The Last Pogo Jumps Again

Freddy Pompeii, 1978;  photo courtesy Don Pyle. Watch for Don’s photo book coming soon.

Last weekend, while some of The Last Pogo Jumps Again crew were busy with Danny Fields (see blog below), another contingent were battling a day of rain on a roadtrip to Phillie to interview original Viletones guitarist Freddy Pompeii.

Viletone Chris Haight and his son, LPJA co-director/editor Kire Paputts, guided by the voice of Family Guy’s Stuey on the GPS, made their way to darkest, deepest Philadelphia to spend a couple of days with Freddy and ex-wife (and good pal) Margarita Passion.    Upbeat and candid, Freddy spoke about the origins of The Viletones, how fucking cool it was back in the late-seventies, and his own history of punk, from his days as a Toronto folkie to the The Viletones to The Secrets and finally to the heroin bust in Ottawa that sent him back to the States.  Now retired (punks retire?!) as a painter, Freddy battles his demons with a methadone program but the various trials and tribulations of his life as a rock star haven’t dampened his spirits, and with the Gift of Gab he’s always had, we got some great stuff from the esteemed Mr. Frederick De Pasquale.  And along with the stories, a tape of a never-much-before-seen TV appearance by The Secrets.  Boners!

Chris Haight, Margarita Passion and Freddy Pompeii;  photo Kire Paputts.

Along with his awesome musical accomplishments and stories (including learning how to play the electric guitar while a “…guest of the Provincial Government for a few months…”) Freddy and then wife Margarita Passion owned and operated the original Toronto punk clothes and music store New Rose.   Yesterday we went down to the site of New Rose, hooking up with long-lost prodigal son Michael Dent and Dave “Tank” Roberts, the most beloved of all bouncers, and close pal of Punk God Joey Ramone.  Just out of therapy for the new knees he got earlier this year, off the butts for two years now, and losing weight, Tank was the picture of health.  We were hoping for a tour of what once was New Rose.

Mike Dent across from the site of New Rose.

A TD Bank now takes up the space.  After greeting the Muslim manager with the standard Muslim greeting (”Assalamu alaikum, ,sister”), we told her that this was an historical musical site, and asked for permission to shoot Dave and Michael giving us a tour of what was where back when.  As expected, a call to headquarters was needed, and knowing we wouldn’t get word within an hour,  if at all, we went outside and around the corner to another historical musical site:  the house that Freddy and Margarita lived in in the late seventies. (Update:  we got a call today from the branch manager who gave us the thumbs up to come back and shoot inside.  Amazing!)

Dave “Tank” Roberts with new knees and pink lungs;  photo courtesy Mike Dent

“Hey, there’s gonna be a brass plaque here one day,” Brunton said to the two guys that walked out of the house after we’d set up the camera.  “This is where Freddy Pompeii and Margarita Passion lived!”   They were impressed.  Not.   “Yeah,” one of them said, “I’ve heard of The Viletones.  I’ll…I’ll google…the other people,” and they were gone.

“Y’know, they’re really should be a plaque here,” said Dave.  And Gary Topp should have an Order of Canada, and The Garys should be on the Canadian Walk of Fame (or whatever it’s called.  Brendan Fraser is there.  I repeat:  Brendan Fraser is on the Canada’s Walk of Fame.  Really!?)  There should be lifetime achievement awards to Teenage Head, a statue of Steven Leckie when he croaks, and tons more but whaddya do.

Dave and Michael told stories about hanging out there with Freddy and Margarita and dozens of others, drinking beer, playing records –  and how ex-Wild Things keyboardist Bill “The Count” Cork used to sleep in a coffin in the backyard, until the local health board told him it wasn’t, y’know, so healthy.

Kire Paputts with his weapon of choice;  photo courtesy Mike Dent.

After tales of the Freddy & Margarita estate, we set up across the street on the steps of a church to interview Michael Dent, sporting a T-shirt with his image and the word “Asshole” underneath.  But the Parliament and Queen area, having not completely succumbed to developers, gentrification, and a Starbucks and/or fitness centre on every corner, etc., is still refreshingly run down, and so are some of the locals.   We were distracted by a homeless couple who were intrigued by our fancy-ass camera and total tight-shitness.   And they were chatty!  The woman (who we’ll call Mary) explained that her boyfriend (who we’ll call Earl) was too shy to be on camera (Uh, wait a minute?  Are we going to be filming you guys?).  But Mary wasn’t shy.

“I was a straight-A student, I was a model, I was in theatre in school…I wanna get on the plane to Hollywood…”

Frankly, it wasn’t like our agenda for the day was exactly jam-fucking-packed, so why not let them play too?   We told them we’d give them a twenty each if they signed a release form, and that was it.  While Earl played with his kite, Mary tore into a wicked stream-of-consciousness thing, maybe a play, and then started singing The Good Ship Lollipop and other hits and plays and thoughts.  She’d pause only to ask us if we could send her to Hollywood.  And to complain that Earl wouldn’t marry her. “He’s scared of relationships,” she explained.

She asked us again if we could please just send the plane to Hollywood and why she and Earl were so disappointed at Ontario Place the night before.  “My fucking sister lives in a mansion in Nova Scotia and she couldn’t give us thirteen bucks to go to the show!  She lives in a mansion!“    She shifted into another jittery stream-of-consciousness blur on her old life (straight “A” student;  loved drama in high-school) her new life (mental illness; father in rest home), and what happened in-between (too many jobs; a nervous breakdown; getting meds)   Not wanting to be rude, but y’know, wanting to actually shoot something we could use in our movie, we gently tried to shoo them off.  We gave a five to a guy who was starting to hang out with us, and let another guy take one of our bottled waters.  They finally headed off down the street to a shelter for a meal.  But Mary wasn’t quite done;  she tried one more time.  She asked us again:  “Can you send me the plane to Hollywood?  Can you please send me the plane to Hollywood?”

View from a plane of the Hollywood sign.

It was heartbreaking and funny and what are you supposed to do? so we pulled out our cell phone, and speed-dialed Our People.  “Can you send the plane to Hollywood for us? (pause)  Oh. (pause)  Okay, what about a helicopter, then? (pause)  I see.” Mary watched eagerly;  Earl walked his bike and dragged his kite. “Too much cloud cover, eh?” we said to the dial tone.  We broke the news to her.  “Sorry, Mary, but they can’t send the plane to Hollywood today.  Maybe some other time, eh?”

Mary didn’t seem bummed out.  She’d probably already maxed out on let-downs, and she thanked us again for the cash. “Please show the movie to my Dad.  He’s at that rest home at Main and Danforth.”   Earl finally perked up.  “Hey, wanna see where I lived last winter?!” he asked brightly.  He pulled out a cell phone (yes, homeless people can have cell phones too, don’t freak out) and showed us a picture of a small wooden shelter, about four by six feet, covered in snow.  “It was all really good two-by-fours, it was warm.  I had a TV in it, and a surround sound stereo system, and a punk record on the wall, the one that was shaped like a heart?“  (Yes, homeless people can have surround-sound stereos too… wait a minute, wtf?!)   We finally told them we really had to get to work, and they went to the shelter for a meal.

The Last Pogo Jumps Again crew travel back in time to when Hollywood was cool.  There was no sighting of the Plane from Hollywood.

After waving goodbye to our new pals, we finally settled in to interview Michael Dent.  After fronting the punk-pioneering (i.e. they started when it all started) The Dents, the lure of cheap and good heroin drew Mike out to the Left Coast, Vancouver in particular, and downtown to be precise.   Three bad moves.    Just like Freddy, Mike eventually tired of the whole thing, enrolled himself in a methadone program, and moved across the Georgia Strait to the city of “the newly wed, and the nearly dead,” Victoria, B.C. Not quite as cool as The Kinks song of the same name, Michael earlier this year fully came to his senses, realized he was actually living in Victoria and packed up his stuff and moved back to Toronto.  He’s been clean for ten years.

Along with spoken word performances, photography, and a near obsession with Facebook, Michael’s gotten back into what he was doing back then: being a stage techy, and he recently re-hooked up with old pal Gary Topp and helped out at the Jonathon Richman show last week.  “Really, if it weren’t for The Garys, I wouldn’t be here today probably,” he said, and Dave Roberts agreed.  “The Garys were the best. Every year on my birthday, Gary Topp phones up and sings Happy Birthday to me.  Or else play it on his ukelele or whatever.”

In the first days of the “scene” in Toronto, apart from being a regular at Gary Topp’s Original 99 Cent Roxy and New Yorker Theatre and The Horseshoe, he made a living being a stage-tech, and started his band The Sneakers with some buds from high-school.   Booked to open for The Diodes at their Crash ‘n’ Burn club, he was surprised to see that another band called The Dents were actually opening.  “Who the fuck are The Dents?!  I thought we were opening?!,” Mike asked Diodes frontman Paul Robinson.  “Well, we didn’t like the name.  So you guys are The Dents now.“   And so it was.   Michael gave a lot of credit to Stephen Davies.  “He taught me how to write a rock ‘n’ roll song.”

Mike did stage duties for friend Nash the Slash, toured the States, went to a bazillion shows, and generally had the time of his life.   The Dents played all the clubs in Toronto:  The Horseshoe, the Crash ‘n’ Burn, David’s, The Turning Point.  The best gig ever?  Playing CBGB’s in NYC, thanks to friend Lydia Lunch.  And like so many kids in Toronto who went on to form their own bands, was at all three of the first Ramones gigs at the New Yorker Theatre, September 24 and 25, 1976.  “I was at Records on Wheels, and by the time I’d heard half of Blitzkrieg Bop, I’d bought the album and tickets to all three shows.”

Buy this book.

Angel Joey from distasteful ad for company who don’t deserve a credit.

Google Danny Fields if you don’t know the name.

After leaving Harvard Law School, he fell in with the Warhol crowd in NYC in the mid-sixties and shared an apartment with Edie Sedgwick.  He co-edited 16 Magazine, took lots of acid and was openly gay when it wasn’t fashionable.  He wrote the liner notes to the first live Velvet Underground album and managed Lou Reed.  He discovered The Doors and hated Jim Morrison, was a fan of The Grateful Dead but not their singing, and he discovered The Stooges and The MC5 and The Modern Lovers.  In the mid-seventies he found The Ramones.

In September ‘76 he managed The Ramones when The Garys brought them to the New Yorker Theatre in Toronto, arguably kick-starting the Toronto punk scene proper, putting the Punk in the punctuation mark that that gig represented.    Today, he generously parted an hour out of a busy day as a guest of NXNE to chat with us about what it was all about.   As you can imagine, The Last Pogo Jumps Again crew (that day comprised of Brunton, Fiander, and Mighty Joe Krumins) were looking forward to a solid interview.   Big thanks to Deb Rix of Flip Publicity for helping to arrange this;  thanks to the cocktail lounge staff who let us set up our lights, cameras, and action in their snazzy downstairs joint.

By the time we hooked up with Danny, he’d just been interviewed by something called AUX TV, and being a few minutes over-schedule, we only had about 45 minutes before Danny had to be interviewed by Warren Kinsella in front of an audience.    Danny jokingly asked where the hair and make-up department was, and wondered if we had time to smoke a joint outside before getting down to it.  (A friend of The Last Pogo Jumps Again had apparently met up with someone who knew a “pusher”, and supplied us with a couple of marijuana cigarettes (or “reefers”) and we handed them over to Danny, along with a complimentary Bic lighter emblazoned with a red Maple Leaf.   The light rain outside put the kibosh on any experimenting with recreational drugs, and so we trundled back downstairs, and were set to go.)

Danny watches Joey and Dee Dee with Mr. Bowie and two cute girls;  photographer unknown.

Director Brunton glanced over his scribbled notes, and DOP Richard Fiander fiddled with the camera and lights, heeding Danny’s advise to be shot from a higher angle.

“Everyone looks better if they’re shot from a higher angle,” he said. “I edited 16 Magazine, I should know.”   Joe set up his p.o.s. camera on a tight close-up, and we finally got rolling, the clock now ticking down to about a half-hour or so.

Danny was amiable and candid and in good spirits and looked really good for someone on the other side of 65, but after the first question (”Just start by telling us your name.”), it was clear that not only was Danny a living legend (see paragraph one), but he was also a low-talker. (Insert joke about puffy shirts here for any Seinfeld fans.)

“Can you tell us how the Ramones show at the New Yorker in ‘76 came about?” asked Brunton, and Danny went into a five minute monologue on…what we’ll never know until we actually digitize the interview and listen to it (thankfully, we had a lav mike hooked up, so the interview will be audible.)

Brunton, not knowing what Danny said, and too polite and/or meek to ask him to raise his voice a bit, inched his chair closer and continued with his prepared questions.  Problem number two:  Danny had a hard time remembering much of the New Yorker gig or our beloved and legendary promoters The Garys.   He seemed to think the first Ramones gig in Toronto was in “…the basement of an office building…” which sounded like the Crash ‘n’ Burn, but that didn’t open until the summer of ‘77.   It was an odd sort of moment for director Brunton;  those shows were so memorable, and seemed so…important.  When the Ramones second album came out, the New Yorker staff were thrilled to see Dee Dee sporting a New Yorker t-shirt;  working with Joey Ramone on the feature film Roadkill in the late eighties, Joey had loads of good memories of that weekend in Toronto in 1976.  But for Danny, not so much.

Joey Ramone and Colin Brunton on the set of Roadkill, 1989;  photo Tim Sebert.

We mined some gold, but as we said, we won’t really know until we can play it all back.   Danny Fields had lots of interesting stuff to say on the differences between audiences in NYC, Toronto, and London (“No difference, they were all the same.”);  the work ethic of The Ramones (”Johnny’s plan was to write a ton of songs, play for five years, and not have to work again.  Unfortunately, they never sold many records, and so they had to turn into The Grateful Dead.   They had to tour for twenty-five years.”)   He told us that Johnny Ramone thought the reason not many blacks were fans was because their music had nothing to do with the blues.  While the debate on what the roots of rock ‘n’ roll are is kinda age-old we were a little surprised to hear Danny proclaim “No one really likes Blues and Jazz.  If they say they do, they’re lying.”  He thought it was amusing that a “Jew fashion designer” — Malcolm McLaren — had so much to do with Punk.  “I’m a Jew too, so I can say that.”

It ended on a cheerful note, Joe getting Danny to autograph his copy of Legs McNeil’s “Please Kill Me” (“Dedicated to Danny Fields, forever the coolest guy in the room“.)   Fumbling for his glasses, one of the gift joints fell on the floor, and minutes later, trying to find a pen, the other reefer fell out of a top pocket.  It reminded Danny of when he got busted in Toronto by a lesbian Customs Officer (”They were so nice to me!“) and he had to retain Keith Richards‘ Toronto lawyer, the end result being not allowed to enter Canada for either four or seven years.

We had to split, and couldn’t stick around for the Kinsella interview but by all accounts a good time was had by all.  Once our gear is back from the States, we’ll get everything transferred and pop in some of Danny’s comments into the work-in-progress.

Until then, hey ho.

Coming soon: An account of Kire Paputt’s interview with Bob Segarini, as well as his road trip on Father’s Day with papa Chris Haight to Phillie to grill Freddy Pompeii.

Lance Charles channels the spirit of Groucho Marx.

We dialed up the Wayback machine to 1973, and in front of the decaying Roxy Theatre, at Greenwood and Danforth, just 246 giant steps from the Greenwood subway station in Toronto,  The Last Pogo Jumps Again directors Brunton and Paputts, along with new Pogo crew member Joe Krumins spent some time with David “Lance Charles” Glincman.

For those of you who remember The Original 99 Cent Roxy, you couldn’t forget Lance.   When Gary Topp ran the Roxy back in the early/mid seventies, Lance was one of the Roxy irregulars, another eccentric who hung out there and took in the music and movies.  The Roxy was one of the main seeds of the punk scene in Toronto, where people were turned on nightly to movies and music they’d never seen or heard before.  Along with a rep for being at the forefront of what we used to call the “underground”, (remember that?!) the Roxy was infamous for being the place in Toronto where it was cool to smoke dope and take psychedelics.   Add up those elements, and its no wonder Raving Mojos‘ frontman Blair Richard Martin called the Roxy “The place where I learned to be cool.”

Colin Brunton, Barack Obamas, and David Glincman in the Obama Cafe.

Like many of the artists and characters we’ve interviewed for this project over the past few years, Lance could not say enough about the cultural impact that Gary Topp has had on Toronto, citing the introduction to Toronto audiences of films like El Topo and Holy Mountain and Zachariah (which he has somehow found a DVD version of) and bands like The Police and The Ramones and on and on.  Clearly, Toronto wouldn’t be what it is now without the cultural guidance of Mr. Topp.

Back in those early seventies, whether it be an all-night movie marathon or a weekend night, 500+ stoned cinephiles would wait in a line-up that would snake around the corner, and they would often be entertained by Lance, with a fake nose and glasses, doing a manic imitation of Groucho Marx.  His audience, the line-up, would either react by crying with laughter — or screaming in anger.  And that’s pretty cool.   Lance would also introduce movies to the stoned audience:   bottles would fly, tears of laughter would drip to the sticky floor, and Lance would pop in and out from behind the glorious drapery that covered the screen.  There was nothing quite like being looped on organic mescaline and witnessing Lance in all his glory.

Lance kept up the friendship (although there was a brief ugly period when Roxy co-operator Jeff Silverman “banned” him from the theatre.  One night during the screening of a flick, the sound was interrupted by Jeff’s voice booming over the p.a. system:  “Lance Charles.  If Lance Charles is the audience, please leave the theatre now.  Lance Charles, please leave the theatre now.”   According to Lance, that momentary battle was won due to an intervention by Gary, and he stayed to enjoy the films.)  He hung out at Gary Topp’s next venue, The New Yorker and then the Horsehoe and after that The Edge.   These days Lance calls himself a journalist, and enjoys his apartment on the waterfront and going to the movies.  On the back of his business card it says:  “I use words and I don’t know what they mean.”

Invited by Gary Topp to be a guest emcee at The Last Pogo, Lance didn’t make it the first night (The Last Pogo), but did manage to make an appearance the second night (The Last Bound-up), and introduced Drastic Measures and his favourite band from the time The Everglades.   One of Lance’s proudest moments was when Stephen Davies and others from The Everglades came to watch Lance Charles Rocks perform at the old Cabana Room.

Today we spent a couple of hours with Lance, our lengthy interview broken up by a breakfast break at the Obama Cafe, and it appears as though Lance hasn’t changed a bit, albeit a bit…uh…stockier.  He told naughty stories, drifted off into wild tangents, and belted out an original tune  (“Hookers are a Loser’s Best Friend”) to the shock and/or amusement of passersby on the Danforth, and then sang a couple of more tunes in the restaurant during the breakfast break (and with the regular cook away for the day, worst breakfast ever!) He recounted seeing Breathless and Nash the Slash perform at the Roxy, counted Greg Godowitz and Bob Segarini as fans, and spoke of what it meant to be Lance Charles.

“I didn’t need drugs.  I was Lance Charles.  People would smoke lots of pot hoping to become like me, but there was only one Lance Charles.  Everyone wanted the Lance Charles vibe,” he told us.

One vivid memory director Colin Brunton had of Lance was being invited, along with Silverman and Topp, to see Lance Charles Rocks perform their first gig.  Specializing in performing for children, his debut gig was in front of a class of second-graders in a ritzy private school up near the ritzy Bridle Path.  Brunton recalls the band performing Bryan Ferry’s The In Crowd, Lance getting a few of the lyrics mixed up  (”Talking trash, making trash…”)

And for those of us who were big fans, at the tail-end of the interview, he donned his trademark fake nose and glasses and treated us to his imitation of Groucho.

Today’s interview was one of the most entertaining yet;  Lance has still got that supreme Lanceness, and for ten-minute stretches at a time, Brunton and Paputts were crying with laughter.   And let’s be clear:  if you were in on the joke, you were always laughing with Lance, not at him.   Toronto is a much richer place because of the likes of him.

New crew member Joe Krumins summed it up well:  “Wow.  I’ve sure never filmed anyone like that before.”

Coming next week: Roadtrip!   Kire Paputts and his father Chris Haight drive to Phillie to interview Toronto punk icon Freddy Pompeii on Father’s Day. Hey-o!

David Quinton of The Mods, June 6 ‘08;  photo by Jean Trivett

Hey, David, what’s up with that cool t-shirt?  David says, via his MySpace page:  “This T-shirt was made by me and my kids – the names of all my favourite drummers are printed all over the front! Ready? Here they are…see how many of their bands you can name (no cheating):

Aynsley Dunbar, Jerry Shirley, Keith Moon, Richard Starkey, Bev Bevan, Richard Hughes, Jim Fox, Kenny Jones, Gary McCracken, Rat Scabies, Clive Bunker, John Weathers, Jim Bonfanti, Mike Gibbins, Ginger Baker, Bun E Carlos, Neal Smith, Paul Thompson, Corky Laing, Mike Tucker, Paul Cook, Billa Ficca, John French, Prairie Prince, Ian Paice, Don Powell and Dale Griffin.”

Quite the list.  And who is conspicuous in their absense?  David Quinton, yo.

Greg Trinier of The Mods;  photo by Jean Trivett

Greg Dick of The Ugly, June 6 ‘08; photo by Jean Trivett

Another one of those great “we’re doing this ’cause it’s fun” gigs with The Mods and The Ugly at Sneaky Dee’s in Toronto last Saturday to a packed house of a couple of hundred.   And what the audience and fans of those two seminal Toronto bands know is that even back in the day they did it all for fun.  For sure everyone hoped for the proverbial fame and fortune, but it was — and still is — essentially all about the Art and Lifestyle and Teenage Kicks.

Yuppers.  Three years ago today we started shooting our feature documentary The Last Pogo Jumps Again.  We’ve amassed a hundred plus hours of interviews; secured yards of rare footage of the “never before seen” variety; and have jammed our external drives with tons ‘o’ jpgs.   We’ve captured a dozen or so sets of old-school bands from the back in the day, and watched as our hard-drive collapsed in a fit and die on the floor.  The Last Pogo Jumps Again survived, and will be released sometime when we’re about four or so.

Kire wearing the colours at the Berlin Wall

Co-director Kire Paputts is hard at it, piecing together all the stuff and trying to make sense (or not) of it.  Co-director Aldo Erdic is finding bits of time between shooting his own stuff to compile the many hours of footage he has, the goldmine being the pile of stuff he’s shot of Greg Dicks‘ interviews on CIUT-FM’s Equalizing Distort series:  Viletones, Ugly, Mods, Zero4, Teenage Head, and a screwy let’s-bail-before it gets any worse debacle with The Scenics.

Co-director Brunton is focusing on getting the last interviews, and flogging The Last Pogo dvd (only three cartons left people!  Hurry up and order already!)  We’re also trying to get our hands on some pretty awesome footage holed up in the archives of the CBC and MuchMusic;  stuff we’re sure you’ve seen on your Internet Machine — but that would be great to see, y’know, full screen and only second-generation.  At a hundred bucks a second, it’s a little intimidating, but we’re doing our best dripping honey in The Man’s ear, hoping to catch a break.

Make sure you hit The Ugly, The Mods, The Superstitions and DJ OPP tonight, and keep on keepin’ on.