The Last Pogo Jumps Again

Yes, “Final Reel One” notes.  Almost there.  After clearing the last film clip — The Government live performing Hemingway Hated Disco Music;  thanks John Anderson! — and getting confirmation on a song from Gideon’s Rainbow (I know!) we’ve got one or two more small things to settle (and we’re assured everything is fine) and then you can stick the proverbial fork in our collected asses and turn us over, because we are done!  Pack it up in a hard drive, send it over to Mixmaster Daniel Pellerin, and then hold our breath for a few weeks.  Of course, then Phase Two of the job will start as soon as its finished:  getting into festivals, figuring out the hows and whens of the eventual DVD release, and stuff like that.  But the hard part is almost over.

L to R:  Randy Tyrrell as Jean-Pierre, Colin Brunton as Wesley in The Mysterious Moon Men of Canada.

Meanwhile, co-director/producer Colin Brunton had one of his early films, The Mysterious Moon Men of Canada, shown on-line as part of Image Festival’s 25th Anniversary.  The mockumentary (or is it?!) about a filmmaker tracking down a couple of people who claim they flew to the moon in 1959, but because they were Canadian were too modest to tell anyone, had it’s worldly premiere at the Festival 25 years ago, and so it was asked back.  A cool soundtrack by Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, with another tune by The Gun Club’s Jeffrey Lee Pierce, the film is available on-line for your viewing pleasure at http://www.imagesfestival.com/ifpod?e_id=100&page_id=38&program_id=37.  Wheeee!

For lack of anything interesting to post — yea, we’re almost done, waiting on final approvals on one clip (c’mon John!), a final plea to one significant scenester and singer (c’mon JP!) and a couple of tunes with assurances everything is cool, man! — here’s a lovely piece written by our pal Gary Pig Gold, writer/editor of The Pig Paper (google it) about one of our very favourite people in the History Of The Universe.  Sure, we’re a little late, because the anniversary of the sad and premature death of Joey Ramone was a couple of weeks ago, but still.   The concert was the second time The Ramones played Toronto and The New Yorker (big thanks Garys Cormier and Topp), and yea — it was awesome, and it was 1977.  Opening act The Dead Boys were a bit late hitting the stage because they weren’t finished getting their blow jobs in the make-shift dressing room in the basement.  They ended up trashing it, which a few years ago begat insistent and heartfelt apologies from Dead Boy Cheetah Chrome (keep posting those anti-Republican Facebook posts Cheetah!) as we interviewed him at a Toronto cemetary.  Of course, both bands were great, and The Ramones… well, what can you say about The Ramones.  Okay, enough of that — take it away Gary…

Late one night in very late 1976, a singer acquaintance of mine burst into the (condemned) house I was then sharing with the local bar band, shouting “You will never believe what I just saw in Toronto tonight! These four guys with Brian Jones haircuts wearing drainpipe Levis, singing all these really fast, short songs. Lots of ‘em, too! And the best part? NO GUITAR SOLOS!”

Now, this being the absolute height of Frampton Comes Alive, it’s hard to completely fathom today the socio-musical import of that final kernel of information. But of course I was hooked, and the next time the Ramones landed in Canada, I made sure I was there.

The Dead Boys were opening: Sure, Stiv was alotta fun crawling over and across the drumkit during “Hey Little Girl,” but the headliners truly were, in every aspect of the words, The Real Thing. So I duly invited myself backstage to conduct their first interview on Canadian soil, and despite nearly getting bounced for taking a snap of Danny Fields writhing beneath a fridge in search of a runaway pencil, I was made to feel totally at home by the band’s deep-rooted, deep-seeded LOVE of all things Rock and especially Roll:

Johnny’s coming-of-age watching Elvis’ Ed Sullivan Show debut as a child, Dee Dee bemoaning the fact that it was hard getting the band going “coz rehearsal halls wouldn’t let us in, ya know,” and Joey. Dear, sweet Joey. He asked all about my record collection, claimed Peter Noone and Ronnie Spector as his two primary vocal idols, then wondered where a good place was to go see some local bands play later that night.

How utterly, disarmingly refreshing, to say the least!

So we drove the R. brothers straight over to Toronto’s Crash and Burn club to see Teenage Head throttle some old Eddie Cochran and Swinging Blue Jeans tunes, ran into Phil Lynott somehow lurking by the bar, then we all went out for some classic Canadian pizza slices (…mainly crust ‘n’ cheese, Tommy was complaining). Through it all, and then during subsequent fleetful meetings, Joey remained every inch the diehard, gentle man FAN of Our Music. And despite the fact that he and his bandmates literally Changed The World, I simply prefer to remember the man instead as nothing but the tallest, and needless to say coolest Herman’s Hermits fan I ever did meet.

Joey left us on April 15, 2001.

Gabba Gabba, wherever you are.

You can read all about Gary’s night with The Ramones in his very own Pig Paper:

Pig Paper #5

Here at Pogo H.Q. we’ve never had the opportunity to put an LP of Nickelback on the gramophone, so we’re not sure why they’ve become the butt of jokes and ire, etc., but with the general snobby disgust at them, we thought it fitting to play a little April Fool’s joke, and announce that he would be narrating our film.   Most of our closer pals got the joke, and then it was just a little embarrassing to inform others that sadly, no, Mr. Kroeger would not be involved with our project.  In any case, big news soon:  we’re about to start sound editing on the first half of our film, and getting set to apply to the Toronto International Film Festival for a big-ass red-carpet stars galore world premiere in September. (Geez, wait, i guess that was all the big news.  Yea.  We’ve got nothing.)

Steven Leckie‘s main squeeze, Viva Viletone, thought having Kroeger narrate would be a canny move worthy of McLaren at this best.

We just got word late last night that Nickleback’s Chad Kroeger will be narrating our punk rock marathonic (that’s gotta be a real word, right?) feature The Last Pogo Jumps Again:  A Biased And Incomplete History Of Toronto, Hamilton and London Ontario Punk Rock And New Wave Music Circa September 24 1976 To December 1 1978.    Chad will hit the recording booth in about a month, once we get our final sound edit done.

Producer/director Brunton has a bucket of fake blood ready on the feature film The Colony.

Long time, no post.  But its not like we’re not doing anything;  we’re just waiting.  Patiently.  For some music rights issues to clear up and then we’re back on it like stink.   Start sound edit in weeks;  sound mix in weekers.  Boner!

Still from Producer/Director Paputts’ short film Rainbow Connection.

Meanwhile, back in Reality:  While producer/director Colin Brunton makes a few bucks and toils away in north Ontario on the $16m feature The Colony (with Laurence Fishbourne, Kevin Zegers and Bill Paxton, yo!) the other producer/director on The Last Pogo Jumps Again, Kire Paputts, is making no bucks working on the edit for his newest short film, the no-budget Rainbow Connection, shot on glorious VHS.   (The Colony is about cannibalistic feral humans trying to kill and eat survivors of a post-apocalyptic ice-age;  Rainbow Connection is about a teenager with Down’s Syndrome trying to get his shit together.)

Wow.  That’s all we’ve got.