The Sleepers broke up at least once before their first show on Christmas Day 1977 at Mabuhay Gardens, the center of San Francisco's underground universe. While intensely unpredictable singer Ricky Williams played in other bands such as Crime and Toiling Midgets, The Sleeprs were on their own rock 'n' roll planet somewhere between punk, post-punk, and psychedelic. As Joe Carducci wrote in Rock And The Pop Narcotic, "The Sleepers were an awesome powerhouse live. They were an appropriate refinement of The Stooges, and what Joy Division might have developed into had they the balls."