I called Simon twice a week, just to stay in touch. Early in October, he mentioned that he missed performing with Alvin and me, and I sort of leapt on that. I suggested that maybe we could play a gig on his campus, or perhaps somewhere nearby. Simon liked that idea, so he contacted the student union about us playing a gig there. Somehow, the student union found an open Monday in October when The Little Rocks (original member edition) could play a lengthy set.

But just as Simon was getting everything all set, the plan hit a snag - Alvin wasn't interested in taking part. "Back then, we were playing twelve gigs a week, with only one day off," he explains. "And then you went and tried to book two more sets on that one day. I kind of hated the idea of having to drag our gear down to UCLA just to slog through our set list yet again."

Fortunately, Simon knew how to get him to change his mind. "He appealed to my ego," says Alvin, "which is usually the best way. He told me how much his friends there loved rock and roll, and that they'd go nuts for our group. He also sort of hinted that there'd be no shortage of girls who might find the act irresistible."

With Alvin now on board, I drove us onto campus that Monday. We set ourselves up on two huge, heavy wooden tables in the student union - one for Simon and Alvin, one for me and my drum set. And at the stroke of seven, we launched into "Walk Don't Run" in front of twenty-five or so curious students.

Ask anyone in a band, and they'll tell you that some gigs somehow end up being much better than the others. The crowd responds really well to what you're playing, you end up feeding off of their energy, and you end up in that "zone". Well, the gig at the UCLA student union was definitely one of those gigs. The crowd grew and grew until the student union was packed. People were dancing and clapping along, cheering like mad after each number. Alvin and Simon swapped instruments in the middle of a set so that we could do a few Nutty Squirrels tunes. And we even tried a few things that we had never done before.

"It is very much a lost tradition," explains Simon. "But it was once common practice for college students to gather around a piano and sing popular songs. This activity was already on the wane when I entered college, but it was still done on occasion. It struck me that the crowd might enjoy singing along with our small rock ensemble, so I suggested performing some vocal numbers for everybody to sing along with."

Alvin adds, "We just sort of decided on a few songs that were popular at the time. 'Michael Row the Boat Ashore' was easy enough - it was slow and easy to pick out. But 'Tossing and Turning'? Not so much. I forgot how the bridge went, so we just played the two verses over and over." We had been playing for almost two hours when Alvin had another idea. "I just yelled 'anybody here play the saxophone?' And one guy standing near me said he did. He ran back to his room, grabbed his sax, and then jumped on the table to join us in an extremely ragged but killer version of Chubby Checker's 'Twist'."

We closed out the set with the sax player joining us on an extended version of "Tequila". ("Finally! With a saxophone!" says Alvin.) We got an extended round of applause, and then the students gathered around, offering three sweaty and exhausted chipmunks paw-shakes and drinks. I chatted with a few students as I sipped my punch, and every last one of them asked the same question - "when are you guys going to play here again?". At first, I answered, "I don't know" but I quickly switched to saying "oh, soon, very soon, you bet".

At least one of those punches I drank had been spiked. Simon remembers, "You returned to the ersatz stage to dismantle your drum set, but you suddenly sat down looking exceptionally queasy. I realized what had most likely occurred, and decided it would be prudent to have you spend the night on campus. I walked you to my dorm room and got you into my bed." As for Alvin, well, let's just say he was up partying quite a bit later, and found a place to sleep on his own.

We were back playing at Junior's the next night. Alvin and I played our tails off, Skip was his typical hard-working self, and the crowd was fine. But it couldn't help but feel like a letdown. Alvin says, "After that gig we had at UCLA, playing at Junior's almost felt like work." Alvin and I stayed up late that night talking. Could we get our gigs to be more like the UCLA one? Was Simon the missing piece, or was it the audience? Could we get more UCLA gigs, or more like them? Would we give up the safety of a Junior's residency in order to get them?

Simon recalls, "The Little Rocks performance at the student center did have a positive effect - my fellow students had become more prone to engage me in conversation. The performance also highlighted that I longed to return to live performing. So when you telephoned asking if I would be interested in doing more gigs on or near campus, I said yes without hesitation."

Simon made some inquiries at clubs, and gave out the last of our demo records. He found one club interested in having us play three nights a week. Simon called to let us know, and he was a little stunned when Alvin and I discussed the situation and then said we wanted to accept the offer...and that we'd move closer to UCLA to make it work.

Moving meant saying goodbye to three things. We had to end our residency at Junior's, and to our bass player Skip. We decided to simply tell them both that we were "moving away". That was accurate as far as it went, and a lot nicer than saying "we'd rather play at this other place". I didn't mind leaving Junior's all that much, but I did feel kind of bad for Skip. He really had tried his damnedest to make it work as part of our group. Luckily, he found an all-human rock group to join not long afterwards.

It was a lot tougher saying goodbye to Mrs. Gorman. I sort of assumed she'd be happy to be free of the last two freeloading rodents infesting her house, but she actually started crying when we let her know. She hugged us - a rarity - and told us we'd be welcome back anytime. I promised I would stop by every Saturday on my way to my karate lessons - a promise that I actually kept most weeks.

I think it was early November when we started our residency at PJ's. Only eight sets a week - two on Thursdays, and three each Fridays and Saturdays. Simon made sure all his schoolmates knew that his band was now playing there every weekend, and it wasn't unusual to see a few dozen students dancing there on any given night. Not surprisingly, though, the pay was less than we had gotten from Junior's. In fact, it was barely enough to pay the rent on the tiny apartment Alvin and I had moved into. But that was fine - our main source of income was still our Chipmunks royalties. And after something of a break in the preceding year, things started picking back up in 1962.

Liberty mainly spent the end of 1961 updating the Chipmunk look. All of our previous singles and albums were re-issued with "The Alvin Show"-style artwork. And once more, "Christmas", "Harmonica" and "Rudolph" made the lower regions of the pop chart. It was sort of amazing how many records Liberty sold with those same old recordings. I remember thinking that it perhaps wasn't that surprising that we hadn't been recording much as of late. Why bother paying for a new recording and promotional budget when they could just put an old record in a new sleeve and sell more copies of that?

We finally did record our first new song in months at the beginning of 1962, and it was notable for a few reasons. For one, it was the first time David Seville didn't pick us up at Mrs. Gorman's for a session. Instead, I was the one who drove us three to Liberty. That may not sound like much of a change, really, but it sort of underlined how much time had passed - all three of the Chipmunks were now legally adults.

Also, the song we recorded that day was also a bit more grown-up than everything we had recorded before. I can't pretend that "The Alvin Twist" is a lost classic. In fact, it isn't even a very good twist song. (I'm pretty sure Chubby Checker didn't lose any sleep over it.) But it was Liberty's first attempt at having The Chipmunks record a rock and roll song...or at least as rock and roll as Dave was capable of writing for us.

"It's stilted," says Alvin. "Kind of has a stick up its butt. It's not loose and carefree like a twist song should be. And when I listen to it, I get the Dave was probably mocking the whole idea. You know, look everybody, Alvin and the Chipmunks are doing a twist song, what a riot, har har har."

When we got to the studio, we listened to the musicians run through the number. It wasn't bad, really, but it wasn't very rock and roll. We offered to play the backing music, in an attempt to give it a better feel, but Mr. Waronker declined. I wasn't sure if that was because he had a specific vision for these songs, or he just didn't like the idea of us playing on our records. But whichever it was, we stuck with their arrangement.

In addition to being a bit more "with it" than the rest of our songs, it was a Chipmunks single without Dave anywhere on it. He didn't yell at Alvin for doing the twist, or introduce it as a fun new dance song - it was just us three singing from beginning to end. Again, not a huge change, but the gap between what the Chipmunks were recording and what the Little Rocks were performing had never been narrower.

Around the same time, Liberty was attempting to get a commitment from CBS for a second season of "The Alvin Show". Word finally trickled down that the show was not going to be renewed. The ratings were decent (despite being on opposite "Wagon Train", a rating's powerhouse) but the show was rather expensive to produce. So it was decided that the first season would also be its last. Simon of course was happy with that announcement, and for the most part, so was I. The paychecks were welcome, especially considering the minimal work I had put in, but it had been interfering with my rather vague mental plan. With the cartoon done, I dreamed of the Chipmunks becoming more and more what the Little Rocks were, until a time when we could be a regular touring and recording rock and roll band.

This dream, sadly, would take a lot longer than expected to become a reality.