I'm curious about all the people who have lived there. Did you live there? When? What years? Who else do you know that lived there?

I moved there in the summer of 1990, I think before it really got going but I think there might have been an earlier incarnation of it. It was before it went really punk. Of course foreign car fanatic John Wolf fixed cars on the right side of the downstairs and had the lease in his name but sub rented to the rest of us. Remember he taped NPR all day long on huge reel to reel tapes while he fixed cars. He had hundreds of episodes on tape and you were never sure whether what he was listening to was live or one of the tapes, I'm not sure he knew either.

An African American man in his 40's named Charles lived there. He worked in the Alameda court building and came home every evening with 2 Colt 45's from Esther's Orbit Room and took the Transbay bus each Sunday morning to the SF farmer's market at the Ferry Building. He always kindly tried to share pigsfeet with us but no one took him up on the offer.

Daraugh, an Irish man from DC with a BMW motorcycle who played drums lived there too. He was just a bit older than the rest of us and not really into punk but just the nexus of punk and rock so bands like the Clash and X were good to him, and he played drums in the original carnation of my first band Good Grief. I remember him clearly saying "I never knew Freddy Mercury was a fag", not knowing what to say, and not wanting to sound too preachy, but also wanting to make a comment on his homophobia, I said, "Well you know I am a fag too!" and he said, "You are obivously gay but Freddy Mercury is not so obvious". I remember being terrified that I looked too gay.

Me, Owen, (insert dirt here)

and shortly after, like 1 month later, Adrian Ponath moved in, by this time she was 16 so I didn't make the connection with 15, until Jack started to call for her. She came from Newport beach and drove a 1964 Volvo 122, which threw a rod when she drove me, Ben, and a few others from Econochrist to Santa Barbara for a show at the Barn (was it red?). She started dating Jesse Michaels so he started coming around, always sort of clandestinely. I thought it was because he was dating such a youngster but I think it was because he was hiding from everyone. Once he came, rang the bell, saw there were like 4 people there, turned around and left.

About the time Adrian moved in Jim Tracy moved in. He came from Vallejo was more into arty punk. He rented the suite, 2 connected rooms on the other side of the upstairs from me. He had a very hairy chest and took me to see Crash Worship for the first time. It was amusing for like an hour but then I grew tired and wanted to leave and he said he was staying all night so I walked home from I think it was at Vulcan Studios back to West Oakland.

So 5 of us lived there at the time and John made 6, he didn't live there but was there at all times of the day.

The first show Jim organized was some weird art rock destruction show. I think the band was called The Molecules. They suspended a mattress from the ceiling, played somewhat avant jazz and mid set pulled out knives and stabbed the mattress until it was a shredded corpse of its former self. At the end of their set they took the mattress to the lot across the street at 7th and Campbell and set it on fire. I thought to myself, I moved from New York to get away from this kind of thing. Adrian and I decided we would handle the shows.

Jim moved out and I forget who moved in to replace him.

Adrian moved out and Lucky moved in.

I moved out just after Lucky moved in. Nobody could replace me.

Then shows happened more and more frequently.

One particular show I remember was the Winona Riders. The guitartist used to use a lot of pedals. In any given song he would turn on and off like 5 different pedals. In the middle of their set someone thought it would be funny to start to tap dance on his pedals while he was playing. Of course this pissed him off but he kept trying to play, even as his amp was spewing all kinds of bizarre noises. It became a game, him trying to protect his pedals and the crowd trying to activate them. After a couple of songs he gave up the defense and they quit early. I felt bad for him but it was funny.

Who else lived there?