One of the first things that the new management did was change the club’s name from Uncle Sam’s to Sam’s. I didn’t find a formal notice of the name change in the paper, but based on ads, it appears to have happened between April 18 and May 4, 1980.
The change to Sam’s was accompanied by the redecoration of the club in Early Punk Black. The neon dance floor and light wall was torn up, and some of the neon was hung in the ceiling. Steve McClellan said, “Jack Meyers did a FANTASTIC job converting what most clubs would have tossed into the dumpster – but instead turned into usable ‘new’ features.” The neon stayed there until about 1983.
