Part V: Change Is In The Air

One thing to keep in mind was that at this time, I had only been playing guitar for about nine months. Needless to say, I wasn't very good. Power chords were my best friend. I wasn't super into any effects, but somehow I got a hold of a digital delay pedal that was loaned to me by an acquaintance from school. That acquaintance eventually became a dear friend of mine and Paradigm's future lead guitarist and co song writer.

Not sure how, or exactly when, Matt Palumbo and I met or even built a relationship good enough for him to loan me a hundred dollar effects pedal, but that is one of my first memories of our friendship. I think what followed next was the brilliant conclusion that he played guitar. So we set up a time to jam out. We met at his friend Tony's house and I was immediately impressed. He had his own amp and a sweet Fender Stratocaster with a Floyd Rose bridge that I thought was the coolest thing ever. Later on, that bridge proved to be quite the pain in the ass whenever a string would break, but at the time, it was good stuff.

Side note, I'm pretty sure that Mr. Coppolecchia, Nick's dad, had a bit of a mental lapse, as he agreed to let Nick and the rest of us practice in the basement of his home. It kept us warm, it was free and most importantly, it kept us rocking. Believe me, we needed all the practice we could get.

Getting back to the introduction of Matt to Paradigm. I finally put two and two together and said, "Matt plays guitar, we should see if he would like to join us?" So we set up a time to meet in the basement and me, Nick and our friend Rich McStine, checked out what Matt was able to do on the guitar. I know now that what he played must not have been crazy over the top, but at the time, all of us thought that he was like Hendrix. The leads started pouring out over my simple rhythms and that was all it took. We all looked at each other in amazement. I know that somewhere out there is a video recording of this event, but I was never privy to a copy and I'm almost certain that it is gone now. I will ask around and see if I could dig it up from the grave somewhere and with a bit of good luck, I will find and post it.

Matt was in. We were complete, right? Well, there were some more changes to come, so not quite yet.