Now that we’re this close to locking picture, we’re getting pumped and prepped for our sound design and final mix.  And you won’t get anyone at the controls who’s any better than Daniel Pellerin.   His resume is an embarrassment of riches, and includes features like American Psycho, Hedwig & The Angry Inch and everything that Atom Egoyan has done.  He’ll will be working with Christopher Guglick, who’s resume includes films by Egoyan, Deepa Mehta, and Bruce McDonald, and who got schooled at Fanshawe College by, amongst others, Jack Richardson, the producer famous for a million things, not the least being Alice Cooper’s Love it to Death.  So we’re in excellent hands.   All the cool stuff starts in February.

So, yea, our film should sound great.

Toronto’s weekly rag The Grid has proclaimed, on their front page, that Toronto is “the best music city on the planet.”  You have to take that with a big grain of salt, considering that it’s a local newsweekly that’s said it, and of course as Torontonians, our natural insecurity lays waste to grandiose statements like that, yet there might be some truth to it.  Whatever the case, it was kind of cool to see the concert The Last Pogo listed as one of twenty-five or so significant moments in Toronto’s music history. The Last Pogo, as if you didn’t know, was infamous Toronto promoters The Garys‘ infamous last stand at the iconic Horseshoe Tavern.  Filmmaker Colin Brunton, with a big helping hand from Patrick Lee filmed it, made it into a short film, and is now (along with Kire Paputts) finishing up The Last Pogo Jumps Again:  A Biased & Incomplete History Of Toronto, Hamilton and London Ontario Punk Rock And New Wave Music Circa September 24 1976 To December1 1978.   During the making of the project — now approaching it’s sixth year of production — the lightbulb went off over the filmmakers’ head and they realized “Hey — I think the Toronto, Hamilton, and London Ontario scene was actually way more interesting than either New York or London England — because back in 1976 you just didn’t really expect cool things to happen in Toronto.”   And we’re not going to argue the notion that all of those bands back then (by our count there were around 40 bands who sprung up in that 25 month period) kicked down the cultural doors that would later allow others to breeze through.

Hey, we tried.  After several attempts to appeal to Joey Ramone‘s brother Mickey (who seems like a nice guy, but claims there’s nothing he can do) it looks like we won’t be having a Ramones tune in the epic awesomeness we like to call The Last Pogo Jumps Again.  Which is really too bad:  we’d managed to find Super-8 footage of The Ramones at the New Yorker, the first minute they set foot on stage, and a bootleg recording that we were able to synch it up too.  It could’ve been brilliant.

The Pogo staff strategize clearing music rights.

We started working on permission over a year ago and things started off promising:  we got permission to use the photos of them we had, and were told that a good word would be put in  when it came time to get the music rights.  Thanks fellas!

When we still had faith in humanity.

A couple of months ago we received word that Warner-Chappell  were good to go with the proposed deal (not industry standard rates of course, so that was very cool of a ginormous corporation) and we were thrilled. But then when we had to negotiate with another company who owned a small share, the fuckery began.

The teletype machine at Pogo H.Q. coughed up a nasty message from BMG Music that said bluntly that the artist had turned down the request.  Which was baffling.  And still is.  Long story short, the silent partners who take care of Joey Ramone’s business just flat turned us down.  The people behind Tommy, Johnny and Dee Dee were cool with it, but not the ones repping Joey.  We wrote letters, we tried getting help from other people, we wrote notes to Joey’s brother, we even resorted to blatant (but hopefully charming) ass-kissing by delivering them a couple of dozen chocolate covered strawberries.  But no luck, no answer, not even a peep.

Pogo filmmaker Colin Brunton on the set of Roadkill with Joey in 1988.

Rather than whine and bitch about all this (because who knows, maybe the Joey people thought the money was embarrassingly low, or didn’t like the film or had some other actual legit reason) we’d rather tell you just how cool Joey Ramone was, if you didn’t already know.

The all-purpose Roadkill winnie:  Joey Ramone dressed in here!

In 1988, when Last Pogo Jumps Again co-filmmaker Colin Brunton produced his and Bruce McDonald’s first feature, Roadkill, he wrote a letter persuasive enough that Joey Ramone took a chance on a couple of unproven yet enthusiastic filmmakers, and agreed to hop on a first-class flight (first time ever) and shoot a scene.   It was great fun of course, and at the end of the day he asked if they’d like a Ramones tune for the movie.  “Yes, sir!” they said.  Joey was good to his word, and convinced the suits at Warner-Chappel to give them a rate they could afford and so they got Howlin’ at the Moon (Sha la la la) in their modest little movie.

Once the film was finished, it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (then called The Festival of Festivals) where the filmmakers gained some notoriety when, after receiving $25K for Best Canadian Film, director McDonald said he’d spend it all on “…a 57 Chevy and a big chunk of hash.”  (Note:  he bought the car and a half a quarter of gold seal black Afghani hash.)

Crowds bypass the Uptown in 1946 to buy hosiery.

Then it began a legitimate run at the old Uptown movie theatre in downtown Toronto.  Trying to get the word out to the world at large, the filmmakers had made a deal for a soundtrack album, and true to form, Joey agreed the Ramones track could be included.  All the bands were paid a buck, with all revenue from sales split between them.   A soundtrack album would get the word out on the film, but how do you get the word out on the album when you have no money?  Easy.  Lie and cheat!

When the world was in black and white.

So that’s what they did.  They got in touch with a pal who worked at the famous record store Sam the Record Man, and once a month, the night before inventory was done, he would take 3/4 of the Roadkill soundtrack CDs and cassettes, and hide them away in a cupboard.  The next day an assistant manager would do the inventory and then wonder why so many Roadkill soundtracks were being sold.  “Wow.  That Roadkill album is doing great!”

Yea, sorry about that Mick.

One thing Sam did to promote his store was to hand out a monthly magazine filled with puff pieces and ads.  And on the back cover, a Top Ten list of the best selling albums that month.  So it was pretty awesome to pick that up in 1989:  number one, Michael Jackson‘s Bad, number two, the Roadkill soundtrack, number three Rolling Stones‘ Steel Wheels… wait, what?!

Now available on Ebay and probably no place else.

The filmmakers kept up the cheeky ruse, though by now the secret stockpile of stashed soundtracks was getting a little ridiculous.  But it was working;  people were buying it.   After being on the market for a year, it was now time to divvy up the revenue.  (The deal was that Denon Records would sell the album, all the revenue would be sent to the filmmakers on a quarterly basis, and once a year the filmmakers would then distribute the royalties to the various bands.)

Fellas, sumpin’ ain’t right here.

So they sat down, starting cutting cheques, and started to realize in a slow-burning panic that they just didn’t have enough money.  They checked all of the bank deposits and did the math over again three times, but it literally was not adding up.  So they went and opened up the original contracts, and discovered a very embarrassing error:  the total percentage the bands owned wasn’t 100%, it was more like 104%.  Gulp.

Springtime for Hitler.

The near panic they’d had only minutes ago was now full fledged Holy-Fuck-What’ve-We-Done panic.   Some quick math discovered that for every CD that was sold, Brunton and McDonald were out fifty cents;  for every cassette, a quarter. It was a real life The Producers thing.

The first thing they did was call their pal at Sam the Record Man and tell him for God’s sake to stop hiding the cds and cassettes.  The next step was sitting down and figuring out just wtf to do.   They thought (rightly or wrongly) that probably the only band on the soundtrack that might be able to afford to take a hit was the Ramones, so they called Joey and explained their predicament, and he in turn spoke with the record company.  Joey didn’t fuck around:  within a week there was a new contract that reduced the Ramones take to less than the share of the Technicolour Raincoats or Suffer Machine (who?  Exactly.)

Jello Biafra in Highway 61

A couple of years later Brunton and McDonald returned the favour when they produced Highway 61 and had enough money to pay industry rates for the Ramones’ Do You Remember Rock ‘n Roll Radio (and name the lead character Ramona.)  And years after that McDonald would shoot Joey for a small part in his feature Hard Core Logo (which Brunton wasn’t involved in, but was a shared recipient of a “Dedicated to…” credit.)

From Dangerous Minds dot net.

In January we got some great photos of The Government (Flat Tire, Hemingway Hated Disco Music);  add Bobbe Besold as yet another of the terrific photographers there were in Toronto back in the mid-seventies.   Our total count so far is 612 photos spread over our four hour movie.

We discovered http://chuckmanothercollection.blogspot.com/ and John Chuckman’s awesome collection of postcards.  Unfortunately, not enough dpi to show on the big screen.

How cool was Yonge Street back in the mid-seventies?!  Note that this was even before the “famous” neon record that Sam the Record Man erected in the late seventies.   As with much of what made Toronto cool, virtually none of the stores in this picture still exist.

The Last Pogo Jumps Again co-filmmaker (along with Kire Paputts) Colin Brunton sketched out this rough map as a guide for Montreal artist (and ex-punker from the band American Devices) Rick Trembles in order to create a slicker full-colour map.

We tried (and failed) to get permission to feature a few seconds of the Bunuel/Dali short masterpiece Un Chien Andalou.  Too bad.  Many people will recall Nash the Slash performing for the first time at Gary Topp’s Original 99 Cent Roxy Theatre his musical accompaniment to the film.  Jaws dropped.  Five years later, Pogo filmmaker Colin Brunton would copy the famous eye-slitting scene for his first film, a short called Bollocks that he made with Liz Aikenhead.   Bollocks was in part shot at Club Davids, the infamous gay bar by night, punk bar by later in the night, and featured performances by The Viletones and The Ugly, and appearances by scene notables Wayne Brown and Mr. Shit.    Brunton purchased a sheep’s eye for the scene, just like Lou and Sal did;  a safety pin was used instead of a razor.  Good times.

A fascination with the 1976 – 1980 punk/new-wave scene in Toronto continued as (excellent) photographer Don Pyle’s photo album Trouble in the Camera Club was released in April 2011.

We got our first draft of the map of Toronto circa 1977 from Montreal artist Rick Trembles.   He also drew up maps of Southern Ontario, the U.S., and Canada, pointing out some of the punk hotspots, i.e. CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City in NYC, The Smiling Buddha in Vancouver and the cities Toronto, Hamilton and London in Southern Ontario.

In April 2011, co-filmmaker Kire Paputts packed up the equipment and took the bus down to Philadelphia (that’s just how we roll, people) to re-interview Toronto scenesters Freddy Pompeii, guitarist for the original line-up of The Viletones, and later lead singer of The Secrets;  and Margarita Passion, who used to own New Rose, the cool clothing and record store hang-out on Queen Street East back in the day.

Rick Trembles continued to awe us with his comic-strip rendition of the day back in 1977 when Joey Shithead and his band The Skulls (who would soon later morph into D.O.A.) borrowed the stage at the infamous Gasworks Tavern (the name “Gasworks Tavern” now copyright Mike Myers if you can believe it) from the power pop trio Goddo.  Needless to say, neither was impressed with the other.

Shock Theatre impresario, artist, filmmaker, LSD and music fan William “The Count” Cork showed filmmakers Brunton and Paputts the crypt at Mt. Pleasant Cemetary that he and Ugly singer Mike Nightmare slept in for a six month period back in 1978 or so.  Bill told us that a Vietnamese colonel told him that because they slept under the surface of the ground at a cemetary, they were able to become invisible.   Brunton and Paputts then think:  “Intervew of the year.”

In May, sad news:  super fan and collector Imants Krumins passed away.   Later in the year, the Forgotten Rebels would dedicate their live CD to him.  Much beloved in Hamilton and Toronto, we managed to snag an interview with him when we started this project in 2006;  Imants supplied us with tons of handbills and info.  He’s credited as “Lead Archivist” in the credits to our film.

In June 2011 one of the last band interviews was conducted when Brunton and Paputts drove down to the Beaches area of Toronto to speak with Michaele Jordana and Doug Pringle of The Poles.  Noteworthy for the anthemic single C.N. Tower, The Poles were always slightly controversial, but not how they’d like:  there were quite a few punkers in Toronto that didn’t feel that, somehow, they were as genuine, say, as The Viletones, Teenage Head, The Ugly, Scenics, Martha and the Muffins, The Secrets, The Mods, etc. were.   So — the question of validity was asked, feelings were hurt, and months later, after not being able to come to terms for a music license for C.N.Tower (ridiculous, by the way!) the whole segment and any mention of the band whatsoever was dropped from the film.

We found a photographer in NYC with the uber-NYC moniker Nicky L who licensed us some Super-8 footage of The Ramones at the New Yorker, September 1976.  With bootleg audio of the same show from Randy Johnston and Gail Wetton (who also gave us the ticket stub above), we pieced together the exact moment they hit the stage and changed Toronto music oh those three decades ago.  We’re currently trying to negotiate a deal for the music and are actually 3/4 of the way there.  But that last quarter is a bitch.  More on that later.  Ugh.

Cardboard Brains copyright Vince Carlucci.

After several somewhat unsettling emails from Cardboard Brains‘ lead singer and co-founder (along with guitarist Vince Carlucci) John Paul Young, we gave up hope of ever getting permission to use an original Brains song in the movie.  Boo!  We’re currently scratching our heads on how to solve that one, but hey — out of the 50 songs we wanted to license for the movie, we’ve only lost about four (and we’re still continuing to fight for three of those) so if our movie were, like,  The Toronto Blue Jays, and the filmmakers were the fourth and fifth batters?  We’d be knocking it out of the park!

Our very first Skype interview and our very last band interview, was with the lovely and talented Sally Cato, live from her apartment in NYC.  Former lead singer of The Concordes, The Androids, and later, post-Toronto, Smashed Gladys, Sally gave us a great intervew, and some Super-8 footage of The Androids to boot.  Hey-o!

Picked up a remastered live track of Drastic Measures from ex-Measures and ex-Dishes Tony Malone;  found some hilarious Super-8 footage of the Forgotten Rebels.  And in a thrilling coup, received permission to use an old SCTV clip of the Agoraphobic Cowboy, Rick Moranis.  Thanks, SCTV!  Thanks Mr. Moranis!

Nash the Slash, copyright Paul Till.

Photographer Paul Till sent us a few more pictures of Nash the Slash, for the ‘before and after’ style we’ve been using throughout the film with people we’ve interviewd.  Of course with Nash, he looks eerily similar in photos from 1977 as he does in the interview we did with him in 2007.  Nash was actually scheduled to play The Last Pogo in 1978, as, like the rest of the bands that evening (Scenics, Secrets, Cardboard Brains, Mods, Ugly, Viletones, Teenage Head) he was one of promoters The Garys’ favourites, but punched a wall in his loft above The Original 99 Cent Roxy Theatre and broke his hand.  

We had our third interview with Dishes and Drastic Measures songster Tony Malone in September, visiting him and his pit-bull Bella in Toronto’s west end.  We needed to clarify a point about The Dishes, arguably the first band in Toronto who felt New-Wavish, and who clearned a lot of decks on Queen West for OCA bands and others.

In October we recalled the death three years earlier of Teenage Head singer Frankie Venom.   Around the same time, we finally finalized the Teenage Head songs (seven versions of six songs;  hey, we don’t fuck around!) and completed the deal with Gordie Lewis.  In December we found some more footage (beautiful 16mm black and white) of The Original 99 Cent Roxy Theatre through Facebook pal Talis Briedis which we hope to incorporate.

And now we’re just waiting for a handful of release forms to come back to Pogo H.Q.  Once done, we start the sound edit and mix, and then scheme up the release pattern and festival plans.  Our near six year task is almost done.  Which is bittersweet.

Cheers

The staff at Pogo H.Q. watched the seventh “fine cut” this afternoon, then had the last production meeting of 2011 to determine the final steps to complete The Last Pogo Jumps Again:  A Biased And Incomplete History Of Toronto, Hamilton and London Ontario Punk Rock And New Wave Music Circa September 24 1976 To December 1 1978.

There’s always picture tweaks that can be made, and we do need to chat with Gary Topp one more time to clear up a detail, but mostly its all about wrangling the last of the release forms for music, photos, footage, etc.   There’s a lot of them — 600+ photos, 50+ songs, loads of footage — so it takes a bit.  This week we’re expecting some remastered live bootlegs from The Scenics’ Andy Meyers.

Who can resist a piano-playing monkey and an audience of dogs?  Nobody, that’s who!