Throughout the last two decades, the career paths of Thurston Moore and the Beastie Boys have run on separate but parallel tracks with an occasional crossover every hundred miles or so. For example, Thurston Moore organized Sonic Youth in 1981, the same year that Adam Yauch, Mike Diamond, Kate Schellenbach and John Berry would form the Beastie Boys. Prior to that, John Berry had been playing in another New York band called Even Worse. Within three years, Even Worse would have an entirely new line-up with Jack Rabid as the only original member and new addition Thurston Moore. At that point in time, Moore was playing in both Even Worse as well as Sonic Youth, which in interesting since Thurston has continued to take part in the occasional side-project like his work with Mike D in the super group Puzzled Panthers.

Throughout the 1980s, Sonic Youth released six albums and established themselves as workaholic musicians with a dedicated fan following. However, it was not until a decade later that mainstream audiences would discover the genius of Thurston Moore and his wife Kim Gordon. By the summer of 1994 the label "alternative music" had become the buzzword for what college radio stations had been playing for years. Bands like the Beastie Boys and Sonic Youth, who had both risen from the post-hardcore scene in New York, were now receiving heavy airplay on MTV. The Beastie Boys would go on to co-headline that summer's Lollapalooza tour, and the following year Sonic Youth followed suit. Even though the two bands sound very different, crossover fans abound. People who saw both acts live during the Lollapalooza tours will testify to that fact that both rocked hard and stole the show from the other bands on the ticket.

Thurston Moore's performances during the Tibetan Freedom Concerts are rather legendary. Many of the bands that performed at the first benefit, which was held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, were immortalized in the movie Free Tibet. The movie, which is now available on DVD, displays Sonic Youth in all of their free-form greatness. In fact, during Yauch's commentary on the DVD he revealed that Thurston and Kim had agreed to play at the benefit the previously winter, when both Sonic Youth and the Beastie Boys were playing Australia's Summersault Festival. As a fitting tribute to all that Sonic Youth has done in support of the Tibetan Freedom Concerts, a guitar wielding Thurston Moore was pictured on the cover of the three disc benefit set.