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Everybody was in different bands at the time, and fate intervened at the Belmont County Cheese Fair, where we had all shown up to play in the Melvin Rind Battle of the Band contest, which was an annual tradition at the fair and raised money to benefit Melvin's favorite charity, the American Dyspepsia Foundation. The winning band got $250 bucks, which was a lot of money at the time, and also a huge 50-pound wheel of Camembert, which was then and is now one big wheel of cheese. Anyway, the other reason we were there was to scope out other bands because as it turns out none of us liked the groups we were in and this was a chance to play the field and maybe bring home some fromage de la belle France. As much as he loved cheese, Melvin hated bands and only did this for his charity and the publicity, so he made the bands wait in this tent off the midway which smelled like fried dough, but only if the fried dough was made out of cow patties. Well, anyone who knows anything about Melvin knows that the only thing he loves more than cheese and dyspepsia is his dog, named "Paris", after "Paris, Arkansas", which is where he originally hailed from and which explains a lot, actually. Anyway, Paris the dog was already an onerous beast but he topped all prior records when he got into the cheese display and ate an entire block of Gruyere, which no one discovered until he appeared in the tent with an incredible case of mustard gas, if you know what I mean. That dog was lethal. The whole tent cleared out, and the four of us found each other beside the midway, gasping for air and anxious for revenge. It was Craig's idea to steal the prize Camembert. Rich and Scott nabbed it (it was freaking heavy) and we piled into Carlo's '78 El Camino and made our getaway. In the weirdest of ways, without Paris the dog, we never would have met and joined musical forces.