rock act to perform at his Indra Club. After first approaching several other groups, Williams asked the Beatles, who agreed. Lacking a permanent drummer in their line-up, they quickly recruited Pete Best after a 13 August audition held at one of Williams's clubs. On 15 August, Williams commenced a road and ferry journey in his Morris J2 van that carried him, Beryl, her younger brother, Lord Woodbine, and the Beatles, to Hamburg by the early morning hours of 17 August. In late September, Williams and Koschmider agreed to have the Beatles and Rory Storm and the Hurricanes perform together at the Kaiserkeller. Williams earned a 10% commission on the groups' payments from Koschmider. The Beatles returned from Hamburg in December 1960, simultaneous with the collapse of Williams's Top Ten Club and the planned opening of the Blue Angel. Distracted by these matters, Williams stepped back from rock management and asked Bob Wooler to handle the Beatles' affairs. However, he helped McCartney and Best appeal deportation orders from the German government so that the Beatles could return for a spring 1961 Top Ten Club residency. When the band returned to Hamburg in late March, they (except for Stuart Sutcliffe) refused to pay Williams's 10% commission, citing unhappiness with German tax deductions from their weekly paycheck. An irate Williams threatened to have the Beatles' residency terminated and their behavior reported to the Agency Members Association, which could have jeopardized the group's ability to seek management in the UK. He did neither of these things, but in July 1961 he threatened to sue the band for 104 pounds. The Beatles hired a solicitor to rebut Williams's claim, and Williams let the legal action lapse by December. In December, Williams met with the Beatles' second manager, Brian Epstein—memorably warning him, "Brian, don't touch them with a fucking bargepole"—but eventually lifting his ban on the Beatles' entry to the Blue Angel. Life after the Beatles Years later, Williams and the Beatles spoke fondly of one another, with McCartney describing Williams in The Beatles Anthology as 'a great guy'. In the 1970s, Williams played a crucial role in producing the first Beatles conventions to be staged in Liverpool, and he was a perennial VIP guest at the city's annual Beatle Week Festivals. In 1975, he published a memoir, The Man Who Gave the Beatles Away, to which Lennon gave his endorsement. Recovering a tape of a