Band Formed: 1967 SONG LIST

It all began in the quite burb of Weston in the west end of Toronto. The budding superstar group The Rigelhof 5 would make all kinds of strange noises by singing any lyrics we could remember from our favourite pop bands of the 60's: The Bealtes, The Monkees, The Everly Brothers, The Osmonds, and dare I say, The Jackson 5, while strumming or torturing my dad's old guitar, and banging on pots and pans (and heads, and walls, and floors, and furniture, etc.) to the delight of our parents, neighbours, and relatives (who had to imbibe copious amounts of alcohol in order to endure the racket) - and even passing around the pan afterwards for a tip, or to get paid for the gig, which our captive audience gladly forked over, hopefully just to shut us up! Ah, the good old carefree days of the Psychedelic 60's!

Who knew that later in the 70's I would take up Classical guitar lessons and eventually actually learn a few rock songs and write my own as well. I performed a few of those in grade 7 with The Al Arbor Band at Our Lady Of The Bay Catholic School, with my new and soon to become life-long friend Dan Cormier on drums. Dan and I would eventually hook up again at Pickering High School in a few incarnations of Fragile and numerous other bands afterwards.

Noel and Paul were finally bitten by the Rock & Roll Bug in high school, and after showing them how to play "Smoke On The Water" on guitar, they took it from there. They would also take Classical guitar lessons to hone their skills and jammed with Jim Ferrier on drums, crammed into the "hut" in our backyard, until eventually they got pretty good and I said "let's put a band together". That would be the genesis of Paradox with drummer Fred Collins and keyboardist Stu McGibney from Midnight filling out the roster.

Eventually Stu left, then Fred (who eventually joined up with Dave Beno from the "Jam Band Daze" to form various incarnations of what would become "Kick'r"). That was when the Rigelhof Trio found Derek Bowers and Monica Hughes and we formed Manchester. The rest in the other sections is, as they say, history!