The Last Pogo Jumps Again

An absolutely rollicking week at Pogo H.Q.:

We topped off last week by chatting with fangirl Erika Larner, who’s lineage goes from  Gary Topp’s Original 99 Cent Roxy Theatre, where many seeds of punkish suberversion were planted,  to the Ontario College of Art when it was directed by avante-garde administrator Roy Ascott to helping and hanging out with OCA-based bands like The Cads, and Oh Those Pants, and selling beer at the Diodes‘ six weekend hangout The Crash ‘n’ Burn.

An interview with 75% of the original Cads included an attempt at an a cappella version of “Sex Is The Only Way Out.” A brainstorming dinner with ex-Mod and legal mind David Steinberg and Gary Topp, arguably the most import person in Toronto as regards alternative culture, and The Last Pogo’s Colin Brunton, who was awed by the bootleg of John Cale at the New Yorker Theatre in 1977 Gary gave him.

Shades Magazine publisher Sheila Wawanash held court a few days later on what it meant to put out a magazine in the late seventies, and showed us a nice picture of The Garys posing with The Police and a gold record.  The Police’s Andy Summer (about whom a whole series of docs could be made) cheerfully agreed to hook up with our director in L.A., Amy Belling, fresh off a two hour chat with photographer and graphic artist Rodney Bowes.  Today co-director Kire Paputts is journeying to Stouffville to talk about The Battered Wives with guitar-player John Gibbs.  On Sunday Kire and Colin look forward to a long-overdue interview with the fascinating Andy Paterson to talk about his band The Government, punk in general, music, art, and donuts.

The teletype machine at Pogo H.Q. has been burning overtime as well, sending out requests for Skype interviews with director John Waters, godfather John Cale, Richard Hell, Alan Vega of Suicide, Tina Weymouth from Talking Heads, Guns ‘n’ Roses’ Slash, ex-Nirvana’s Dave Grohl — and if you know your history of Toronto music between ’76 and ’78 you know why there were all important.  If you don’t know whey they were important, then watch out for the release of our movie later this year.  Buckle up;  it’ll be around five hours long.

The B-movie Caged Heat was shown often at Gary Topp’s The Original 99 Cent Roxy Theatre in Toronto in the mid-seventies.  Written and directed by Jonathon Demme, with an original score by John Cale.   Demme would go on to direct (among many films), The Talking Heads‘ concert film Stop Making Sense.

John Cale would play the New Yorker (Gary Topp‘s new venue) theatre in February of 1977, fanning the flames that the Ramones had sparked four months earlier when they kick-started the “punk” scene in Toronto on September 24, 1976 on the very same stage.   Cale was (and still is) a living legend, and did not disappoint.   He ended his blistering set on his hands and knees, gathering up mike and amp chords in his mouth, crawling off the stage, hundreds of pounds of amps and mikes falling and trailing behind him, pure anarchic and hilarious theatrics, feedback humming and screeching, until finally hiding behind the curtain stage right.   The Wizard of Fucking Oz.    And the packed house might have collectively thought:  “Whoa.  We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore.”

The first encore was Cable Hogue, and then This Heart of Mine.   The Ballad of Cable Hogue was a 1970 movie directed by bad-ass genius Sam Peckinpah that was also shown often at The Original 99 Cent Roxy.   Cale would later write Honi Soit (qui mal y pense), which could be translated, more or less, as “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,”  the cut-line of the movie.  Or more accurately, “Evil be to him who thinks Evil.”

The Talking Heads would play their first gig in Toronto at A Space, artistic home of agit-prop theatrical group The Hummer Sisters and soon-to-be band The Government, fronted by the enigmatic talent Andrew Paterson.  Their second gig was at OCA, home of emerging bands like The Cads, Oh Those Pants, The Dishes, The Doncasters, The Eels (soon to evolve into The Diodes) the seeds of Johnny & The G-Rays and more.   The third gig Talking Heads in Toronto, and the first that including keyboardist Jerry Harrison, was at The New Yorker.  Upstart unknowns The Scenics would get the coveted opening slot, much to the disgust of other bands who felt that they deserved it.   The Scenics made as many fans as enemies that night.

The New Yorker Theatre, before the stage was built, courtesy Toronto Archives.

To be continued…

Poster courtesy of John Catto

For the next month Pogo H.Q. will be hopping with footage of the last batch of interviews, and then the tedious grind of paperwork and deal-making begins.  This week director Kire Paputts interviews Owen Burgess late of Oh Those Pants and The Cads;   L.A. shooter Amy Bellings interviews graphic artist/photographer Rodney Bowes, and over the next two weeks we get even busier with a few more people t.b.a.

Pogo H.Q. got an electronic letter through our Internet machine from a professor in Pennsylvania asking about The Ugly, for a book being written about Bruce McDonald’s feature film Hard Core Logo.  Uh…a book about a ten-year-old film?  Wha?

Interesting tidbit:  someone in Toronto apparently has Super-8 footage of the very first Ramones show in Toronto from September 24 1976 — and were too greedy to make a deal with The Ramones management for their project It’s Alive.  Really?  I mean, we can guess who might control this stuff, but to hold out on a gem like that when it could’ve reached an audience, that’s just bullshit.

The Ramones and Dead Boys play the New Yorker Theatre in 1977.

Director Colin Brunton with awesome afro, 1976.

Gary Cormier of The Garys with daughter Amy, 1976′ish

Gary Topp of The Garys with guitar, mid-seventies

Huntz Hall as Glimpy McColsky and Leo Gorcey as Muggs McGinnis in the 1944 movie.

A Blake Street Boys lies on the stage during The Last Pogo while people stick safety pins in him.

In The Last Pogo Jumps Again:  A Biased & Incomplete History Of Toronto Punk Rock Circa September 24 1976 To December 1 1978 we focus on an explosively creative time in Toronto’s cultural history, with an emphasis on the musicians.  Next week director Kire Paputts interviews The Blake Street Boys.

Lowrises on Blake Street courtesy movein.to.com

The Blake Street Boys weren’t a band, they were a gang, a loose collection of east-end rowdies that lived in the Ontario Housing Corporations apartment complexes (the “projects” for our American friends) around Blake and Boultbee, near Jones and Danforth in the east end of Toronto.  Some of them still live there.

Pogo H.Q. got a call from “Hawkeye” a month ago, answering a relayed message left by us at Circus Books and Music.   He said he’d try and round up Ally, a fondly remembered Blake Street Boy, and talk about back in the day.

Steven Leckie introduced The Blake Street Boys to the scene by using them as bodyguards.  Whether he needed muscle is a moot point;  they became a gritty, uglier texture of the scene and a striking contrast to the OCA (Ontario College of Art) crowd.  They were not loved by all.  “They’d just beat people up for the hell of it,” said Tony Torture of The Viletones. “And if they couldn’t find someone to beat up, they’d beat up each other.”

The area they lived in was tough, and still is.  (During a movie shoot at local high-school Eastern Commerce a few years ago, Pogo director Colin Brunton was gobsmacked to learn that within the first four days of the shoot, there were two stabbings, one attempted suicide, and an attempt to pick the pocket of the location manager.  By the end of the following week, the production had to hire pay-duty police to guard the lead actresses’ body-guards because of death threats from a couple of grade twelve twenty-year-olds.)

The grooviness of Greek Town on the Danforth has never reached east of Pape, and the Blake Street Boys ‘hood is still intact in all its harsh glory.  Which, frankly, makes it more interesting than the gentrified neighbourhoods just a few hundred yards west.