| Triphammer
In the fall of 1994, when the Sabotage
home video arrived in stores, fans raced out and purchased
it. One of the more curious and unexplained performance
clips on the videotape was mysteriously labeled as "Triphammer".
If you look closely at the Triphammer footage, the Beastie
Boys appear younger than they do in the rest of the footage
which dates from 1992 through 1994. It turns out that Triphammer
was yet another Beastie Boys side project whose origin dates
back to before the 1985 Madonna
Virgin tour.
When he was asked by Beastiemania.com
to shed some light on Triphammer's history, Tom
Cushman explained: "It was a period of time when
there were a whole bunch of bands who were rehearsing at
the Chrystie Street apartment down in Chinatown. Michael
and Adam (Yauch) were living
there at the time, although I lived there for awhile sometime
later. But, Big Fat Love
was rehearsing there and the Beastie Boys were sort of rehearsing
there, and this band that Michael, Adam (Yauch), and I had
called Triphammer was rehearsing there. It was sort of like
a hard rock band that we did sort of as a joke. We actually
opened up a few shows on the Licensed
to Ill tour (1987). There were a few dates on the
southern part of that tour that we opened up."
When asked about what Triphammer's
set list was comprised of when they performed in 1987, Cushman
said the following: "It was mostly original material.
However when we did the demo tape and when we were playing,
it was all original material and then the band sort of fell
apart as did Big Fat Love. The Beastie Boys weren't actually
rehearsing at that point. They had just come to a stop,
as they did on occasion over the years, and they weren't
really working. But then...right then came the Madonna tour
(April 1985), which sort of came by mistake." The Beastie
Boys went off to perform as the controversial opening act
on Madonna's Virgin tour. Therefore in the absence of Yauch
and Diamond, Big Fat Love and Triphammer both sort of ground
to a halt. "Those bands then didn't pick up until a
few years later (late 1987)."
The idea to start playing the Triphammer material again
came at a time when the Beastie Boys and Tom Cushman had
grown tired of the monotony of life on the road. To liven
things up, it was decided that Triphammer, would be one
of the tour's opening acts while in the Deep South. With
Yauch on bass, Cushman on guitar, Mike D on drums, DJ
Hurricane supplying the vocals, and Adrock as the band's roadie,
Triphammer was reborn. For those lucky concert goers, it
was like having the Beastie Boys open for themselves.
When Beastiemania.com had the opportunity to ask Sean
"The Captain" Carasov what he recalled about
Triphammer's performances he responded with the following:
"Mainly I remember Triphammer opening for the B-Boys
on the Licensed to Ill (tour) in Savannah, GA. Hurricane
was the singer, with an afro wig and DMs, and Cushman wore
a clown suit. Horovitz played the (role of a) British roadie
and kept running across the stage fixing things that didn't
need fixing. The 99% black audience did not know what to
make of it at all, but they were too slow to boo them off
or throw things."
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