The Last Pogo Jumps Again

But not if the Sex Pistols have anything to do with it, because they’ve just begun to market their own brand of uni-sex perfume.   We’re really not sure what to say here.

Okay, we admit it:  we stole the “dead vibrations” line from Globe & Mail writer J.D. Considine who used it for an article about Beach Boy Brian Wilson’s new album of Gershwin covers.

As the dog days of summer roll on, Pogo H.Q. continues on with The Last Pogo Jumps Again, despite the recent set backs of getting turned down for funding from a couple of Arts Councils.   Mwaah!  So we continue to interview and edit, with a stiff upper lip and our heads to the grindstone.  No slouches us, we’re doing other stuff too:  Animal Control, the short film written and directed by LPJA co-director Kire Paputts and Exec Produced by LPJA co-director Colin Brunton, has been invited to the Toronto International Film Festival.  Grouped with some other short films, Animal Control will screen on September 15th at 9:00 at the new and swanky Bell Lightbox, and on September 17th at 2:45 at Jackman Hall at the Art Gallery of Ontario. 

Counter culture doesn’t mean mould and fungus in the kitchen.

As Pogo H.Q. gets the equipment readied and the Pogomobile (today a streetcar) revved up and ready for an interview with filmmaker Ron Mann,  a younger head in the R & R Division wasn’t sure what we meant by “counter-culture“, a phrase that popped off our list of questions.   According to Wikipedia (so you know it’s true):  Counterculture (also written counter-culture) is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day,^[1] the cultural equivalent of political opposition. It is a neologism attributed to Theodore Roszak.

Whoa, hundred dollar words!   In short, its what the truest of the Bohemians and Beats and Hippies embodied.  And the Punks too.  It was also called “the underground,” and one of our questions for Ron today was this:  “Is there such a thing anymore?”

We’re not sure if there is, and we actually hope that we’re a bit too old and out of touch to have caught on to some exciting alternate culture that is thriving.  Somewhere.  But in this instant-access digital world, we sadly think there isn’t.  And that’s bad.  There are cliques of computer hackers, and within those groups, anarchistic freaks like the fictional character Lisbeth Salander.  But in even envisioning Lisbeth as part of what might be termed “the underground”, the fact that her character has been exposed to tens of millions of readers kind of takes the counter out of the culture.   (To be fair, for a good list of interesting/alternative/obscure stuff, you can’t do worse than check out writer Warren Ellis‘ blog;  click the link on the right.)

Back in the mid-seventies in Toronto there sure was.  News could be gleaned from Guerilla magazine, the weekly newspaper.  You could fearlessly smoke a joint walking down Yonge Street, especially on a Sunday when it was a ghost town.    Even crazier, you could purchase amanita muscaria (’shrooms) at several health food stores before the cops threatened the wrath of health and fire inspectors.   Cinecity on Yonge Street started (at Gary Topp’s suggestion) showing midnight movies.   Gary Topp then started The Original 99 Cent Roxy, the rep movie theatre that promoted an eclectic line-up of films, and where filmmaker Ron Mann may have been inspired to become a filmmaker.

Famous frame from Un Chien Andalou, a favourite at the Roxy

Equally entertained by B Movies like Truck Stop Women and Russ Meyers’ films, and educated by filmmakers like Emile De Antonio (a counter-culture filmmaker if there ever was one), Ron soaked it all in, and began a rebel career that exists to this day, always looking decidedly to the left of things, producing and directing films like Comic Book Confidential, Grass, Imagine the Sound, Poetry in Motion, Go Further,  and lately a doc about Margaret Atwood’s green slant promoting her latest book In The Year Of The Flood (the film is called In The Wake Of The Flood.)   Check out stuff about Ron and his company on the link on the right.

Random shot of an asshole.  There’s no crying in Punk Rock.

You win some, you lose some.  Yesterday the staff and crew at Pogo H.Q. were sadly shocked to discover that the Canada Arts Council have decided not to give us a few sheckles to finish our epic documentary, The Last Pogo Jumps Again:  A Biased And Incomplete History Of Toronto Punk Rock And New Wave Music Circa September 24 1976 To December 1 1978.  C’est la guerre.

We soldier on, mofos.

Not a shock really — it’s highly competitive, and for all the artists in our country we should be glad that the Arts Councils exist, period.  But still.   (Note to our non-Canadian friends: Yup, we sometimes get free money from the government to make art!;  nope, we’ve never heard anyone pronounce “about” as “aboot”; and yes, we will say “Sorry!” if someone bumps into us.)

After the initial shock wore off, we called the main administrator of the Media Arts Program to find out wtf.  And felt better afterwards.  In our true inimitable Canadian fashion, we thanked them. ( “Hey, thanks for turning us down!  You rock!”)  By all accounts the jury thought the project was “fascinating” and “full of passion” and a “great oral history” although they “took pause at the notion it was going to be five hours long.“   The bottom line is simply that there just isn’t enough money to pass around, especially in the film and video section.  The good news was that they’ve told us we can re-apply in October (something they didn’t allow you to do before;  if you got rejected for a project, you had to dream up something new for the next round) and so the secretary pool is chat-chat-chat-chat-chat-chattering away and busily downloading new applications.  But like John Cleese said in the film Clockwise “It’s not the despair that kills me, its the hope.”

Its easy to bitch about this, but that’s for suckers.  Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.

Anywhere, Saskatchewan.

Co-director Colin Brunton is holed up for a month in an hotel in Regina, Saskatchewan meticulously grinding through the current six-hour cut (!) of The Last Pogo Jumps Again:  A Biased And Incomplete History Of Toronto Punk Rock And New Wave Music Circa September 24 1976 To December 1 1978, while counterpart and co-director Kire Paputts is living large in lurid Las Vegas with lady friend Liz Worth. (Wow! So many ells!)

Drunk photography, Las Vegas, Nevada.

While Kire takes a breather from what seems to be a never-ending quest to interview everybody who was part of the Toronto/Hamilton/London, Ontario punk/new-wave/alternate music scene slash this slash that, Brunton is alternately guzzling tap water and ordering room service, determined not to glimpse the light of day this weekend, scheming up plans for a couple of hired-gun TV series this fall, catching up on some reading (Jack Reacher rules!) and trying to stick to his Toronto body clock, which means hitting the sack at ten and getting up at six.  It almost makes him feel like he should go jogging or something, but that ain’t gonna happen.   And frankly, the sight of a 55 year old man with a Viletones t-shirt huffing down past the endless big box stores of Regina is not something you’d want engrained in your memory.   With fourteen fourteen hour days of location shooting on a TV series looming, quick evenings are devoted to making notes on the edit, and whittling down the list of Those Who Still Need To Be Interviewed.  Yes, there’s still a few more.   Hey — we want this to be complete, okay?!

Last week Kire hit London Ontario and chatted with NFG frontman Scott “Steve R Stunning” Bentley, who talked about forming NFG in late ‘78 (therefore fitting into to our strict timeline) and getting a couple of opening gigs for that other band in London, The Demics.   During the shoot, they ran into Mike Niderman (sp?), who pretty much got The Demics started by convincing them to play their first gig at his loft in 1977.

Torme, not Torment.

That evening Kire set up shop at the apartment of Joey Hardin, former spiritual advisor to The Swollen Members, where he interviewed Joey and SM lead-singer Evan Siegel, a.k.a. Mel Torment, a pseudonym we’ve just discovered that John Lennon used once.   Joey slipped on his thirty-year-plus old leisure suit and demonstrated a few dance moves, and he and Evan cracked wise for a couple of hours.  In a way, The Swollen Members are a big part of why we’re taking so fucking long to make this movie.  Yea, there’s the thing about doing this on weekends, and agonizing over people’s schedules, and convincing others that they are Completely Worthy and are necessary to tell this story.  And this all costs money, yo, so some of us have to work to buy tapes and gas and transfer grainy footage and rent cars and buy lunches and all the other things that go into making a feature film project.  But what has always bugged us here at Pogo H.Q. is that when people think of “Toronto Punk”, they immediately think Viletones Curse Diodes Teenage Head Mods Poles Dents, and you fill in your personal blanks.  There was so much more.  And bands like Swollen Members just seem to be forgotten.   And they shouldn’t be.  They were audacious and awesome and alarming and always, always antertaining (wow! so many ays!)

And speaking of alarming and audacious and awesome, more respect yo, for The Scenics.  For those of you who are into porn, but are scared to buy real porn, and instead buy those “Man’s Magazines” that are, well, mostly soft-core porn — check out the latest issue of UMM (Urban Male Magazine — sorry guys in rural areas, you can’t relate apparently), and you’ll see a tasty review of The Scenics’ 2010 release Sunshine World.  They said this:  “One of Canada’s unsung heroes of first-gen punk, The Scenics reacted to slinky art-rock made popular by New York acts such as Television, The Velvet Underground, and other Warhol-esque colleagues. However, with their sublime understanding of pushing boundaries without sacrificing grooves, their low-fidelity creations are exercises in tight, post-garage accomplishments.
Celebrated on this first ever compilation of their studio works, Sunshine World provides another case in point as to why The Scenics deserve merit for being as innovative as they were- (and now are, given their reunion)- impressive.” Whoo-eee!

Monday, Kire was back in London to talk to Dan Hamilton and get some more insight into the scene in London, Ontario, and will be back again to chat with Mr. Niderman.  Okay, gotta run.