Cardboard Brains White EP 1977 When looking at the Blogger stats I see people around the world tuning into this blog and I would bet that some don’t know what a Cardboard Brain is so let me Illustrate.  (The) Cardboard Brains was…is, because I say Never Say Die… a punk band I started forming in Toronto, Ontario Canada in 1976 but really came to fruition in th summer of 1977. That’s when we put out our first record, The White EP. Before it as pirated a few years ago, it was selling for $US400 a copy. I’m posting this so you can listen for free. Rat d 9 out of ten by New Yorks Killed By Death, here it is first generation original gangster punk

  I wrote this song and we recorded it in 1979. The legendary John Peel played it on his BBC show amongst other things.

  I was attending The University of Western Ontario in London when I received a fairly substantial legal win. And as usual I did the reckless thing and dropped out suddenly for some fun. My long time close friend Director Tibor Tackacs invited me to be a guest in Los Angeles for a bit. I couldn’t say no. I should have stayed in University. The University of Western Ontario was my THIRD university after Ryerson University and the University of Toronto. It wasn’t until 2000 that I was diagnosed and treated for ADHD (inattentive type).  The tyranny of the shoulds.  I SHOULD have stayed in the field of Systems Analysis and Electronic Data Processing after being Military Immersion trained by Honeywell Corporation in 1982. If I stayed in that field I would be worth a fortune today. C’est la vie. What happened is I won  CASBY award for most promising male recording artist. My ambitions inflated, I chose to focus on music. So Director Tibor Takacs invited me to L.A. His hous...

 This video is not exactly Apocalypse Now Redux, shot on my iPhone and an angle, I’m yet to invest in a tripod. It’s 25 minutes long and I describe play by play the occurrence on Yorkville Avenue July 2 2002 Toronto Canada. I ask the question: What was the rationale behind my kidnapping and attempted murder? Consider that my mother had just died and I was the sole heir to the family fortune. Was it a random act of violent crime? Was it a thwarted hit? Was it to scare and intimidate me? Was my father behind it? Were the police behind it? How does this occurrence fit into the larger conspiracy I was unwittingly in the middle of? Spoiler alert: If you have read salient points within this blog, I may have in a roundabout fashion disclosed that I was defrauded out of everything including my inheritance that I earned after working for and with my mother and father Dr. Robert Goddard Young and Margaret Isobel Young (Peace). I didn’t get a nickel out of my late mother’s estate. I would hav...

  Our first real gig was at gay disco-tech Club David’s on Halloween night 1977. This gig was at Club David’s on New Years Eve 1977, supporting The Ugly and The Viletones. The line up was Paul O’Connell on bass, Vince Carlucci on guitar, Richard Miller on Drums and yours truly John Paul Young on vocals. That night David’s burned to the ground including our P.A. I wonder why Liz Worth excluded us from her otherwise great book on the Toronto punk scene 1977-1983. (Treat Me Like Dirt). Maybe because I was in jail or in seclusion. Hee hee.