When rock music was in its infancy in the 1960s, the youth of St. Catharines were ready. With a recently expanded urban boundary and population explosion, a flourishing auto sector, and an army of baby boomers coming of age, the energy in St. Catharines was palpable. Before the major label centralization of the rock music industry, it wasn’t yet considered a given that aspiring musicians would have to move to bigger cities like Toronto in order to “make it”. This was a cultural revolution after all. So why not St. Catharines? Sean heads to the corner of Lake and Wellington where “The Castle – A Knightclub for Teenagers” once stood. This is History From Here: a video series presented by the St. Catharines Museum and Welland Canals Centre.  

The rock music venue known as the Castle operated for only three-or-so years in the mid-1960s. It was opened in April 1965 by Ronn Metcalfe, a veteran of big band music. Born in St. Catharines in 1930, Metcalfe was a tenor saxophonist and bandleader whose 1962 song “Twisting at the Woodchopper’s Ball” became the first completely made-in-Canada single to top the international charts. Metcalfe spent time working in the New York scene and became acquainted with the likes of Duke Ellington, Buddy Rich, and Count Basie. After spending a few years enjoying success on the road and building connections, Metcalfe decided it was time to return home and build a scene of his own – a move that apparently led a disappointed Count Basie to quip that Metcalfe had quit touring and gone back to “St. Somewhere”. 

Metcalfe would rule his musical realm from The Castle. This medieval-themed live music club was designed to be more than an event hall. It had a built-in graduated system, featuring three stages of different sizes to accommodate bands at various points in their musical journeys. On weekend nights, the venue regularly welcomed some 1500 teenagers to watch six or more rock bands, often featuring a mix of both local and out-of-town talent. Popular local acts included the British Modbeats, the Kidds, and the Morticians, who were reportedly Rush drummer Neil Peart’s first exposure to live rock music. Notably, the venue was strictly for teenagers and did not serve alcohol. In its early days it also required a membership and had a strict dress code. The result was a go-to exclusive meeting place for a specific collection of young people – in other words, like Ronn Metcalfe predicted, it became a scene. 

Like better known figures including Brian Epstein and Berry Gordy, Ronn Metcalfe was much more than a passive business owner. Metcalfe took many of his regular local performers under his wing, soon helping to establish the management agency, Image Artist Representatives. Metcalfe would meticulously curate the performance bills at his club and would even move members between bands in order to create the perfect sound for his St. Catharines rock scene. Metcalfe used his industry connections to arrange regular tours for many of the bands based out of The Castle, including a notorious Northern Ontario circuit that included stops in Timmins, Cochrane, Kirkland Lake, and Kapuskasing among other places.  

During Metcalfe’s short reign, his Castle was considered by many to be the music hub between Buffalo and Toronto, and it enabled local musicians to establish and maintain successful careers right here, rather than moving to one of these bigger centres. Though the modern centralization of the music industry may make this hard to imagine today, there was a time when St. Catharines could be spoken in the same sentence as Toronto in terms of Music Biz who’s who. And that is largely thanks to Ronn Metcalfe, the King of the Castle. 

On May 18, 1969, Ronn Metcalfe died unexpectedly of a heart attack at the age of 38. The Castle appears to have already closed by this time and St. Catharines’ moment at the forefront of live rock music began to fade. Metcalfe’s legacy, however, persevered. Musicians who cut their teeth in Metcalfe’s scene would go on to play with the likes of Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, The Stampeders and, of course, Rush. Perennial “Greatest Drummer of all Time” list-topper Neil Peart grew up in Port Dalhousie and, from 1967-69, played in The Majority, a Castle-based group put together by Ronn Metcalfe. 

Though its tenure here was short, the Castle’s cultural impact was immense, being considered pivotal to the musical output of a generation, and the epicenter of St. Catharines’ moment in the musical big leagues. The building that housed The Castle has long been demolished, but the heart of the music it produced still beats in St. Catharines and around the world.