I think that the first gig where we made any money was at the Darkroom was July 5, 1980 (we were playing as Slip-Stream that night).  There was a house basket where folks could drop money for the band.  Carrie framed the first dollar (and Deutsche Mark) that we earned.

Chuck: I believe that night was our first dark room gig. I knew we had made it when did the Dark Room.

Leslie: I think this was the one I invited my folks to come to. I made an offhand remark that they should come, and was really surprised when they did. The crowd gave them a big hand and the bartender let them have free drinks all night. There was some blues song in our repertoire - "Mother Earth Blues," I think, maybe the same one I sang at Happy Jack's. I remember it being a pretty big hit, and then we had no more blues songs for the crowd. Hmm, maybe we should have rethought that progressive rock/danceable tunes thing.

Tim: I recall playing at the Dark Room at least twice. The last time was after I was playing in a Christian Prog Rock group with Jeff Souza, Mike Schoenfeld and Tony (?) and I 'subbed' in. I had loaned my cymbals to a customer of Castle because the ones he had ordered hadn't come in (because Ron Resnick was playing 'hide the money' with several suppliers at the time), and so I had to borrow cymbals from then roommate... Greg?

Another excellent poster that Carrie made for us.

 

We played at the Dark Room several times. Though the stage was tiny, this was always one of my favorite places to play.