On a Tuesday night at Ye Olde College Diner, the Pinch, a local band, is not quite ready to pursue shameless music business self-promotion.

Drummer John McNulty (senior-electrical engineering) is more set on presenting his ideas for a restaurant serving only cheese products, all at the same low price of $3.

"We'd have cheese sandwiches, cheese drinks, pure cheese, whatever," he jokes.

McNulty's cheese deli concept gets 10 minutes of playful consideration as he searches his pockets for enough change to buy a cup of coffee.

McNulty and his two bandmates -- guitarist and lead singer Chad Rockey and bassist Dustin Crandell -- certainly do not have the slick manner of rock promoters. They are all Centre Region natives, looking casual and slightly scruffy in jeans, T-shirts and flannels.

In conversation, they are not too eager to hype themselves at first.

They talk of their days as skateboarding teen-agers, as Rockey (senior-broadcast cable) scrapes at the table with a small knife.

They talk of a University campus they remember being alive with frequent shows of underground and hardcore original bands at the HUB and various dorm commons.

But when they finally do discuss their music, they have plenty to say.

Perhaps inspired by memories of those campus shows, the band's first few jam sessions, a little more than a year ago, yielded a large slate of original material spawned from ska, funk, hardcore, blues and whatever "music that sounds cool," Rockey says. These various elements produce a rowdy energy reminiscent of early Police.

That eclectic categorization may be attributed to the members' lack of formal musical training.

"We've all had about a baker's dozen of lessons," McNulty says.

From that base, they are all self-taught. Consequently, the songwriting is not roped in by any restraining musical rules, Crandell says.

The members all contribute and attempt to play off of what the others bring to the mix.

"It's like a big heap that everybody just throws stuff on and takes stuff off of," McNulty explains.

Just as the heap is diversified by the members, the songwriting is also varied. Rockey or McNulty usually write the lyrics with different objectives and style, they say.

"I'm the meaningful one," Rockey says, with a hint of sarcasm, although much of that meaning is lost in his hardly decipherable snarled vocal delivery.

McNulty just writes whatever catchy things come to mind, he adds.

Catchy things often involve silly and arbitrary descriptions of random and everyday events on songs such as "Taxi" on their local debut cassette Technology.

"I look for the meaning after I write things -- if there is any meaning," McNulty teases.

Before finding this songwriting team, Crandell, a college dropout, had been wandering around for a couple of years looking for meaning in his life in the form of a band that fit his interests. He looked in places such as Erie and Virginia before he returned home to State College.

"I thought it would be a cool scene with such a high concentration of college students," he explains.

But the State College scene, dominated by carbon-copy cover bands, turned out to be a big disappointment, and the Pinch has had some difficulty fitting in, Crandell says.

The band plays at Cafe 210 West, 210 W. College Ave., about twice a month and has played various other shows, including the Rock for Choice benefit last month, but they're still unhappy with the scene, Crandell says.

"The bands here are less like, 'Let's see what boundaries we can push,' and more like, 'Let's see what boundaries we can stay within,' " McNulty says.

They see some promise of audiences more receptive to bands that play all their own music outside of State College.

"Out of town, we've played to underage crowds and had the roof shaking, and we've played in town at the Cafe to crickets," Crandell says.

So the Pinch is forced to employ its less-than-professional managerial skills -- whipping up interest in the band over the phone or through the mail -- to find opportunities elsewhere.

"I've honed my phone skills quite a bit," says Rockey, who has time for these duties outside of his three-credit course load.

After Rockey and McNulty graduate this spring, the band plans to branch out. They'll tour the rest of Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York, where they aspire to play at the famous CBGB club, which has hosted legends such as the Police, Talking Heads and the Ramones, Rockey says.

They will travel the region in the band's van, a former surveillance vehicle complete with a periscope on the roof, as they describe it. Now into a promoting mode, Rockey says they're hoping to gain some notoriety with Technology, which is available at the local record stores.

And ironically, Technology has been a success.

"It's the best seller of all the recent local releases," said Jay Williams, employee of Blue Train Compact Disc, 418 E. College Ave.

Despite the group's apparent success, they still find it difficult to do the promotions.

"How do you explain three plain-clothed chumps from central P-A?" asks Crandell.

McNulty has no solutions to offer.

"I'm wired on coffee," he says, as the band's seriousness began deteriorating into caffeine-assisted hyper silliness after countless refills.

The Pinch could use a manager to take care of that serious stuff.

"We're all musicians," McNulty admits. "We're not managerial types."