The Last Pogo Jumps Again

Freddy Pompeii with The Secrets at The Last Pogo, December 1st, 1978.  Photo copyright Edie Stiener.

Rock-steady crew member Ollie Brunton partied away his 16th birthday at Pogo H.Q.,  and the monopolization of all TV, Internet, and munchies for the evening allowed director Colin Brunton to go through some of the DVDs and tapes he’s been given over the past few years.   Short films by Suzanne Naughton and Bruce Pirrie;   hours of tape of The Viletones;   super-8 footage of The Last Pogo;  two live recordings of the show;  a treasure trove of photos by the likes of Edie Steiner, Don Pyle, Patrick Cummins and more;  and on and on and on.

With the big 30th Anniversary show of The Last Pogo coming up in November (more on that later), we’re scheduling the last of the footage we need to get to complete principal photography (since June 2006), and getting deeper into the editing.   Oddly, it’s awesome how well Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass‘ Spanish Flea works under some scenes.    All in all, it’s terrifically encouraging, and we’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, etc.  And we’ve said this before, but all you people out there who we’ve said we’d interview, we’re still on it.

The Pogomobile got a call at 9:30 sharp this morning from a wide-awake and up-beat Steven Leckie, who is clearly excited about The 30th Anniversary show at the Horseshoe this November.   He’s closing the books on The Viletones finally and forever, a name that’s been around off and on since 1977, and is all set to unleash The Steven Leckie Solution.  “People are gonna remember this show the rest of their lives,” he enthused.   And Steven had other news too:  he’s been included in the recording of a tribute album to The Band, Steven joining ranks with fellow musicians like Leonard Cohen and Gordon Lightfoot.  He got a shot of Band keyboardist genius Garth Hudson holding up a Viletones album.

As we get set to release The Last Pogo DVD, we’re about to get some nice press from the U.S.:  Vice, Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll, Alternative Press,  Austin Chronicle.

And finally, word will get out soon about the big 30th Last Pogo Anniversary at the original scene of the crime, the Horseshoe Tavern, at the end of November.  We’ve already heard from people who’re coming in from London, England and at least one person from Italy (!)  It’s sure to be a great show, and everyone involved to date are made up of a bunch of people who’ve in their own way, never given up the ghost of 1978.   The Scenics, The Mods, the aforementioned Steven Leckie, and The Ugly, with Greg Dick replacing the late, great Mike Nightmare, rumours of possible appearances by The Forgotten Rebels‘ Mickey DeSadest and special guests TBA.

Brain full.  Must go.

We’re well into editing The Last Pogo Jumps Again, getting set to release the original film — The Last Pogo – on October 14th, and taking advantage of being between paying gigs, ’cause there’s so much to do, so little time, etc.

If you’re a hip Texan or an ex-rock star from the seventies, you might know the name Margaret Moser.  A former groupie (part of a trio of babes called The Texas Blondes), and now an excellent writer for the Austin Weekly, Margaret got an advance copy of The Last Pogo, and blogged nice things about it, like this:  “By splicing the crude concert footage with a pastiche of interviews, director Colin Brunton neatly captured the sneer and swagger of 30-year-old punk without snickering or jabbing you in the ribs. The beauty of The Last Pogo is that it is Everypunk’s story. Skinny ties, nerdy lead singers, angry young men, short songs with sharp chords. The brief interviews reveal bursts of enthusiasm, passionate, ideological beliefs, plus the usual in-fighting between bands.”

When director Brunton made The Last Pogo thirty years ago, his other gig was driving cab — and making handbills for the shows at the Horseshoe.   With the 30th anniversary gig of The Last Pogo up in late November, Mods drummer and ace lawyer David Quinton thought it would be cute to get Brunton to do the handbill for the occassion.  So apart from dumpster diving, Brunton is trying to find old letraset, glue, and scissors to do an old-skool handbill.   It would just be cheating if he went with Photoshop or something.

Out of over 200 hours of footage, we’ve so far strung together a solid eight minutes of the opening of the new film, and we think it’s pretty entertaining.   Yea, I know, eight minutes doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a really good start.  Using the original movie as the spine, it’s pretty shocking to do a fancy cross-dissolve between “now and then” shots of the likes of the gang that used to hang back in the day.   But the best part, we think, is just how great the music holds up.   We’ve been lucky enough to amass a pile of archival footage and stills, and tons of old tapes, and we’re pretty pumped to show off what we had going to the World At Large, come sometime in 2009.   Keep those cards and letters coming in folks!  As well as the stills, the lost footage, and tales of hope and glory.

Check out http://www.geocities.com/urotsukidoji_1/ugly.html for more Ugly stuff

And the hits just keep on comin’.   For anyone new to this site, you should know that for the past couple of years in Toronto there’s been a bit of a surge of musicians getting together to pound out old tunes from the 1976/77/78 punk era in Toronto and Hamilton.   Some, like The Forgotten Rebels and Teenage Head have been doing it since those times, and have never let up.   Others, like The Screwed, have been having a grand old time ripping it up in various juke joints around Toronto, playing the hits that never were, but shoulda been.  Others, like The Mods have been inspired sufficiently to reform, do a few gigs, and rerecord old material in a new way.  The Scenics, never really understood at all back in the day, seem to be on a mission from the Punk Rock Gods:  they’ve already released one new CD of Velvet Undergound covers to criticial acclaim, and in the spring will venture back into a studio to rerecord some of their old chestnuts, and lay down the tracks for new tunes.  Steven Leckie tried to pull a couple of different versions of the Viletones together in the last year or so, and the results were alternately chaotic, refreshing, weird, disappointing — but rarely boring.  Much like Leckie & Company were way back when.   The Existers have gigged, Kinetic Ideals are floating the idea of playing a bit, and one of the most notorious of the bands back in 1977, The Ugly, have reformed with Greg Dick filling in for the late, great, Mike Nightmare.   The balance of the line-up is Screamin’ Sam Ferrara (Ugly/Viletones), Steve Koch (Demics/Viletones) and Tony Torture (Ugly).

Which brings me to this post.  As you can tell by the poster, The Ugly weren’t exactly politically correct, and I can’t actually recall them calling themselves Hoodlum Rock — yet it’s fitting.  Mike Nightmare and manager/buddy Johnny Garbagecan made many a trip to the hoosegow up in Kingston, and carried guns, which was unheard of back then.   The new version of The Ugly have done a couple of gigs in the last year, and are currently saving up their energy and venom for what could be the aging hipster party of the year:  the 30th Anniversary Bash of The Last Pogo, to be held at Toronto’s Horseshoe Tavern on November 29th.

It should be a great time.  We’ll be there with the cameras, of course, and will show (for only the second time in 30 years) The Last Pogo.  The Scenics, The Mods, The Forgotten Rebels, and Steve Leckie will round out the bill.  Be there.  And smile for the cameras.

Actor Manoj Sood from from Little Mosque on the Prairie.

Indian Head, Saskatchewan, where an air-raid siren goes off each noon, where Satchel Paige pitched in the ’40′s, and where the Ku Klux Klan once built a retirement home, Last Pogo director Brunton witnessed the bitter-sweet end of eighty days of shooting on season three of the tv series Little Mosque on the Prairie.   Before he leaves he’ll visit Vintage Vinyl to pick up an Anarchy in the Pre-K and new Ramones shirt for 16 month old Marley Sebert –  and to plant a seed about the upcoming release of The Last Pogo on DVD, October 14th.

The best way to prep for a big edit session in a tiny hotel room is, of course, to go out for an hour-and-a-half ride on a horse, and that’s just what we did yesterday.  The horse director Brunton got was called Angel, was anything but, and of all the horses in our group, was by far the filthiest and most ill-tempered.   Kicking at the dog following us, kicking at any horse that came near, and letting rip the loudest and most impressive farts, Brunton, his punk horse, and some folks from Little Mosque on the Prairie channelled their inner Eastwoods and hit the trail.   At one point we were surrounded by cows, but we assured that they weren’t dangerous.  But they looked delicious.

Got a note from Cleave Anderson who let us know that his original song The Last Pogo is being reworked, and soon to be added to the Screwed‘s repertoire.   And that’s as good a reason as any to plug the upcoming show this Friday at the Silver Dollar.  On the same bill is ex Raving Mojos and guitar-slinger for a 2007 version of The Viletones, Kurt Schefter;  Ramones tribute band The Raclones, and the amazing Mysterion.

We’re making good progress on the assembly for The Last Pogo Jumps Again, and are starting to line up the last of the interviews, to be shot this fall;  the revised master of The Last Pogo DVD is being shipped off to the pressing plant in Toronto, and artist John Pearson is putting some new finishing touches on the poster for the DVD release.

Until we meet again…

Today marks The Last Pogo’s acting debut!  Playing the part of “Anonymous silent filler on TV screens”,  bits and pieces of The Last Pogo will be seen in the background of scenes set in a bar called “Shooters”, in reality a bar/restaurant called The Wooden Nickle in charming Indian Head, Saskatchewan for an upcoming episode of Little Mosque on the Prairie.  Various technical difficulties forced The Last Pogo to sit in his trailer and sulk for a while, but eventually there he was, adorning the “sports bar” screens and doing his best to act silent and anonymous.  And since that’s pretty much what The Last Pogo’s been doing for the past thirty years, he was a natural.   A late-bloomer, The Last Pogo hopes to get a bit more attention when he hits the road in October, selling himself in record stores near you.  Yes, you!

And up above you can see the final artwork for the DVD poster, designed by John Pearson, who did the artwork and titles for the film way back in 1978.