John Michaels was the guy that used to book shows at this dump. He was a cool, honest (pretty much) guy who was really interested in music and making money which although is not always a good thing to combine wasn’t so bad with him. Hilger must have found out about this place by reading IE or something. It was always 21+ and they were cool about us being underage. At one point John pitched us for like 2 hours about being on a compilation. It was totally not worth it for many reasons, but Hilger still has the unsigned contract on the wall of his apartment. Crime was a crazy type of metal thrash band and one guitarist had a real weed leaf taped to his guitar. They rocked but had little lead or solos and what little they did have was played exclusively with a cry baby. The singer poured beer all over himself and got pretty crazy. They were from Indiana but they brought some cool metal groupie chicks along who totally dug them. They were real nice guys. The Tom Moratta Project was off the wall. It was Tom Moratta on keys, percussion and vocals and another odd looking dork on guitar who played a dope vintage Les Paul. It was like a weird synth pop thing. A drum machine played the drums and it appeared to be hooked up to a home stereo that he brought along. They set up a bunch of shitty TV sets hooked to a VCR that played random images while they (attempted to) jam. They opened with an original called ‘Rebecca’ . I can still hear the melody — “Was it really me, Rebecca?!” We brought Phil Henkle along as a roadie and he got in for free. He was cheering for these guys and John Michaels gave his a real hard time and even threatened him or something. He gave me a super hard time too and I hated him. Strangely enough, he was very cool during future shows. The Tom Moratta project at one point played a cover by a band I never heard of and introduced it by saying, “Here’s one by a band we all know and love, The Spider Monkeys!” They said they were playing at a club called Fitzgerald’s and I’ve heard of the place. It’s definitely much different that Uncle Snorkey’s and I still can’t figure out how that got that gig.