COMPILATION BOOTLEG CONTINUED!

I discovered amongst a mountain of paper the container the replicated CD came in, and it is from DODAX AG, OBERNEUHOFSTRASS 10a 6340 BAAR SWITZERLAND.

Here are the two side by side for comparison:

Notice the difference in the spines. One BLACK and the counterfeit one OPAQUE.

Well I think that is interesting. I really more INTERESTING would happen.

I used to have pints in the evening twenty years ago, just before all hell broke out in my life at a pub in Etobicoke near where I lived at Islington and Bloor Street West. Called The Squire and Firkin.

There were a variety of interesting dudes that I hung out with, one being Curtis Smith, a drummer who toured across Canada with Janis Joplin. He was only 17 at the time and couldn’t understand why this good looking guy followed her around everywhere. That good looking guy was Kris Kristofferson.

Another notable figure was a very smart fellow who I will dub IBM ROB.

    

JOHN PAUL YOUNG and CARDBOARD BRAINS COMPILATION BOOTLEG!

Amongst the unfortunately limited discography of myself  and CARDBOARD BRAINS is 1998 digital compilation of all the vinyl releases. Above you can   see the original, which has a BLACK spine.

I found on AMAZON when I was scouring the internet, which I am prone to do, a copy of the compilation CD. Having lost all my possessions including all of the mint rare vintage vinyl that I had archived diligently, I am forced to buy up copies of my own records and CDs from collectors.

I purchased the compilation CD, and when it arrived from Switzerland I could tell it was a reissue because  it was an exact duplicate except for the fact that it has an OPAQUE spine. To tell you the truth it remains unopened in shrink wrap, but yes it is an exact reproduction.

This morning I cannot locate the package it was shipped in to publish the company and address. It is here somewhere amidst the chaos on my desk, a product of my ADHD mind.

Sometime later when again scoring the internet, I discovered a listing for the unauthorised release (they were out of stock) on a UK website. And the website cited the label as EMI.

I’m not pissed at the rip off, I wish EMI would release the compilation.

In my opinion the compilation is pretty good and fans are pleased with it.

I crammed as much music is I technically could. 79 minutes is the most information you can get on a CD and that’s what you get.

About the only criticism I received was a fan from NOW magazine in Toronto, who complained there were no liner notes. If I ever get enough capital or someone becomes a patron I will re-release it with comprehensive liner notes. Or maybe EMI will.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A FOOL

 

Before they were called The CASBY Awards they were dubbed the U-Know Awards as a populist alternative to The JUNO Awards. I had the great honour of winning a U-Know/CASBY Award for Most Promising Male Recording Artist. I believe it was simulcast on the CBC. Carol Pope and Kevin Staples of Rough Trade presented me with the award. My thanks once again to David Marsden and everyone at CFNY-FM.

KIDNAPPED!

 

I’m just saying 

 

The initial purpose of this post was to discuss my kidnapping, robbery and attempted murder on Yorkville Avenue in Toronto on July 2, 2002 in broad daylight at 6:55 PM.

I will explore this occurrence in vivid detail as soon as I can. And on the subject of my book, whether it be memoirs or autobiography, there is much ground to cover as an overview before I get down to it, so to speak.

Previously on Wikipedia on the “CARDBOARD BRAINS” page, it states that “John Paul Young is currently in seclusion. Or when translated: hermitage. It since had been edited out, but was essentially accurate. I was indeed in seclusion from September 2002 on. No one knew where I was or how to contact me and that’s the way I wanted it. That is why Cardboard Brains guitarist had his friend and once Cardboard Brains alumni John “Sandy” Macfadyen fill in for myself as front man-vocalist when the sort of Cardboard Brains played at the Horseshoe Tavern for THE LAST POGO JUMPS AGAIN in 2006.

I was nowhere to be found. Even on message boards and chat groups the rumour was that I was dead.

Sandy Macfadyen as John Paul Young with Cardboard Brains at the Horseshoe Tavern 2006.

I have been reticent to publish my thoughts and experiences for years even on Facebook. However, now I feel I might as well be bold and shout it out loud so to speak, and I have much to say. I have nothing to regret and as for my life experiences: That is my life and I chose to embrace them as part of my being.

It escapes me at the moment, but someone once said we are the people we have met, the places we have been and the books we have read. This is my life and I chose to embrace it, including the tragedies, tribulations and triumphs. So be it.

One of the reasons I was “in seclusion” was because I was arrested. Seven times. And imprisoned. Four times. And without committing a crime.

MURDER MAYHEM AND MADNESS. MY MEMOIRS.

Haven’t posted lately and certainly haven’t posted daily like I said I would in earlier posts.

If any of you are on my Facebook page (which I encourage you to do) I posted what Paul McCartney makes in royalties every single day (something like $USD600.000) and my asking $30 from SOCAN in November. I thought it was amusing.

For the past couple of years I have been working on my memoirs. I was approached to do them by a friend of mine in Melbourne who is a digital marketing specialist. For months I would send him audio files via the net for the proposed project, but then I get interested in other things such as a Canada Council for the Arts grant to write and record new music.

That didn’t work out but I will try again. The fatal flaw in my application was I forced Erica Veltmeyer to write the application. All things considering she made a valiant attempt but it caused her to have a meltdown in the process. Next time that I apply to Canada Council I will write the application myself and have a more focused agenda.

So its back to my memoirs. It being almost Christmas and 2023 is on our doorstep, it’s probably time to get some goals. Consistent daily writing seems to be the best thing. I have the resources, that being time, an iPad with Magic Keyboard (my aged Toshiba laptop isn’t much fun to write on), and a diverse and colourful life of experiential knowledge to draw on.

Also I believe writing the memoirs will be therapeutic.I would like to take an almost scientific approach to probing my own mind and why the way I am. Or  put another way, to find myself.

Also I wish to document myself and my family. Because sadly to say my family and all they represented has been erased. It’s like something that would happen in Stalins Russia.

I now have a variety of posts, and I am thankful for the views I have gotten. But my posts are a mere preamble to the main event of this blog, which is to write the first draft of my memoirs. Or at least that the plan.

Back in 2002 or perhaps 2003 I was in Toronto visiting Catherine Macguire, who sometimes gave me vocal training and I affectionately dubbed Piano Lady. While I was waiting for her to arrive I told her boyfriend about recent aspects of my life, to which he commented: “ Your memoirs would read like Mickey Spillane meets Carl Gustav Jung!”

If I write and publish my memoirs it certainly wont be for the money. And supposedly the average person who publishes a book can expect to sell about 500 copies.

I haven’t really said anything about this title “MURDER MAYHEM MADNESS” but expect me to explore the underlining subject matter in depth.

THE LAST POGO JUMPS AGAIN BABIES RUN MY WORLD NARDWAUR CARDBOARD BRAINS

 

Here I found “Babies Run My World” by Cardboard Brains as discussed in an earlier post. (As I write I’m listening to “A Song for Europe” by Roxy Music off, I believe the Stranded album.)

The last post I entitled “The Life of Ermie Scub (Dogsitting)” because I was indeed dog-sitting at The Veltmeyer Estate for ten days. I live the quiet life now, thankfully free of the drama that permeated my life. Especially the years 2002-2012.

The dog in question Emmy-Lou, a rescue pup from Texas. She gives me solace, something to love and care for in my new found modest peace. Here my friends, is a pic of Emmy Lou:

Just sayin’.

And above a better pic of The Last Pogo (BOMB)(1979).

In September 2002 GODS GAMBLING and LSD premiered at the Isabel Theatre at The Toronto International Festival of Festivals. I appear as myself with the Director, my friend Peter Mettler.

GODS GAMBLING and LSD subsequently won a GENIE award for BEST DOCUMENTARY. It’s won other awards internationally but I haven’t really kept track in all the confusion.

In Director Colin Brunton’s revisitation of the film “The Last Pogo” , “The Last Pogo Jumps Again”, NARDWAUR fills in for me because I was unavailable in the extreme.

The last gig I did with what was called by myself, CARDBOARD BRAINS was in April 2000, and just before the premiere of GODS GAMBLING and LSD I did KILLER RATS in Bulgaria with Ron Perlman. Which was a very cool experience. I play Hans, the Rat Exterminator. Got to hang and party with Ron (Hellboy, Sons of Anarchy, etcetera) Perlman.

Whoever views this blog glance at the post CURRICULUM VITAE that’s on only part of the puzzle. My background far transcends my years as leader,singer songwriter of the “punk “ band Cardboard Brains. 

I haven’t included my filmography, some of which appears on IMDB.com

THE LIFE OF ERMIE SCUB! (Dog sitting)

 

Here we have on YouTube my 1980 LP THE LIFE OF ERMIE SCUB in its entirety. I had intended to post BABIES RUN MY WORLD (1978) released 1979 on BOMB RECORDS: THE LAST POGO (Live at The Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto), but I couldn’t find it on YouTube. It’s somewhere in that cyber abyss of the likes of Harry Styles and Adelle. Or Adel or whatever.

I’ll find the LAST POGO Babies Run My World, or perhaps someone will find it for me, eventually, and I’ll post it. It’s a lo-fi recording but I feel confident in saying its one of the best tracks on this release, at least Paul McGrath of The Toronto GLOBE AND MAIL thought so. To paraphrase Paul McGrath’s article in said newspaper: “CARDBOARD BRAINS should sign for respectable money on prominent dotted lines and stand heads held high in global new wave predominance”.

A bold statement but I’m actually not making it up. The comment was great for our egos but always left me kind of embarrassed and uncomfortable, but all these years I might as well own it. I surmise other bands hated us for this kind of press we got but so is the game.

Which makes me think about Liz Worth and her apparently fine book about the Toronto punk scene “TREAT ME LIKE DIRT”. I haven’t read it yet but someday I surely will. According to Michael Panontin  of Canuckistan Music said something to the effect that myself and CARDBOARD BRAINS were curiously excised from her book, with the minor exception of a mention in a discography.

Another point about The Last Pogo version of “BABIES RUN MY WORLD” is that it was number one on campus radio stations in Canada. Someone from BOMB RECORDS phoned to tell me that.

I entitled this post “The Life of Ermie Scub” because of many of you dear readers know not what an Ermie Scub is. Ermie Scub is simply a name I invented for no particular reason to entitle my solo departure from my Cardboard Brains. As Cardboard Brains guitarmeister Vince Carlucci aptly said in 1980 when I left: “Paul is the only person I know who quit his own band.”

So that is why this domain is https://www.ermiescub.com.

I’m currently dog sitting Emmy-Lou at The Veltmeyer estate until her master Erica returns. Scuba for not posting regularly but self-discipline is a commodity I find hard to muster. Think I’ll buy some new clothes today for a fresh incarnation of JPY. I’ll post again when I return.

Oh and if you listen to The Life of Ermie Scub I strongly suggest good headphones. Someone on the internet insisted : “MUST BE PLAYED LOUD”. And please put in context this was written and recorded in 1980 so aspects are dated. Laurie Mercer of ALLMUSIC did a nice review a while back in which I’ll share.

NARDWAUR THE EVAPORATORS CARDBOARD BRAINS

 

Around the early years of the season of my discontent I noticed a strange phenomena on the internet. Something called a Nardwaur and apparently a band called THE EVAPORATORS had somewhat of a hit song called CARDBOARD BRAINS. By about 2005 I had put the pieces together to learn that NARDWAUR, The Human Serviette, was a MuchMusic VeeJay and legendary interviewer had a band called The Evaporators and a song entitled CARDBOARD BRAINS a homage of sorts to my band.

In 2005 ( I’m Guessing the year, it was a blur) I was living on top of The Rex Hotel at Queen Street West across from the practice space we shared with John McLeod (Johnny and the G-Rays), down the street from The Horseshoe. It just so happened that I read in NOW magazine that the Evaporators were playing The Horseshoe that night, so I swallowed my beer and headed down to introduce myself to NARDWAUR.

He said in a gentlemanly fashion: “ It’s an honour!”  Took a publicity photo with himself, yours truly and the bass player from THE EVAPORATORS. He gave me a copy of RIPPLE ROCK, The Evaporaors CD at the time. When I got home and opened it, I found it had loads of great liner notes on myself and CARDBOARD BRAINS. Which I would like to share WITH YOU NOW:

“ I would love to see Cardboard Brains play live. If I may turn the reins at this point to my friend Marc Coulavin who will now subject you to a short history of the real Cardboard Brains (not The Evaporators song!):

“ Deadly Alien Foam. That’s what you could be reading about here. It was one of the names the band considered before settling on “CARDBOARD BRAINS”. An interesting and humorously self-deprecatory name, compared to the more obnoxiously provocative ones chosen by their fellow musicians on the Toronto punk rock scene. Things like Arson, The Battered Wives, the Cads, the Curse, The Fits, the Forgotten rebels, The Poles, The Rage, Rex Chainbelt (after a cement mixer part!) The Sharks, Slander, Swindled, Teenage Head, Tyranna, The Ugly, The Viletones and ZRO4.

It’s also a clue they were slightly different from the rest. Although their first  EP, a 7” bearing the legend “Cardboard Brains 1977” contains four blasts of primitive and raw punk rock, there are definitely shades of quirkiness. Both in the lyrics as on the presumably sarcastic “I Want to Be A Yank”, and the music. Certainly in the vocals. 

“Their on-stage presentation was also out of the ordinary. Eschewing the ripped jeans and T-shirts aesthetic of his contemporaries, singer John Paul young favoured dressing up in costumes. On at least one occasion, he removed his clothes to reveal a Riddler-like turquoise body suit covered in question marks. Young also integrated his training as a thespian into their shows, displaying behaviour qualified as “pretty bizarre” by a third year performance studies student (who should know!), at Ther 1982 Sheridan College gig. A first year business student called them “danceable but weird.” Not unlike The Evaporators in some ways!

In December 1978, Cardboard Brains appeared at The Last Pogo, a two day event at the Horseshoe tavern marking the end of that establishments “New Wave” booking policy. Parts of these shows, including numbers by Cardboard Brains, were committed to celluloid and vinyl. the more adventurous bent of the group reveals itself further on these contributions, as well as their second outing, a four song 12” EP released in 1979. this is perhaps due to the departure of original bassist Paul Oconnel and drummer Richard Miller, who were replaced by John Thomas and Dave Richardson on The Last Pogo recordings, and by Patrick Gregory and Mickel Keena on the EP.

In 1980, Mr. Young went solo and produced a rather depressing concept LP entitled The Life Of Ermie Scub, The group reunited in 1981, with Young and guitarist Vincent Carlucci as the only original remaining members. This resulted in a live album recorded at new wave club The Edgar, issued the following year in a very limited edition of 441 numbered and autographed copies, by then their music had evolved into fully-fledged prog punk, years before anyone came up with a name for it…but that was also the bands swan song. Since then they have reunited for a few club dates, one of these being a retrospective  compilation CD.

Young went into acting and composing for the movies. Carlucci formed Station Twang with Carl Tafel (a later Cardboard Brains alumnus, whose previous vehicle had been Terraced Garden). Patrick Gregory  became a member of The Woods are Full of Cuckoos and the Lawn.

The Cardboard Brains version of The Monkees’ “Stepping Stone” off their first EP, appeared on the all-Canadian Killed By Death Vol. 26 in the mid-nineties, raising their profile accordingly. Someone anonymously issued a facsimile of that EP in the last year or so. Now you can look forward to the pleasure of a song called “Deadly Alien Foam” on your next Evaporators platter! Cheers!and now back to your host Nardwaur…Thanks Nardmeister!”

So those are the liner notes from Ripple Rock by The Evaporators featuring Nardwaur The Human Serviette.

SLOTH

 

Sloth.There is much  for me to tell but  most of  the time  I don’t feel like doing anything. I would like to post daily because the search engines like to sniff the keywords. This Apple Magic Keyboard is pretty neat  but the space bar the is malfunctioning in that I must hit the shift key in between words.

Which is much more than you need to know. Previous posts have been brief and vague because I am just getting used to blogging and the limitations of my technology. Topics such as Curriculum Vitae have been pretty vacant, I haven’t even included my filmography. Days go by. Canada Day July 1,2022 went by and I wanted to post. My birthday July 16, 2022 (66). Eventually I posted something but not much.

Eventually I want to explore the Cardboard Brains history with an analysis of the various releases, including my solo LP “The Life of Ermie Scub “. I want to address my filmography including Metal Messiah (1978), The Gate (1986), Johnny Mnemonic (1996), Killer Rats (2001) and Gods, Gambling and LSD (2003).

It’s painful but I will detail how and why I effectively disappeared for twenty years and why Nardwaur appears in The Last Pogo Jumps Again (2006).

THE ELECTRO BEAT CARDBOARD BRAINS

 

Pauline Groen, John Paul Young and Vincent Carlucci the incarnation of Cardboard Brains that opened for The Stranglers. No drummer just one of the first LinnDrums.