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Biography

Paul Cherwonick first started playing in 1987 after a friend named Tom Berube ( "4 Holy Fools" ) showed him how to play Guitar and asked him to join his high school band Nihalism. The style was a mixture of hard Rock and Punk. The group often played for friends every lunch hour in Tom's garage which was not far from St Ignatius High School where they all attended. Arek Wojciechowski and Kevin McParland( "Indecision" , "Waiting For Dave" ) were the Drums and Bass and Tom and Paul played Guitar. Mike Nicolic was the hard core Punk singer and every member at the time had a mohawk exept Paul who had hippie hair. Wanting a change in style Paul left.

That same year Paul teamed up with Daimon Corston (local writer and socialite) and together formed the Plastic Yups. The "Yups" were basically a mesh of Folk and Punk played with one guitar and two vocals. Arek Chamski joined the duo in 1988. After Daimen's departure in 1989 the two changed the name to Memorandom.

In 1991 Paul & Arek C on a spur of the moment, decided to walk into "Colosimo's Music" and rent the basic equipment necessary to produce an album of their original songs, some of which had dated back to Paul's "Nihalism" days. At the store they decided to call Arek W to borrow his drums, he said sure and offerd to play on the album as well.

Soon after sessions started in Paul's music room (the drums were in the laundry room) Tom B showed up guitar in hand (after a call from Arek W) and recorded some brilliant guitar work. In itself Tom's guitar sound on the tracks instantly transformed the folk songs sound into alterative rock.

The album was recorded, mixed, & mastered in 3 days and later that month (march '91) released on Paul & Arek's PA System Records label which was formed just for that purpose. The album was available in most local music stores, copies were given away to thrift stores, junk shops, several musican friends and schoolmates. Promo copies were sent to underground alternative music magazines who only had good things to say about the retro sounding release. It was through one of these mags ( "Rock On" ) that Paul met some people who were working on a simuliar project.

In 1992 Eddie Doran's band "The Rubber Dinosaurs" (at that time including "Craig Carmichael" ) were almost done their debut album "Godzilla v.s The Rubber Dinosaurs". It had been in the works since the summer of 1990 and had suffered several hardships (session no-shows etc). Andy Wolff (who had just released his debut album "Hippie Kind of Dream") was asked to help out with the sessions and get the album done. Drummer Luke Maloney ("Wanted", "The Shifters") was brought in along with Tyler Yarema ("Spoonful") and others. After hearing some rough Psychotic Orange Bushes demos, Paul offered to fill Eddie's need for a bassist and Eddie was not only warm to the idea but he even wrote a few songs for Paul to sing. The album was completed a short time later.

Now involved with two studio bands Paul found he was always working on one album or another. "The Rubber Dinosaurs" were now starting to get international airplays on the radio and their albums were entering several indie music charts. "Memorandom" was still active at this time and still Paul managed to produce and with Arek C play on the second album for "Job Tips From The Dead" at the request of Mike Guerin(" The Dinks ", "The Violet Hour " , " Bleak Records " ).

Mike Guerin, along with Tom Berube joined "The Rubber Dinosaurs" at this time and a fairly large musical family was starting to develop. As a result of this Paul also got involved with Mikes new band "Stealing Food". Paul played Bass on the groups second album recorded during a multi band Punk show at the "North End Recreational Center".

For the next few years Paul kept himself busy with "Memorandom" & "The Rubber Dinosaurs" involving himself in the release of several albums by these groups. It was also at this time that Paul, Arek, & friends started making several short video productions including "The Letter", "The downside to the High Life", "Coffie Break", among others. Paul's song "Christmas Day" was instantly played on CBC Radio's nightlines around Christmas 1994 + David Wisdom even refered to the band as "those fabulous lads from the lakehead - The Rubber Dinosaurs".

Paul also recorded a few bass parts with another band which was formed during the fall of 1996, called "Steve Zodiac And The Fireballs " with Eddie Doran, Mike Guerin, + Stan Bartczak (Local Painter/Musican). The band was also to include Rick Baran ( "The Merriday Park", "Ticket", "Carol Baker Band", "Jerry Palmer Band" etc... ) but Rick ended up not being involved in the project 'till well after the band had been abandoned for the most part. Though he and his cousin Stan would later record a whack of great covers of old Animals and Rolling Stones songs which were added to some "posthumous" type CD releases. The Steve Zodiac + The Fireballs CD project was short lived & resulted in about 16 demos being produced without the finished CD ever being recorded, but several songs were salvaged from the sessions and finished up as Rubber Dinosaurs songs + later issued on the Rebel Without A Porsche CD, which reached #1 on the C.I.U.T. Top 40 (a Toronto radio station with 8 million listeners) during the summer of 2003. This releases even managed to crack the national top 200 charts at #49 during august that same year, making it the 25th most played Canadian release of that summer.

In 1997 Trevor Kelly became Memorandom's new drummer and Shawn Cannon joined as a second front man with original songs to contribute. The four started rehearsals and recording for a new album called "St Anthony's Fire". Part way through the sessions Trevor had to bow out of the project. Mike Guerin returned to record and finally Dan Lessy filled the drum role. The group with Dan shot two short films during this period ( "Inside Memorandom" & "Sunday Night 8:00pm"). After completing the album and putting it straight in the can Paul and Arek decided to abandoned the "Memorandom" thing and "The Old Dawson Trail Blues Band" was formed around Gary Godere with Arek C on bass and Paul on drums. The band played several open stages and appeared at "The Apollo" for every open stage the first year and several live shows since. "Old Dawson Trail" also played several shows around town at places such as "The Sunshine Tavern", "The Wayland", "Sunnys Cavern", "Eddie M's birthday", "The Anchorage Lounge", "The Office", "Armanis", "Kilroys", "The Stanley Tavern", and also continued to make appearences at several open jams in places like "Pier 61", "Bunnys", "Newfies Pub", "Silverados" and many more. A live album was released on "Hometown Records" and several recording sessions were produced by Paul for future release.

In the fall of 1998 Paul was also involved in a series of rehearsals for a proposed summer tour with The Rubber Dinosaurs - offered through Multi-Media Entertainment. Even though great money and perks were offered, things didn't work out and the band was unable to commit to the tour in the long run.

In 2001 Paul was wanting to play guitar and sing again after playing bass and recording five songs with the local group "The Sweet Yeasties" which included Pat Marion ( "Zombie Wolf" , "Simpletones" ) and his girlfriend Nancy who was a brilliant fiddle player and guitarist. The group had a folk/old country music feel and had made several public appearences. The trio was a truly original act complete with an accordian played by the drummer and 3 vocals. After that experience Paul soon joined the already existing "Resinators" and still plays regularly with that group.

In 2003 Paul and Arek joined John Morris( "Headstalk" ), Ronnie Sparks (" Barefoot ")and church organist Hilla Lahtinen in forming "The Moonpeople". The bands headquarters were located in the old "Academy of Musical Arts" studio on Victoria Avenue in downtown Fort William. Paul set up 2 tape machines from the 1960's and with a 4 track mixer the band started recording. They called the studio the "Jamshack". Together The Moonpeople played several times at "The Apollo", "The Brown Street Station", and "Newfies Pub". An album was made for "Hometown Records" with live tracks recorded at "The Apollo" and sessions from the "Jamshack". The disk was called "Thoughts!" Paul produced it. At around the same time Paul & Arek with Trevor Kelly ( " Memorandom " ), Scott Chasty and an old time local country singer named Jean briefly played a country music festival as the newly formed "Country At Heart". It was worth a picture in the paper and a chance for Paul to sing "Jambalya" for a large group of local country & western fans.

While still playing, Paul as a side project. He has aquired many master recordings from different local acts dating back to the 1940's such as "Maurice Jackons All Girl Orchestra (featuring Harvy Smythe)", "Louis and Jimmy Amadeo", "The Stan Onski Orchestra", among others. Through doing this he has re-introduced some of the oldest living local musicians to their long lost recordings. Once he has restored all of the recordings he plans on issuing a local 1940's compilation album. Although Paul owns the copyright to all the recordings, the project is facing legal problems in the way of song clearances. A present release date is not in the near future but it will someday be out on "Hometown Records".

Most recently Paul has been working on a new album with "The Resinators" and the first single has now been released, it's called "Here We Go Again".

E-MAIL - paulcherwonick@yahoo.ca

Discograpy

see:"The Resinators" , "Memorandom" , "Job Tips From The Dead" , "Stealing Food" , "Steve Zodiac And The Fireballs" , "The Rubber Dinosaurs" , "The Moonpeople" , "The Old Dawson Trail Blues Band" & "PA System Records".

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