Mike D

ON THIS DATE IN CITY GARDENS HISTORY: JULY 26, 1985 - Beastie Boys play City Gardens... sort of...

Beastie Boys    photo by    Lynn Goldsmith

Beastie Boys photo by Lynn Goldsmith

Beastie Boys – July 26, 1985

Mike Diamond (Beastie Boys): We recorded “She’s On It” before opening for Madonna on her Virgin tour. It was one of two songs we would perform to the boos and shocked expressions of her audience every night. Thanks are due to her for keeping us on the tour. Because it was our first single on Def Jam as part of their new Columbia Records deal, we got to make a video. Shot on Long Beach, Long Island, it was directed by Rick Rubin’s NYU roommate at the time, who was going through the film school. Basically, it was a low-budget, amateurish attempt at a David Lee Roth video, the only difference being that instead of getting hooked up, we got dissed. Aside from getting to spend the night at Rick’s parent’s house, and meeting his parents, the only high point came when this channel in the New York area called U68 started showing the video. U68 was somewhere between public access and MTV. They would show all kinds of crazy stuff from that time. That gave us a little bit of juice, enabling us to get booked at one of NJ’s most infamous clubs, City Gardens. We drove through pouring rain in a rented milk truck, only to arrive at our gig to an audience of, like, five people, not including the members of Washington D.C.’s Junk Yard Band, who opened the show.

Henry Hose (City Gardens regular): We went to the show, and it was getting later and later and later, and the Beastie Boys didn’t show up. Most of the people had left and Frank [a.k.a. Tut] was pissed that he had to give people their money back. He had to refund money and was furious. The band finally showed up well after midnight. It was just the three Beastie Boys and Rick Rubin, and I saw Randy having words with them. They grabbed a table from the back of the club and put it up on stage, set up two turntables, and they started doing the show.

Deirdre Humenik (City Gardens employee): They didn’t show up until a half hour before closing time, then they jumped on stage and started busting and smashing record albums and throwing them into the crowd.

Gal Gaiser (City Gardens DJ): I was hanging out with [Regressive Aid guitar player] Billy Tucker that night and stood next to him for the whole thing. Rick Rubin was breaking records in half and throwing them into the audience like Frisbees, and he hit Billy Tucker square in the head. And Billy loved it! He thought that it was the best thing that ever happened to him.

Henry Hose: I saw someone—I won’t say who—go over to the bar, grab something from behind the bar, and then bolt out the door.

Deirdre Humenik: The crowd chased them off the stage and they jumped into their Mustang convertible and took off. People were booing them and were pissed, and there was a fair amount of people there. People came out and slashed their tires, and they drove away on flat tires.

Henry Hose: They did their show, which I thought was great, and everybody started leaving. This was probably around two in the morning. As I was pulling out the driveway and saw that the Beastie Boys had flat tires on their box truck. “Someone” took an ice pick and picked their tires because they were pissed off about having to give everyone their money back. So, they had flat tires, it’s two in the morning, and they were stuck in Trenton.

Gal Gaiser: On my radio show the next Monday, Billy Tucker came down and talked about the show. The Beastie Boys only played for about 15 minutes, but I clearly remember Billy saying, “That was the best 15 minutes of music ever.”