Howie Casey & the Seniors were the first Liverpol band to go to Hamburg. When Bruno Koschmider requested another Liverpool band Alan asked Rory Storm & the Hurricanes, but they'd been booked for Butlins. Then he turned to Gerry & the Pacemakers and they wouldn't go because Gerry wouldn't turn professional. Almost in desperation, he decided to send the Beatles. When Howie Casey heard about it he wrote to Alan saying that if they sent such a lousy band along, then it would ruin it for the rest of the groups. When the Beatles arrived they were sent to a seedy little former strip club the Indra, further along the Grosse Freiheit. At the Kaiserkeller, the Seniors were raving it up, particularly with superb showman Derry Wilkie. Koschmider told the Beatles to 'mach shau' like Derry. When he put them on the Kaiserkeller, he made the groups juggle about to form a third outfit instead of using the jukebox between breaks. He got Stuart Sutcliffe to play with Howie. Howie would never accept a bad musician, so Stuart must have been okay. Ricky Richards, who was there with the Jets, said Stuart was good and mesmerising on stage, one of his songs was the highlight of the act. Ricky, who died a couple of years ago, said that you can get away with a bad lead or rhythm guitarist - but not a bass, a bass sound is so important that a bad bass player would ruin the sound. This was the period when the Beatles had their 'baptism of fire' and when Pete Best developed the 'atom beat.'