of pop culture fame was instantaneous.
But during a short window between the late 1986 album release and their 1987 world tour, the band performed a handful of small venue shows, including one at 600-capacity Wolfgang’s in San Francisco.
A packet of photo negatives depicting that Feb. 2, 1987, performance was recently discovered in The Chronicle’s archive. All but one of the images were scanned for the first time this week, showing the band performing on a stage that was barely big enough for the three rappers, their two DJs and one scantily clad fe-
male dancer.
The band members had been around as a punk group, opening for Madonna early in their career. But their “Licensed to Ill” reinvention with producer Rick Rubin on the Def Jam Records label — featuring heavily sampled party anthems including “Fight for the Right” and “The New Style” — vaulted the New Yorkers to stardom.
“Licensed to Ill” was released on Nov. 15, 1986, and became one of the fastest-selling debut albums in music history. Before it was even reviewed in the newspaper, The Chronicle reported “a fierce bidding war” between the bookers for the Stone and Wolfgang’s, which resulted in the band playing both San Francisco clubs, performing at Wolfgang’s in North Beach first for $15 per ticket.
The Chronicle sent reporter Michael Snyder to Los Angeles to interview band members Adam “Ad-Rock” Horowitz, Mike “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “MCA” Yauch — who appeared to prefer monosyllabic answers.
“They’re sullen and surly. Suddenly, they’re noisy and arrogant. They insult the employees of their record label, who are supposedly working on their behalf,” Snyder wrote.
Snyder reported that the band had been kicked out of Columbia Records, “ostensibly for stealing a camera.”
“Now that we’re platinum,” Yauch told The Chronicle, “I’ve got a feeling they’re going to let us back in.”
In fact, “Licensed to Ill” went platinum the week after that interview was published, on the day before the band arrived in San Francisco. Still, the photos show, they played a room less than half the size of the Fillmore Auditorium. When MCA sprayed a beer into the crowd, collateral damage appeared to include the entire crowd, one of his bandmates and possibly some people standing outside on Columbus Avenue.
The photos by future Pulitzer Prize winner Deanne Fitzmaurice show Diamond still wearing the Volkswagen medallion around his neck from the MTV “Fight for Your Right” video. A woman wearing a bra and miniskirt is in the background of nearly every frame, alternately dancing onstage and smoking a cigarette.
Weighing in on social media last week after the negatives were discovered, comedian Greg Proops revealed that he attended the Feb. 2, 1987, show.
“We were there. Tupelo Chain Sex opened,” Proops wrote on Twitter. “They asked the crowd to quit bumping the stage because the records were skipping.”
The Chronicle’s Feb. 4, 1987, review by Joel Selvin captured the claustrophobic chaos of the evening.
“The brief 50-minute performance zoomed by like a street fight,” Selvin wrote, “with the band slamming into one semiautobiographical boast and toast after another, backed by a pair of turntable artists who kept pumping out the musical backing, which drew liberally from such folk sources as guitar parts lifted directly off old Led Zeppelin records.”
Selvin wasn’t always kind to trendy new bands passing through town. His journalistic evisceration of Menudo’s first big concert at the Cow Palace in 1983 was merciless. (And, in retrospect, probably deserved.)
But he saw something in the future Rock & Roll Hall of Fame members from New York City.
“(These) three Brooklyn exports intuitively struck on a brilliant intersection of rap, punk and heavy metal and, oddly enough, have fashioned an unconscious but effective artistic statement out of the combination,” Selvin wrote. “Although it is questionable that the group’s followers fully appreciate the loftier aspects of the concoction.”