Powerhouse

Were you ever in a rock band or dreamt about it? Well I was very briefly in 1969. The band was called Powerhouse. Doug on drums, Eric on keyboards, Tommy lead singer. There must have been a bass, a guitar and a trumpet player too. I played tenor sax. I remember doing one gig in Renfrew I think it was, before we broke up. We had a hurse for transferring the equipment.

I was new to the tenor sax having dropped playing the flute a year earlier to learn the sax in grade 12. While generally easier to play than most wind instruments, I was still nevertheless a pure novice. So I had not played it in a year and borrowed one from Woodroffe High School.

I remember practices at Doug’s house near the Ottawa airport. We also set up in our family room for awhile but that may have been the summer before. I remember playing or rather trying to play the sax parts in Sam and Dave’s Hold on I’m Coming. Of course in those days all we had was a record player way of listening to a song to learn it.

Eric, my good friend got me into it. Not sure how but he knew the other members. Tommy was the son of my grade 9 Latin teacher. Doug (Inglis) went on to a recording career with the reconstituted trio Powerhouse, then on to the better known rock trio Goddo and sadly passed away in 2021. It was fun playing with them but I felt I did not know what I was doing and would often fake playing.

So the realty of the need to practice eventually took the fun out of it for me. Anyways another bunch of fond high school memories I sometimes reminisce about. Should have kept up that sax and flute!

That’s Doug in the middle.

I leave you with a lovely tune from Greg Godovitz’s band Goddo that showcases Doug’s creative ability.

Finally, here is a great tribute to him from fellow band member …. starting about 32 mins in.