Free Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique by Dan LeRoy Page B

few subjects were discussed as frequently as the band’s tour plans. Mike Dwould sift through a ridiculous array of concert ideas, changing his story with nearly every interview. Opening acts from Charo to Buck Owens to Blue Cheer to a supposed unknown rapper called the New Wave MC were mooted. A female equivalent of the band’s old hydraulic penis was proposed for the stage show, although Adam Yauch sagely noted such a prop would not require “hydraulics in the same capacity.” And, in a nod to the spate of dinosaur-rock reunion tours taking place during the summer of ’89, Diamond said the trio “figured we’d do a Beasties reunion to jump on the bandwagon.” Those fancies aside, an imminent tour, beginning “in late August,” would be reported by MTV’s Kurt Loder; as a guest on “Yo! MTV Raps,” Mike D later announced some US dates beginning in January 1990.
    In truth, there were serious obstacles to a tour. The band had probably not been banned from several hotel chains and Eastern Airlines, as they sometimes alleged. But since the Long Beach concert riot of 1986, which the Beasties had witnessed as Run-DMC’s opening act, hip-hop shows carried a stigma in the minds of many promoters. “Logistically, it’s turning out to be a fucking nightmare,” Diamond told
Melody Maker
. “There are only about five places we can play at the moment.”
    Still, after finally finishing the album in “what seemed like a kazillion years … we were psyched to go out and play some shows,” Diamond claims. But their management company, he says, was far less enthusiastic about the band’s plans for a club tour. “Howard Kaufman said, ‘If you guys go out now, you’re not big enough to play arenas, and if you play in something smaller, you’re never gonna be an arena band,’” says Diamond. “We were like, ‘Huh?’”
    Others aren’t so sure about the band’s resolve. After the insanity surrounding
Licensed to Ill
, touring “was something Yauch had a little bit of fear towards,” says his then-girlfriend Lisa Ann Cabasa. “I know they weren’t too keen to jump back into that.” Besides not wanting to play old material, she adds, the Beasties were slowly settling down. Horovitz and Ione Skye had begun dating, and Diamond and his future wife, Tamra Davis, had set up house. Ensconced with Yauch in a log cabin high in the Hollywood Hills, Cabasa saw a group reluctant to give up the newfound pleasures of hearth and home.
    Two live performances in support of the album are well-documented. The Beasties would appear that September at the Country Club in Los Angeles, where live footage was shot for the “Shadrach” video. And in January 1990, that song was reprised on “Soul Train,” although the show’s host, Don Cornelius, refused to actually let the band play it live. 28 The question that has long baffled Beastie scholars—and sometimes, the Beasties themselves—is, “Were there any additional
Paul’s Bountique-era
shows?”
    The answer is yes, although it’s easy to understand why everyone involved would want to forget the brief, radio station—sponsored “tour” where the gigs occurred. Mario Caldato, who served as the group’s concert soundman, recalls half a dozen appearances which took place that fall,in “Miami, Dallas, Atlanta, San Francisco and Boston, or somewhere in that area.”
    The venues were nightclubs, and the setlist was short, comprising “only five or six songs total,” Caldato says. Two were old, drawn from the group of “Hold It Now, Hit It,” “Time to Get Ill” and “Paul Revere”; the others were new, and included obvious choices like “Shake Your Rump,” ‘Egg Man” and “Hey Ladies.” 29 The brevity, and the unusual circumstances of the radio station involvement—“It was like, The first 250 Z-100 listeners can get a free Diet Coke and popcorn, and see the Beastie Boys,’” Diamond recalls—made the concerts a bitter cherry atop the commercial disaster