The Last Pogo Jumps Again

Okay, we’re not really under big construction, but we’re going to take a few weeks off of our blogging to do a bit of thinking on the new movie and stuff like that.   See ya later in the spring!

Courtesy Gail Wetton, Molten Core

Courtesy Gail Wetton and Molten Core — google ‘em!

The death on February 4 of Erick Lee Purkhiser, AKA Cramps singer Lux Interior — singer, writer, artist, 3D photographer, daredevil, shape shifter. Mojo Man from Mars, Ding Dong Daddy from Diddy Wah Diddy (as his surviving longtime partner in crime Poison Ivy described him) was as numbing and unacceptable a trauma as can be imagined, a black hole of tragedy that pulled the hearts of innumerable fans and friends down to the bitter deep end, but there had to be a formal farewell.

A public observance was unthinkable. Just picture the teeming, tearful confederacy of scum who’d show up. But Ivy hit on the perfect spot. Tucked off Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades, the Self Realization Fellowship – Lake Shrine, a fave Elvis hang when he was in town during his mid-60′s extracurricular spiritual quest, is an unspeakably beautiful setting and was ideal for Lux Interior’s send-off, administered via an appropriately offbeat ceremony, the Astral Ascension.

Held on February 21 inside a reproduction of a 18th century windmill, the trans-denominational service was performed before an ornate sandalwood altar with a backdrop of six portraits — Jesus, Krishna and the Fellowships own assorted founding gurus; the mood was muted, bleak, and Ivy’s entrance brought a flood of tears; clad in form fitting leopard print, she placed a Hurrell-style glamour portrait of Lux beside the rostrum where speakers would address the crowd of 50 or 60 people.

Minister Brahmachari Dale explained their hope-filled transitional view of death, read from the Bhagavad-Gita, recited the 23rd Psalm, and exhorted attendees to concentrate on sending messages of love to Lux’s spirit — and damn, kiddies, it felt like he was right there in the room (when Ivy was arranging the service, she mentioned a similar predisposition, and the coordinator replied, “Oh, he will be there”).

Next, a musical interlude, Mary Mayo ‘s “For All We Know,” an evocative, psychedelic R&B ballad with simmering bubble sound effects and eerie theremin runs; musician and longtime Lux and Ivy chum Dave Stuckey spoke first, and his recollections brought booms of laughter: “We had gone to see [R&B star] Young Jesse at a very fancy French restaurant, and when Lux sat down at the table, he immediately picked up the elaborately folded napkin and put it on his head. It made a very nice hat.” At a Swap Meet, Lux came across a huge table of bootleg rock videos, one of them a Cramps tape. As Stuckey described it, he said “Watch this,” approached the seller, who was busy organizing his wares, held up the video “and asked him — in that voice — ‘How much for this one?’ The guys eyes bugged out and he stammered “It’s . . it’s . . free.”

Self-Realization Center – Lake Shrine, where Lux Interiior’s Ascension Ceremony was held on Feb. 21

Former Mumps keyboardist Kirstian Hoffman, who had first allied himself with the couple at CBGB’s almost 35 years ago, spoke next and began by pointing first at Lux’s photo and then the portrait of Jesus, saying “I want to put this picture over there.” He also drew gales of additional yucks by talking about what a great visual artist Lux was, a fact emphasized when he produced a long player album by NYC rockabilly revivalist Robert Gordon, whose head shot cover art had been magnificently vandalized, a la Mad Magazine, with blacked teeth, a van dyke beard and a Rat Fink style swarm of flies (Lux’s ire was raised by Gordon’s choice to cover Cramps staple “The Way I Walk”). Hoffman also read a message from guitarist Kid Congo Powers (on tour in Europe), an affectionate, slightly skewed homage that reinforced just what a profound affect Lux had made on the lives of anyone who saw him perform or was fortunate enough to know him.

Dale proceeded; a flower ceremony, a fire ceremony, the Astral Ascension Prayer, a closing benediction and a final song, the Charades’ version of 1939 Duke Ellington hit “Flamingo.” A severely cramped doo-woppy arrangement fraught with trashy guitar that, taken with the song’s surrealist lyrics, provided a perfect coda. The stunned crowd, including Russ Meyer biographer Jimmy McDonough, comic-Sponge Bob voice Tom Kenny, In the Red Records’ Larry Hardy, Johnny Legend, Charmin’ Allan Larman, a slew of local underworld rock types and 3D camera buffs (an abiding passion of Lux’s), wandered outside.

A reception followed at Silver Lake’s Edendale Grill, much grimly carouse, a looping slide show of Lux baby and childhood shots, candid snaps (i.e. Lux wearing panties on his head — they made a very nice hat) and assorted live combat action photography. Muted chatter ensued and in an unexpected twist, I met the guy who was driving the day he and Lux famously pulled over to pick up a hitchhiker, who turned out to be Poison Ivy. “I only knew Lux for about three years, but I knew Erick very well,” he said. “Back then, I was his psychedelic partner, you might say, and a few years ago I got an e-mail from him saying “you don’t know who this is” — of course I did — “but do you remember when we picked up that really pretty girl hitchhiker and your dog Wheezer jumped all over her? Well I’ve been jumping all over her for the past 35 years and we have a band called the Cramps.”

A first hand account of that fabled meeting was a knock out, but the finality of the day’s tone overrode all else. As Poison Ivy herself wrote in the service-accompanying program, “Lux seemed like a creature from another world, with one foot already out of this dimension. As much as we might wonder ‘Where are you now?’ we can also wonder ‘Where on Earth did you come from?’ Now that’s a mystery!”

Okay, so buy it already.  Twelve bucks.  Canadian!

As we continue to shoot and edit The Last Pogo Jumps Again, we thought we’d make a pitch to you, dear reader, to buy a copy of The Last Pogo, the 1978 punk rock doc that has an amazing batting average of .1000 with critics and bloggers.  1000!  That’s like Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth birthing a super-baby — with A-Rod acting as the doula — but without the steroids or massive amounts of booze and hot-dogs and secret over-the-counter crazy Dominican drugs!  But seriously folks:  not a bad word yet.  And it’s only twelve stinkin’ dollars!   That’s like eight or nine propped-up U.S. bucks.  And we’ve got cases of these things!

After feature articles in Absolute Pop, Exclaim, The Big Takeover and all the local Toronto rags, people said stuff like:  “Punker than you’ll ever be.” — Peter Howell, Toronto Star.   “A masterful disaster-piece.” — jspicer, Tiny Mix Tapes.  “It’s like watching a National Geographic special about some lost tribe.” — Kevin Quain, awesome Toronto musician, and our favourite “Now THIS is a fuckin’ documentary.”  — John Harvey, poet, ex pro-wrestler.

Japan’s Doll Magazine love us long time.  Thanks to Ian Warney, we’ve got a rough translation of the review we got recently.  Emphasis on “rough.”  And here ya go:

The title “The Last Pogo” makes you grin, doesn’t it?  Toronto Punk Rock has video of live show and staff interviews from Horseshoe in 1978.  The Viletones swears ’70′s punk like Johnny Rotten.  A stylish mods band called The Mods.  The Secrets strums on trash and R & R.   The Ugly were incredibly wild.  The audience gets excited by both boring and crazy playing by Teenage Head…etc.  This stuff is too good to believe it was 30 years ago!

Courtesy of Imants Krumins

Okay, we’re not exactly sure what the above review in Japan’s Doll Magazine says, but here’s hoping it spurs millions of people over there to order the DVD of The Last Pogo (it’s only $12.00!).  Or thousands.  Or even hundreds.   If anyone wants to take a crack at translating this, we’re all ears.

Talking Heads and The Scenics, 1977;  courtesy Gail Wetton

We’re going to wait until 2010 to release our feature The Last Pogo Jumps Again.   We could put something together now for sure — we’ve got hundreds of hours of interviews and footage and stacks of DVD’s of old videos and photos — but there’s no sense in completing it until we’re done.   And while its sometimes good to stop making sense, in this case we’re going to let it all brew a little longer, and we’re sure it’ll be worth the wait.

So, is The Last Pogo Jumps Again the Chinese Democracy of punk rock docs, as Roger Streets so cheekily put it?  Maybe so, but to give you an idea of how much time is involved in this sort of thing, check out the bit of work we’ve done in the past two weeks.   We hop in the Pogomobile, borrow a tripod from P.S. Production Services, then set up for a shot of the city skyline, then a shot of where New Rose used to be, then a shot of The Stem Restaurant — and after about four hours of work, we’re going to have about — maybe — 30 seconds of footage.  Later in the week we go to the Toronto Archives, scan through micro-fiche, and a week later get five TIFF files of shots of the old Roxy Theatre and the New Yorker.  So this time it’s around six hours of work, a hundred bucks or so for the copies — and this will net us about 15 seconds of footage.

Documentaries are all about volume, and working on them?  It’s about time, it’s about space, it’s about people from another race.

Voodoo Priest (a hougan) with Last Pogo t-shirt in Haiti;  photo by Frank Polyak

On Monday two Pogo staffers ventured out to get a handful of transition shots of Toronto to use in The Last Pogo Jumps Again.   The first one up was a shot of the city skyline, and so they went to The Docks, and discovered that it was much warmer in the Pogomobile than it was on the edge of the frozen lakeshore in minus 20 degree weather. Their nostrils felt like Trisquits.  The shot was nice enough, but what we think nails it as worthy of inclusion is that the footage is accompanied by said staff members using every variation of the “F” word as they ponder incredulously how stupid they were not to wear gloves or hats.

It was slightly less freezing fucking cold on Queen Street as they shot the building that used to house punk rock hang-out, record store and clothing place New Rose, the legendary joint o/o by Margarita Passion and Freddy Pompeii.   In a neat twist, the Pogo crew were pleasantly surprised to see that it hadn’t been turned into either a Starbucks, fitness center, or condo.   They were a few weeks late to grab a shot of the old Canary Restaurant at Front and Something; when they got there it was all wrapped in plastic, ready for, we’re sure, either sand-blasting and gentrification-in’, or a new exhibit by conceptual artist Christo.  After getting some cool shots of a boarded-up Stem Restaurant on Queen West, they headed back to Pogo H.Q. to view the footage and chill.

The next day, a rep from the R&D division at Pogo H.Q. visited the Toronto Archives, and it was just like old times.  Photos of the original theaters that evolved into the Gary Topp-run Original 99 Cent Roxy and New Yorker were discovered, then scanned, put on disc, and charged a bag of loot for.  Big thanks to Pogoer Patrick Cummins who works there when he’s not shooting his pics for getting everyone rolling.   As soon as we clear the rights, we’ll show you what the old Roxy and New Yorker looked like in the dirty thirties (surprisingly clean!)

To top off the week the gang in R&D finally tracked down a copy of the 1978 film Love at First Sight, starring a young Dan Aykroyd and an aging Roxy Theatre.   The legal division of The Last Pogo Jumps Again are starting up the paperwork.