A busy week for us here in Pogo Headquarters. Artist John Pearson is putting the final touches on a mini-poster for the record stores that’ll be selling The Last Pogo DVD (release date October 14th); Andy Meyers of Allowed Sound Studio in B.C. has finished the “Duophonic” sound mix for the movie; publicist Woody Whelan is lining up a few more interviews — up this week is one with Alternate Press — and director Colin Brunton is starting the assembly on footage for the new film The Last Pogo Jumps Again, and scheming up a unique way to distribute the new film come 2009.

Brunton wore his Teenage Head t-shirt on Saturday, and being holed up in his tiny hotel room editing, didn’t come up for air much, but did venture out for a coffee at the local indie coffee house. The first comment on the shirt was from the “barista” who gave Brunton a salute and proudly said he was from The Hammer (and dissed Brunton for being from Toronto; some things never change); then two guys outside commented on it and started reminiscing about seeing Head in 1978, and then the lady at the bar of the Sask Hotel raved on and on about Teenage Head, wondering when they were gonna come out again. Of the many agendas for the new film, one of the primo ones is getting all of the awesome bands from the original scene a little bit of recognition, albeit it 30 years later.

It’s 6:30 in the morning out here in Saskatchewan, and so we’re off to Indian Head to shoot day six of the exteriors of Little Mosque on the Prairie. Fun!

The Screwed — Cleave Anderson, John Borra, Steve Koch and Steve Scarlett — continue their almost weekly assault on the senses as they hit Graffiti’s Bar and Grill for a late afternoon shin-dig and hullabaloo this Saturday at 4:00.

And if he couldn’t be busier, a couple of months ago Cleave handed over a song he’d written and recorded called The Last Pogo; we’re sure to squeeze it into the epic documentary The Last Pogo Jumps Again once completed early next year.

Out west, director Brunton has started picking away at an “assembly” of the film, i.e. a real big long version that will be eventually edited down to a slightly less big and less long version, his new hard-drive surrounded by sandbags and secured by bungee cords and 24/7 security (i.e. the sandbags) on his dwarf-like hotel desk. (If you hadn’t heard, the last hard-drive couldn’t take the heat, and to get out of the kitchen — fast — dove a deadly foot and a half to its untimely death.) A couple of hours or so of cutting a night, then up bright and early (okay, up early) for another day on the set of Little Mosque on the Prairie out in the charming small town of Indian Head, Saskatchewan (baseball fans take note: Satchell Paige pitched there in the ’40’s with barnstorming members of the Negro League, and how cool is that?! And they have an air-raid siren that reminds everyone at exactly noon each day that it’s time for lunch.)

Further out west, Andy Meyers works on the Scenics studio album (out in 2009), and starts to play with the soundtrack of the original Last Pogo movie, tweaking and adjusting and playing around — and that’s just his pants, BAM!

The guy who did the original handbill for the Last Pogo movie poster, John Pearson, corrects a half-dozen typos on the artwork of the DVD cover, adds a few more thingies here and there, and puts the finishing touches on the promo poster for the Last Pogo release this October; poster up on this site next week.

Woody Whelan, Minister of Propaganda, and head honcho of Mag Wheels Records, continues to drum up interest, and surprise surprise — there is interest. We here at Pogo H.Q. West are well chuffed to find out that Vice Magazine, Alternative Press, and Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll (amongst a bunch of others) are all going to take their first look at the movie and probably get their first small taste — an amuse douche, as it were — of Toronto/Hamilton punk that it offers up. Orders from Chicago, orders from L.A. and New York…here’s hoping that the world finally finds out just how hot our punk scene was.

Greg Dick and David Quinton are working on the deets to the big Last Pogo 30th bash this November; confirmed so far are The Scenics, The Mods, The Ugly — with Greg filling in for the late Mike Nightmare, and like we’ve said before, if you can’t have Mike, you’ve got Dick — and few others that are close to buying in on what should prove to be a fun evening.

Zero of ZRO4; photo Nathan Robinson

A blast from the past last Friday at the grungy old-skool watering hole The Silver Dollar in Toronto as first-wave punkers ZR04 and Tyranna hit the stage and played the hits. Camera operator/solar panel dude Dave Watts earned a camera operator credit for The Last Pogo Jumps Again by simultaneously shooting footage and consuming large amounts of suspect beer in “very low-light” (or was that you on the verge of passing out, Dave?); LPJA director and DIY Punk Videographer Aldo Erdic of 2BScene did duty with three-camera HD coverage, as well as help wrangle Zero for an interview by Dave and Zero’s pal Tracy Idon’tknowherlastname.

By all accounts, Zero was in fine form, aided by the constantly gigging Cleave Anderson on drums and old pal Dave Joudrey on guitar. With only a couple of rehearsals and playing for the first time in 20 years, the 20 minute set managed to include her groping someone in the audience, and kicking someone in the front row during “Attitude”;   we’re assuming not the same lucky audience member. Hair dude/radio interviewer/30th Anniversary of The Last Pogo organizer/new lead singer of The Ugly — whew! — Greg Dick was there, as well as scribe Liz Worth (getting set to release her book on all things punk, or at least, all things punk in Toronto, Hamilton and London, Treat Me Like Dirt) and Paul Ecknes and Margaret Catto and Giambi Bowker…and lots of other people, but this is all second hand ’cause we’re out here in Indian Head, Saskatchewan tracking emails and shooting bits of Little Mosque on the Prairie and we’re not quite sure what really went down, but we’ll take your word for it. And thanks to Nathan Robinson for the shot of Zero.

And tonight, live from a hotel room in Saskatchewan, the soundtrack of The Last Pogo shall be stripped out, boxed up, then signed sealed and delivered to Allowed Sound Studios in Salt Spring Island where producer Andy Meyers will fire up the bunsen burners, balance beakers, twiddle dials and do a smart “Duophonic” re-mix of the score, all in time for the general release on October 14th.   So far the response to the DVD from the few critics we’ve sent it to has been positive, and Little Mosque Sask crew member Donavon Fraser told us how impressed citizens of Regina (rhymes with China and angina!) have been with his Last Pogo t-shirt.

Drive-in in Indian Head, Saskatchewan.

With the Last Pogo crew scattered to the four winds (actually, just one wind — the westerly one breezing through Saskatchewan; everything else is blowing back in Toronto), The Last Pogo Jumps Again is in a bit of a holding pattern as director Kire Paputts continues to upload all the footage after the hard-drive took a dry dive to its death; director Colin Brunton reviews a pile of archival DVDs (various Viletones; the infamous Outrage concert; Teenage Head with guest Keith Whittaker of the Demics at the Horseshoe in 1992) in the comfort of his hotel room, and crew member Ollie Brunton sneaks downloads off of I-Tunes with daddy safely out of reach in another province.

Back in Toronto, as Kire struggles through more technical difficulties (mysterious “error” messages as he tries to upload the last of the tapes) The Screwed continue their now weekly assault on Toronto’s musical senses, David Quinton-Steinberg and Greg Dick scheme up The Last Pogo 30th reunion this winter, Tyranna gets back together for a gig, The Existers do the same, and three-quarters of The Scenics adjust their rally caps and plan for a new album and gigs in various and sundry places this fall.

With a hundred or so advance copies of The Last Pogo DVD being sent around by Mag Wheels chief Woody Whelan, feedback to date has been totally positive. Scheduled to be released this October 14th, the DVD’s got the original Last Pogo movie, an on-screen commentary by original Viletone and Secrets Chris Haight, and 20 minutes of The Scenics going all psychedelic in a Rogers TV studio in 1978. When you do the math, it’s gonna be hard to even break even on this venture, but we’re hoping that we can start to get the word out on just how awesome the Toronto/Hamilton punk scene was back in the old days (1976 - 1978), and whet appetites for the release of The Last Pogo Jumps Again in early 2009.

And please, folks, keep those cards and letters coming!   Each week we get a new jpg or a note or a reminder of a key player who we’ve missed on our now two-years plus journey, and welcome any and all suggestions, criticisms, kudos and sound effects.   And we still haven’t forgotten all of those who might feel forgotten, so hang tight, and we’ll get to ya.

Cheers

After being M.I.A. for almost thirty years, The Last Pogo will finally be in record stores (and on-line here) October 14th. While it woulda been cute to sell it retail for $19.78, that’s a bit much for a half-hour film, so it’ll probably cost about twelve bucks or so. Twelve bucks! That’s nothin’! Nothin’, I tells ya!

If you’re a first-time visitor/long-time listener, here’s a brief synopsis of what it is, cribbed from the NXNE 2008 notes Flip Publicity’s Liz Armstrong:

Grab some safety pins, practice your sneer and get ready to revisit Toronto’s thriving punk scene. THE LAST POGO documents the raucous 1978 punk concert held in Toronto’s legendary Horseshoe Tavern—a night of unhinged music and unbridled mayhem.

On December 1, 1978, legendary Toronto concert promoters Gary Topp and Gary Cormier—better known as The Garys—presented The Last Pogo, a rollicking, riotous concert at the venerable Horseshoe Tavern. On the bill were seminal bands from Toronto’s punk rock scene: The Scenics, The Cardboard Brains, The Secrets, The Mods, The Ugly, The Viletones and Hamilton’s Teenage Head. During the concert, the frenetic energy of 500+ thrashing fans in the club boiled over and a near-riot ensued. Filmmaker Colin Brunton was there with a camera crew to capture it all, from the irreverent punk musicians and the slam-dancing audience to the police who tried to stop the show and the firefighters called in to escort people from the premises.

——————-

Meanwhile, The Last Pogo Jumps Again is chugging along. Kire Paputts is busy uploading all two years of footage after the external hard drive that everything was stored in took a disastrous leap off of a coffee table a week and a half ago, and 100+ hours of footage turned into so much land-fill. The monster project is scheduled to be completed in March, 2009.

Director Brunton is heading off to Saskatchewan for a couple of months to work, and is looking forward to holing up in his hotel room and carving out a feature-length documentary out of the material gathered to date.

Some of you might be interested to note that we’re also working on a quirky DVD project called A Trip Around David McFadden. For those of you not in the know, David McFadden is a Canadian poet and author who if you didn’t know better, would think let popular American author Bill Bryson borrow his style. Almost determined to remain under the radar, we hope to blow McFadden’s cover late this winter with a triple-bill of short films based on works by him. The DVD will contain short films A Trip Around Lake Ontario, featuring an original score by Nash the Slash; The Mysterious Moon Men of Canada, winner of the Genie Award for Best Live Action Short, and featuring a score by Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, and The Cow That Swam Lake Ontario, still to be completed, with another original score by Nash the Slash.

And if all that ain’t enough to keep a fella happy and busy, we were gifted today with an awesome present: a ratty and torn poster of “The Anarchy in the U.K. Tour”, featuring The Sex Pistols, The Damned, Johnny Thunders’ Heartbreakers, and some band that opened the tour called The Clash. Dated December 4, 1976 at King’s Hall, Derby. Nicely framed, it now is the center of attention in Pogo H.Q.’s living quarters. Big big thanks to Paulo Perin and Chris Toudy.

Keep checking in to find out about the 30th anniversary of The Last Pogo to be held this winter at the Horseshoe Tavern. We’ve been sworn to secrecy about who’s on the bill, but the cat shall be out of the bag soon.

And keep those cards and letters coming, folks!

Wow. And Ouch. Just when you think it can’t get any worse, surprise — it does! The data-retrieval experts got back to us today, and in a very pleasant and even voice told us that it would cost a couple of grand to find all the Last Pogo Jumps Again footage, it would take a week — and there was less than a 25% chance they could retrieve anything.

So while director Brunton hunkers in a hotel is Saskatchewan, he will await with bated breath the hard work of director Kire Paputts as Kire painstakingly re-uploads the 100+ hours of footage into a brand new hard-drive. Brunton will fly back in a couple of weeks to reacquaint himself with his family, grab the goodies, and hopefully get some editing done in the remaining weeks out on the prairie.

Of all the memorable music scores out there, one that has bored it’s way into the collected consciousness is the menacing and foreboding “daDA…daDA…daDA” cello riff from “Jaws”.

Oddly, that was all our external hard-drive had to say for itself after it plunged from the coffee table to the floor during an editing session a couple of nights ago.   No picture, no sound, just the creepy hum that spells certain death.    We suspect that it might have been trying to end it all, sick of over a 100 hours of punk rock, but whatever the case, it is currently in the care of data retrieval experts (at least that’s what the sign in the variety store window said), and we hope to get a positive prognosis by Monday. “But you had it all backed up, right?”, everyone and his brother have asked us. Yeah. Right.

We’re not freaking out — we do have all the original tapes — and really, for all the shooting we’ve done, it’s been relatively painless. The odd mistake (great interview with Steven Leckie; no sound), the occasional blunder (nice chat with Steve Mahon, framed from the neck down), but no big whoop, and no one’s been hurt, so knock on wood, we should be back soon.

Steven “The Dog” Leckie at The Last Pogo, photo Edie Steiner

With the dog days of summer coming on, Pogo Post Production is revved up and ready to go. We’re whittling away at the hit list of those that still need to be interviewed, plus a couple more we’d like to check in with again, and going over miles, whoops, kilometres of footage, inching, whoops again, millimetering towards our release date of March 2009, an editing epiphany, or complete mental breakdown, whichever comes first.

Up this weekend is authoring the DVD of the re-release of The Last Pogo, the original 26 minute film (Colour! 16mm! All singing! All dancing! See people smoking in a bar!) scheduled to hit your very favourite record store this October. Only seen publicly once in the last 30 years (and many times privately on bootleg VHS versions) the DVD will be comprised of The Last Pogo, some recently restored footage of The Scenics from 1977, and a commentary track featuring original Viletone and member of The Secrets (amongst others) Chris Haight. For whatever insights into the scene and the bands that the esteemed Mr. Haight offers up, it’s worth it just to hear his infectious laugh. Through the magic of digital editing, whenever Chris makes a comment you’ll see his face pop up in a box in the corner of the frame. (On a geeky filmmaker note, this kind of thing would have cost thousands of dollars back when we made The Last Pogo, and it’s only because of digital that it’s now possible. You’d also have had to rent a Steenbeck editing system — the size of a Smartcar — and be cramped in some room downtown. Now we can be cramped in some room uptown, the whole editing system on our lap, and if you slip a twenty into the hard-drive, cheap thrills galore). Flashy retro graphics by John Pearson, the guy who did the very cool titles for the original film, and a wee booklet of liner notes, this snazzy package is the ideal Christmas present. Or Hallowe’en present. Or Kwanza, or Hannaukah, or birthdays, weddings, stags, golf-dates, chance encounters, one-night stands, etc. We haven’t finalized the details yet, but ideally you’ll be able to pick this up for the low low price of $19.78. For the mathematically impaired, that’s not even twenty bucks! All proceeds will go towards replenishing the “This Used to be Ollie Brunton’s College Fund, LOL”, which has been hit hard since we started this project a couple of years ago. (In 2006 he was on his way to be able to afford a university degree; as of today, a half-semester of Refrigeration & Air Conditioning Technique at George Brown College).

While we’ve slowed down on the interviews of late (life gets in the way), we’re still well at it, buster. This weekend Ricky Swede from The Poles checked in, and we’re hoping to catch up with that iconic band sooner rather than later. We here at Pogo H.Q. remember many an awesome Poles show and the show they put on with The Viletones and The Dead Boys at the New Yorker stands out in particular. (P.S. If anyone could shoot us a jpg of the awesome poster of that concert, many brownie points will be sent your way). Director Brunton recalls the show both vaguely and vividly, the vivid moment being when he was dispatched by The Garys to fetch the slow-to-leave-the-dressing-room Dead Boys. A friendly yell down the stairs was answered by only a grunt, but minutes later they came up the stairs. “What took you so long, you’re supposed to be on stage?!”, asked Brunton. “Blowjobs”, replied a Dead Boy, then Cheetah Chrome chimed in with “Hey, we can’t go on stage with hard-ons, man”. They then limp-dicked their way through the lobby, down the aisles, and up onto the stage. Wicked awesomeness ensued.

Speaking of wicked awesomeness, one of the stongest local artists who helped document the scene was photographer/artist Edie Steiner, who checked in this weekend wondering what’s what and who’s on first etc.. Edie’s going to hunt through her thousands of photos and see what she can find from the Toronto 1976 - 1978 punk period. (See photo above). Living on the Toronto waterfront (and apparently in a large bottle of formaldehyde or something — she hasn’t aged a bit) her current bio reads: Edie Steiner is a Toronto filmmaker, photographer and educator whose work is shown internationally. Her award-winning films are presented at film festivals, in arts and education venues, and broadcast on Canadian television, and her photography is commissioned for publication and exhibited in art galleries. She has published original music with international collaborators, for films and radio. Community activities include board of director and committee positions for arts and community organizations. Ms. Steiner is currently a doctoral candidate in environmental studies at York University, Toronto, with a research focus on relationships between the arts and environmental thought. Check out Edie’s stuff on your internet machine at ediesteiner.com.

Photo courtesy Cheryl Daniels

And the Lord of Rock ‘n Roll said unto them: Yea, though it would be another few years before one or six people claimed to coin the term “punk rock”, a lot of people who were at The Last Pogo or into the original punk scene in Toronto got a lot of their counter-culture edjamucation at The Original 99 Cent Roxy theatre courtesy of Gary Topp. After doing some programming for the original underground cinema in Toronto, Cinecity, and running his art-house film distribution company Topsoil, now-legendary promoter Gary Topp opened up the Roxy in 1972 with screenings of Hendrix at Berkeley; when he left in the mid-seventies he opened the New Yorker, where Toronto got its first taste of the Ramones, John Cale, Talking Heads, Dead Boys, Viletones and more; and then the Horseshoe in 1978, the last big party there being The Last Pogo.

Famed for an eclectic selection of films ranging from Antonioni, Fellinni, Truffaut, and Bunuel; B-films by Russ Meyers and Roger Corman; up-and-comers like Scorcese and Coppola; and obscure films by Kenneth Anger or Andy Warhol, the Roxy was infamous for it’s lax policy on pot-smoking and psychedelics, and there was often a thick cloud of weed hovering throughout the theatre. They didn’t tolerate dealers, they didn’t tolerate drinking, but it was a safe haven for anyone who wanted to settle down to a couple of good movies, grab some popcorn, and pass the joint.

The show would start from the moment you bought a ticket: often the people in line would be entertained by Lance Charles, doing his horrible and/or hilarious imitation of Groucho Marx, depending on your sense of irony and/or amount of illicit drugs in your system. There could be five hundred people lined up for a midnight show of Pink Flamingoes when someone from the theatre would run out and yell, “Sorry — you’re lined up the wrong way, you’ve gotta line up over there!”, and watch as 500 stoners scrambled laughing to regain their proper place in line.

When you handed over your ticket to get ripped (and thus allowing yourself into the theatre to get ripped), the person at the door might hand you a “laughing pill”, the better to enjoy the all-night comedy festival with (in reality a “milk-sugar” pill; placebos work); they might insist that you go down to the men’s washroom to check your coat (when such a thing didn’t exist), and then when you come back confused, threaten to throw you out if you didn’t find it and check your coat immediately; they might offer you a refund if you could identify then-unknown British rock star Bryan Ferry. Or handing over your ticket they might say “Please go right to your left, there’s no seats left on your right”, which for anyone who might have a head full of L.S.D., a Zen-like puzzle to rival that old “If you come to a fork in a road, and there’s two people there, and one of them always lies, and one of them always tells the truth, blah blah blah…” It was all in great fun, it was always entertaining, it was the best.

If you were taking a breather from being in the stifling 500 seat art-deco theatre, you could get lost in the posters, handbills, stickers, and photos that plastered the lobby (see photo above; check out the first quote on the poster), or be giggling and stoned sitting slumped on a couch or getting stuff at the snack bar from Jeannie the Popcorn Lady.   Once you got into the theatre proper, the show would really start: Gary would have the reel-to-reel tape recorder blasting out a mix-tape of music always in keeping with whatever theme the night held; or the tunes would be played over a half-hour or so of “Coming Attractions” while people filed in. As stoned as they mighta been, the ushers were excellent, politely getting people to move over to squeeze in others or luring patrons out of their seats if they heard the tinkle of a booze bottle hitting the floor. And often talking down someone having a bad acid trip.   And occasionally wrestling with them.

If you were a projectionist into your job (hey, Bob Cardwell! Hey, Les Popliak!) it was a demanding but fun gig and Gary would give very specific instructions: “Okay, so when you hear Do the Strand just start to fade, slowly dim the lights in time to the music, and as soon as the song ends, kill the lights, and then open the curtain and start the movie…”   A buzzer on the wall near the back of right-hand aisle sent signals to the projection booth for volume; the volume was always cranked to the max when the first chainsaw revved up in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. If you were a projectionist not so into your job, it was a nightmare. The good projectionists had snacks sent to them via a tray on a rope that would descend from the projection booth, right over the left aisle; and the ones that were game would enjoy the various joints that were being passed around the office.

Last Pogo director Colin Brunton worked as an usher there and got the film bug and met his future wife; masked musician Nash the Slash premiered there (performing a jaw-dropping live accompaniment to the Bunuel/Dali classic Un Chien Andalou and an appreciative and wasted packed house) and ended up living in the flat above, a modern-day Phantom of the Opera; regulars included the Viletones’ Steven Leckie (”Seeing Les Enfants du Paradise there changed my life…”, Raving Mojo and digital artist Blair Richard Martin; The Existers’ Barry Farrell; the Scenics’ Mike Young; Greg Godowitz; D.J. David Marsden; original Poles manager Bruce Appelby…and on and on and on.

There are way too many memories of the Roxy to jot down in a blog (and let’s hope Topp writes the book someday) but that’s the very place where many a creative seed was planted, nurtured, then rolled up and smoked.

(As with many of the old haunts in town, the shell of the Roxy still stands and will soon find a new life as a convenience store.)

Heavily influenced by Hamilton’s Teenage Head, actor/musician Hugh Dillon fronted the Headstones, became an actor and got head-shots made, and now as one of the leads in the new TV series Flashpoint, makes head shots of another kind as he plays a sniper for a fictitious Toronto swat team. And if that ain’t enough to keep a fella busy, Hugh also fronts his band The Hugh Dillon Redemption Choir. What’s the Last Pogo connection? Hugh allowed us an interview last summer at the scene of the crime, the venerable Horseshoe Tavern where he raved about Teenage Head’s Frankie Venom, Gord Lewis and Steve Mahon and was one of the most candid interviews we’ve done (i.e. he’ll talk about drugs…). So, if you’re not at The Screwed at the Cadillac Lounge on Friday (see poster below), then cosy up, watch Hugh kill people, and see if you can detect a little Venom in his character.

Pogo H.Q. has ramped up the editing suite (sweet!), but that was balanced out by P.S. Productions finally demanding the tripod they’d lent us for … uh … the past two years. So if any of the shots in our feature THE LAST POGO JUMPS AGAIN seem a little shaky, it’s all their fault! All joking aside, it’s nice to get support from a big-ass company like P.S. (Unlike, of course, the lack of support from the likes of big asses like The National Film Board and Telefilm Canada.)

Been there? Done that? Uh…wanna buy another rock t-shirt? A reminder that tres-cool Last Pogo t-shirts have been reduced in price to the oddly coincidental low low price of $19.78. How can we sell them that cheap? Volume, volume, volume. As in, we’re not selling too many, so maybe we’d better lose a few bucks and have more fans nattily attired.   Hey, if Telefilm won’t help us, and the NFB see little merit in our project, t-shirt sales will go a long way towards video stock and stuff.  Especially stuff.