The Last Pogo Jumps Again

In a rare shoot east of the Don River, the line that used to divide “Toronto the Good” from … well … The East End, the Pogo Mobile Unit motored the fleet to the funky abode of Denis “Fast Eddie” Smith, “photographer of the near-famous”, official stills photographer of that up-coming feature / dvd The Last Pogo Jumps Again, excellent cook, and one of the original gang that were into that thing called Punk Rock back in 1976 and so on and so forth. We chatted with Eddie while he masterfully cooked up a batch of…uh…something really awesome looking with rice and mushrooms and stuff, and it was kind of like a cooking show, except he had a glass of wine in his hand and was sporting skull sweater hand-knitted by one of the ex-Ms. Stephen Leckies. After finishing up his chef duties, Eddie escorted us to the living room, where showed us some of the nasty studded leather thingies he used to wear back in the day, as well as the screaming red fringed jacket that once belonged to wife Karen, and now belongs to them both. Aaaahhhh… Eddie even had the nerve to take a shot at putting on his old leather jacket, bought at Stephen Leckie’s clothing store after months of haggling And he wore it well.

Eddie’s dog, Tasha, pretty blind, totally deaf, really arthritic, tumbled around us, looking all of her seventeen years, bumping into lights and getting tangled up in the tripod. Westminister Dog Show 2009 here we come!

Charming and candid is how the best interviewees are, and Eddie didn’t disappoint, recalling clutches of moments with Roger and Wayne and Tank and Leckie and more. Some talk of getting trashed, but no trash talker he, and it was all good. Many great punk moments: helping flip a cop car over at the infamous John and King speak bust way back when; saw the Clash when he was a long-hair in England in ’76; barely remembers the 1978 New Year’s Eve show with The Ugly in ’78; watched a smacked-out Johnny Thunders fall off the stage at the Peppermint Lounge; and has the dubious distinction of being taking on the Cherry Beach Express, after falsely being accused of vandalism. (If you’re not from Toronto, the Cherry Beach Express was the long and tense ride the Toronto police would infamously take what — criminals? vagrants? anyone they didn’t like? — to a then deserted dark part of the lakeshore, Cherry Beach, and proceed to kick the shit out of them.)

Check out some of Eddie’s pics at his Myspace site. Right…about…here.

Father and son filmmaking team Colin and Ollie Brunton ventured out to the wilds of the Kingsway area, and paid a visit to Gail and Randy Johnston. Colin and Randy knew each other from way back, and after reminiscing about the days at the Original 99 Cent Roxy — they compared notes on the Breathless concert (Gary Topp — was that the first concert you promoted?) as well as maybe the first appearance by our pal Nash the Slash, who performed a live soundtrack to the Dali/Bunuel classic Un Chien Andalou to an audience of 500 stoners at the Roxy. We both agreed that Nash made the audience understand the movie better, no mean feat ye masked man.

The history continued when Randy got a gig at Records on Wheels, just a few strides south of the New Yorker Theatre, that Gary Topp ran with Jeff Silverman, and where he met Gary Cormier (who was brought in to fix up the snack bar; and the rest, as they say, is etc.). For the first year at the New Yorker the manager was Mr. The Slash and the assistant manager was Mr. Brunton. Nash left after a year to pursue his tunes; Brunton stuck it out and followed (by now) The Garys off to the Horseshoe. And Randy worked at Records on Wheels, one of only a couple of record stores who had the coolest albums; where the Ramones visited on that great September weekend in ’76, and where Randy watched a young Steven Leckie transform from a glitter-kid to his persona “Nazi Dog” in the Viletones. We’d tell you more, but y’now — ya gotta wait for the movie.

Gotta say, this was one of the easiest and most enjoyable of all the interviews to date, and not just because Randy gave Colin a Scenics button (yes, Randy was yet another of the fiercely loyal Scenics fans) and a bootleg of the first Toronto Ramones gig, and an original newspaper clipping from the Star showing the premiere of The Last Pogo movie. It was just easy talk, and Randy was full of great insights, even when we asked him the annoyingly obvious question “What was punk rock?”. He brought back memories of The Lance Charles Experience (and if you don’t know Lance, then you just don’t know, baby). And he recalled vividly the day Topp called him and told him about The Last Pogo. And if that weren’t enough, he turned the Pogo R & D team on to a couple of awesome connections, and is helping track down a few more missing pieces of the puzzle.

After the interview proper, we went down to the basement, jam-packed with vinyl and cds and dvds and a Jughead action-figure and a washer and a dryer. We took the opportunity to clean our undies, pay our respects to Jughead (the original punk!) then went back upstairs where Randy played some of Hydraulic Chaos, the two-piece “noise” band he had in the ’80′s. Pal Nash the Slash told him back in the day: “You guys could strip the paint off of a car with that sound”. We’ll leave it up to you, dear reader, to decide if that was a compliment or not. We’re not saying.

And if you’re in the market for any decent punk/new-wave (or other) music memorabilia, Randy and Gail’s company, Molten Core, is where to go. So — ya go here.

The big fire on historic Queen Street West, a few blocks from everywhere punk 1976, destroyed a couple of Toronto’s more beloved vendors, especially Duke’s Bicycle (almost 100 years old), a family business that bore witness to the changes Queen Street West has gone through in the past several decades, from low-rent to punk-rock to trendy and gentrified. Sadly beautiful, burned-out buildings smothered in ice, exhausted firefighters keeping watch, the whole mess seemed like an apt metaphor for the demise of a street whose vibrancy and colour hangs like a thread. The Pogo mobile unit shot some footage last night, and might go down today to watch them tear it down. And perhaps catch a shot of greedhead developers licking their reptilian lips at the prospect of hot property.

Prior to that, Brunton’s Ollie and Colin paid a visit to journalist Liz Worth in her spacious loft (tiny apartment) in Kensington to catch up on the progress of her book about punk rock Toronto/Hamilton/London. A thousand pages piled eight inches high are the results of near daily work for the past couple of years. Now in the hands of a prospective publisher, Liz hopes that her massive tome hits the stores this June. (Tentative title: Harry Potter and the Invasion of the Punks).

So first one of the original scenesters from Toronto punk 1976 calls us and cancels the interview: apparently there’s some sort of pastry emergency he has to deal with (!). We try someone else, and they’ve got to go to the opera. The opera, I tell ya!

But the day is saved by Zero from Zro4 (and the infamous “404″ speak she ran with Gambi Bowker), and the Pogo crew ventures to the west end for the session. We spent about an hour shooting old photos, album covers and picture sleeves from 45′s that she’d collected over the years, while her son — aspiring actor Dylan Miles — pounded away on the computer, creating some animation. Lots of photos of Zro4 of course, but also great pics of Teenage Head, The Viletones, John Hamilton and many many more, including a recent acquisition: a guitar pick from the Dead Boys’ Cheetah Chrome for her son, with the dedication: Keep Practicing! As we left, our armed guard presented Zero with a pristine copy of The Last Pogo, and by the time our convoy got back to Pogo HQ in the Borough Formerly Known As East York (BFKAEY), Zero had identified a number of people we’ve had a hard time tracking down. Apart from fronting a way-fun band way back when, Zero is quite the fountain of information, and if it weren’t for the support we get from people like her, this project would be dead in the water.

Adding a contemporary take on “old school” punk, Pogo HQ got in touch with Jonas and Damien from Fucked Up who promise an interview once they get back from their current road trip. Jonas gushed about the original bands from The Last Pogo (Scenics, Cardboard Brains, Mods, Secrets, Ugly, Viletones and Teenage Head) and admitted they had yet another bootleg copy of The Last Pogo. We immediately phone the police.

Got some clues and hints of cool and worthy filming opportunities from David Quinton of The Mods and Cleave Anderson of The Screwed, and ex-every band you ever heard of. And The Scenics continue to rack up terrific reviews for their new cd, “How does it feel to be loved: The Scenics play the Velvet Underground”; today there was a nice three star review in the chain of Sun newspapers across Canada.

Pogo HQ thought about the massacre of the Donnellys yesterday (Dec 4, 1880), got over it, and then got back into it. Barry Farrell ex of The Toyz and The Existers (and currently in Babyoil) sent us the above handbill and photo. Barry’s got some great stories from the 1976 – 1978 period, so we’ll be going for beers with him soon. And then, y’know, we’ll film him. And then more filming. Meantime, rather than cribbing all his notes, you can go to the Babyoil website and find out what happened to the original Babyoil (Stephen Hall) and the history of the bands Barry was in. Here’s the site.

Journalist Bryen Dunn is going full-steam ahead on coverage of the making of THE LAST POGO JUMPS AGAIN, so pretty soon, you can find out even more of what we’re up to in the Toronto Star and Eye Weekly.

Quebec filmmaker Chester LeBeaux heard a rumour that his video for The Scenics (see above) may have been accepted into the NXNE festival in Toronto this summer. And if the Scenics can get in, good times all ’round. You can find out more about Chester at his Myspace site right about here, and all the late breaking news on the Scenics right around here. Look for the Scenics to hit Toronto this April for a few gigs — and maybe some new music as well.