The Last Pogo Jumps Again

Photo by Edward Colver

Wow. It seems like it was just 1461 days ago that we started shooting The Last Pogo Jumps Again: A Biased & Incomplete History Of Toronto Punk/New-Wave/Alternative Music Circa September 24 1976 To December 1 1978. Now we’re mostly into editing the beast, and with just a few vital interviews to nail down, it should all be over soon. Ish. Kinda like how Bob Segarini summed up the Crash ‘n’ Burn: “It was like getting a roofie into a Playmate of the Month…and…and you know when the roofie wears off, she’s gonna be gone.”

Cover of book by Raynall Pellicer.

You’d think that after chatting up over 135 witnesses, musicians, promoters, critics, artists and the like; digging up piles of jpgs, newspaper clippings, and rare and never-before-seen footage, we’d have enough stuff by now, but that’s where you’d be wrong. Someone much wiser than us once said “The past is infinite” and don’t we know it. Even though we’ve put a hard bracket on the time-line we’re exploring, there’s always one more person, one more lead, one more story, one more dusty cassette. Mr. D, come on down!

God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son.”

On a non-The Last Pogo Jumps Again: A Biased & Incomplete History Of Toronto Punk/New-Wave/Alternative Music Circa September 24 1976 To December 1 1978-related note, one of our pals called Pogo H.Q. to inform them that Pogo co-director Colin Brunton‘s feature Highway 61 was a $600 answer on an episode of Jeopardy last week. Under the category “Bob Dylan“, the answer was “Canadian film that shares the same name as a 1965 Bob Dylan hit song.” The question: What was Highway 61? So there’s two things wrong about this: one, Dylan’s song was Highway 61: Revisited, not just Highway 61, and two — the woman who won the $600 made more than producers Brunton and Bruce McDonald made profit-wise. Oy.

While we’ve still got a number of people we need to interview we feel are essential, right now its mostly about editing a five-and-a-half-hour beast. The Last Pogo Jumps Again: A Biased And Incomplete History Of Toronto Punk/New-Wave/Alternative Music Circa September 24 1976 To December 1 1978 is long. And hard.

Okay, I’ve got nothing.

Photo courtesy of Drunk Jays Fans (the best Jays blog on the ‘net.)

Like most Canadians on the May Two-Four weekend (or Victoria Day, if you wanna get picky), the staff and crew of The Last Pogo Jumps Again: A Biased And Incomplete History Of Toronto Punk Rock Circa September 24 1976 To December 1 1978 are busy buying bags of mulch and gardening stuff, and then spending most of the sunny day holed up in the sub-basement of Pogo H.Q. going through dispatches from the Internet Machine, filing photos, downloading jpgs, and counting the days ’til The Toronto Blue Jays win the World Series in 2010, or we finish our epic feature film, whichever comes first. We’re currently clocking in at a hefty five-and-half-hours; our teeth are loose but our shit is tight.

The awesome Don Letts; photo courtesy the BBC

Awesomely dread-locked ‘n’ legendary DJ and filmmaker Don Letts sent us a friendly note from Japan to let us know that he’ll gnaw on the idea we floated last week of him doing an interview for us in London, England. If you don’t know who Don Letts is, we’re surprised you’re even reading this blog. Check out the fresh link on the right to get you started. Now. We command you.

From “amrphotographystudio.com

Last week we made contact with yet another great Toronto photographer who took lots of shots back in the day, Dan Huziak. As soon as the secretaries here at Pogo H.Q. can make the schedules work, we’ll be doing some scannning, and see what’s what.

Secretaries and typewriters, chatterin’ away. Chatter chatter chatter chatter chatter chatter chatter chatterin’ away…