Perry and McKenna shared a vision and naivety just grandiose enough to foster a movement. They formed a collaboration anchored by a love for Sacramento’s musical roots.

“The Cattle Club was amazing,” Dean said. “Jerry and the vision for all those guys was fantastic.”

Club Me! re-branded as The Cattle Club, and alternative acts began to dominate the bill. The club’s diverse identity temporarily kept its toehold. “I really wanted to distance myself from the hair rock, and boneheads and that kind of attitude,” Perry said. “I thought, ‘Aw, man, going into a gay bar is so cool.’ ”

But the gay crowd’s exodus to central downtown ultimately forced the hand of change. Bojangles no longer had the means or the following to survive seven nights a week as a gay nightclub. Perry and McKenna’s every other Friday undertaking evolved into six nights a week of promoting and executing shows.

The bones of Bojangles lent themselves more seamlessly to dancing than to acoustics. A pole blocked fans’ views of the stage, and close quarters bred crowds that were tight even by mosh pit standards. But the bands played on. “It seems like where a lot of the best music things happened were always funky places that were maybe not built originally to be live music venues, but just became that, and in spite of themselves became successful,” McKenna said.

The two transitioned their strategy to welcoming all ages, and saw turnouts jump as the club’s reputation started to build. “The first few shows we did there we were already setting crazy turnout records,” Perry said. Crowds were gathering to support local acts, but on occasion the Cattle Club faithful got an opportunity to witness something special.

“I set up a camera for the Nirvana show not really knowing at all, couldn’t even possibly conceive of how I would know, what kind of show it was gonna be,” Perry said. “When they started, it blew me away.”

Nirvana was touring with fellow Seattle grunge group Tad, and Perry struggled to remember if he paid the two bands $250 or $500 to perform. Perry describes his team’s business decisions in colloquialisms like “rolling the dice,” or “not in any way mainstream,” but his grand design was tactical.

“It really became a stomping ground at that time in the late ’80s and early ’90s for bands that were blowing up coming out of Seattle,” Dean said. Big bands from the Northwest found Sacramento to be the ideal rest stop on their way to Los Angeles. “It was a perfect scenario at the right time.”

Perry kept a savvy ear to the ground for worthy local talent, and McKenna had a knack for luring the bigger fish. Nationally touring acts mentored Sacramento’s less dexterous euphonious youth. “I think that we really complemented each other very well,” McKenna said. “I was definitely more privy to what was going on on a national level, and he was more privy to what was going on on a local level.”

Before long, Beck left its mark at the Cattle Club, then No Doubt graced the stage. McKenna recalled one of his favorite shows as a mashup of Cake, Korn, and The Deftones — a mashup that has since combined to generate 15 platinum and four gold albums (and counting). “Back in those days, we could do more things like that,” McKenna said.

Back in those days.