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The Data Lab was the short-lived official fan club of the Rentals from 1995 to around 1997. It was run by Mykel and Carli Allan, who also ran the Weezer fan club.
The club came together in 1995. Unlike the more straightforward Weezer fan club, the Rentals' club would have a unique theme. The background of the club's fictional lore is, loosely, that the Rentals' members operated in a discrete, mysterious facility, where club membership gained fans access to its confidential information and products—hence the name "The Data Lab". In the summer of 1995, the Allan sisters sent a mailer out to Weezer fan club members offering membership to the Data Lab in exchange for a $5 annual fee. The mailer additionally contained a message from Sharp titled "Intelligence From the Lab", wherein he described the band and discussed the release of their debut Return of the Rentals.
At some point between 1996 and 1997, Sharp requested that the sisters put the fan club activity on pause until the Rentals were active again. The club's address was excluded from the Japanese CD release of Return of the Rentals in 1996. The club ceased activity following the death of the Allan sisters in late 1997. Though no Rentals fan club ever materialized again, the following note from Karl Koch was left inside Weezine issue 13 (summer 1998):
Matt is looking into starting up the Rentals fan club again - but he needs help! If you think you have the skills, time, and healthy attitude to take on such a task, send us your "proposal", and Matt will check it out. Serious offers only should be sent to this address. No decisions of any kind will be made for quite a while.
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On this day... June 2
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Featured quote: Toledo City Paper journalist Mike Saccone interviewing Scott Shriner on his pre-Weezer career; September 2002
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Toledo City Paper:
To what extent did you participate in Toledo’s music scene when you lived here?
Scott:
Well, when I was growing up and playing, it was all cover bands. And there wasn’t really that much original music locally, there were bands coming in from out of town, but … I played in The Movers, it was an R&B band, I played with the Exciters for a while, the old Cyprus bar band on Laskey, half punk-rock, half alternative, then I played in a band called Loved by Millions with Steve Athanas before he was doing The Homewreckers. And then The Great Barbecue Gods.
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TCP:
What were you doing between the time you left Toledo and the time that you got the call from Rivers? (Rivers Cuomo is Weezer's frontman.)
Scott:
I played in a ton of bands in L.A. I tried to get three or four original projects off the ground, and I played in four or five hired-gun band situations, some of which I can mention and some I cannot … as incriminating evidence. I did a lot of day jobs. I actually got a job in the film industry to pay the rent, and the flexibility of that allowed me to work really hard for a couple of weeks and then not work for a couple of weeks and then concentrate on music. I went on tons of auditions. I auditioned for Ozzy and Lenny Kravitz and a bunch of other smaller artists who had new records out.
-Scott Shriner, Toledo City Paper interview, September 12, 2002
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