The Last Pogo Jumps Again

August 24, 2006. Couldn’t do much this week; we were working on some
of our other projects, but we’re waiting to line up something to shoot on
Friday, and you’ll find out who on Saturday, and we might post a short
clip on Sunday.
If we’ve learned anything during this shoot it’s this: hang out on Queen
Street West for more than 15 minutes, and you’re bound to run into
someone from The Last Pogo. Today, two-thirds of the doc crew were
having coffees, scheming up plans for Total World Domination, when we
run into Toronto Star art critic Peter Goddard, who was a big supporter of
The Last Pogo movie, and who was at the show. As we talked about
getting together for an interview, a thirtiesh, sour-looking guy walked out
of a flat carrying a dying or dead cat. He took the cat and went into a
restaurant, and minutes later, he came out, but without the cat. He fiddled
with his bike lock, called a woman a “bitch”, then rode away. We didn’t
want to know if he’d been at The Last Pogo. And we’re never going to eat
at that restaurant.
August 21, 2006. Today we were treated to a walking tour of Queen Street
West with Cleave Anderson, ex Battered Wives, Blue Rodeo, Tyranna,
Screamin’ Sam, and currently drumming for The Screwed and the newest
version of The Viletones. Scheduled stops on the tour included: The
Beverly Tavern (now a chi-chi eatery), the discount clothing store where
many people bought thier first leather jackets and black jeans (now a chichi
eatery), The Peter Pan Restaurant (still a chi-chi eatery), The
Horseshoe Tavern (not such a chi-chi eatery), and The Cameron Tavern.
Outside the Cameron we ran into Andy Patterson, ex-The Government,
who gave us a thirty minute discourse on music, art, punk rock, jelly
doughnuts, Run With The Kittens, hatred of audiences, Art Metropole, and
getting pounded out in ’78. Mr. Anderson, our gracious host, completed
the tour at the site of the old Crash ‘n’ Burn (now a chi-chi lawyers’
office), where we met a lawyer on his way in. He wasn’t aware that the
Dead Boys had played there, nor was he sure what a Dead Boy was, but he
was tickled that his office used to be a punk bar, so he let us inside to
shoot, but the door to the basement was locked.
It was a tougher haul than normal today because we walked so much,
carrying all our stuff, — and a full one-third of our doc unit were M.I.A.,
having slept in after a rough night of movies, music, video games, and
Dance Dance Revolution (See pic above).
August 20, 2006. Running around and shooting and interviewing all of
these people is a lot of fun. You know what’s not so much? Transcribing
all of the tapes! It took us, for example, 3 hours to make a short-form
transcription of the Gary “Pig” Gold tapes; an hour and a half interview,
and twice as long to write down all his points. We have to start seeking
out people who are less articulate than those we’ve met so far. Monday we
get treated to an old-fashioned “walking tour” of punk sites and
highlights courtesy of Cleave “Battered Wives; Blue Rodeo; currently The
Screwed and The Viletones” Anderson. Our plan of attack? Sensible shoes.
August 18, 2006. By all accounts, the recent version of The Viletones blew
the roof off the joint at Ciao Edie last night (or was that someone telling
me they blew a joint on the roof?). Only thing to add today is a bit of a
disclaimer (or something).
This website, as you know, is “thelastpogo.net”. The one I wanted of
course was the one ending in “dot com”, but it was taken. And I woulda
done “.ca”, ‘cept the cut ‘n’ paste system we use doesn’t acknowledge
“.ca”. Whatever. So now there’s an actual site called “thelastpogo.com”,
and it’s starting to advertise the album “And Now Live From Toronto… The
Last Pogo”. We just want to make it perfectly clear that these are two
seperate companies; we have no connection to either that site, or the
company behind it, or the people behind the company. Likewise, they
have nothing to do with either THE LAST POGO movie, or the one we’re
working on now, THE LAST POGO JUMPS AGAIN, CHACHA CHA CHA!
Thanks. We’ll do our best to make our blog a little more interesting from
now on…less legalese, more filming, please.
August 17, 2006. We got permission to post the above photo of (possibly?
maybe?) a 2006 version of The Viletones. They played a secret gig at Vox
mid August, they’re playing another one tonight at Ciao Edie…and more
shows to come. So keep your ear to the ground, and your nose to the
grindstone. With the wind at your back. And a stiff upper lip. Stuff like
that. Thanks to Suzanne Naughton for permission to post the picture, and
of course, thanks to the Viletones.
August 15, 2006. Doing more job-hunting than Last Pogo-ing this week.
Only thing to offer up today is a great promo picture of Teenage Head
(see above) contributed by T’Header Gord Lewis (thanks, Gord!). This is
the original line-up of Teenage Head that played The Last Pogo. Also got
a couple of very cool b & w pics by filmmaker Suzanne Naughton (of
“Mondo Punk” fame) of the secret Viletones show in mid-August in
Toronto, but I’ve gotta wait until I get official permission from Steven and
Suzanne before I post them. And I happened to stumble across a myspace
site for a niece of Steven Leckie who absolutely gushes about what a great
guy and terrific influence he was in her life. Now if we can only get Axl
Rose to fess up, we’ll have some star power.
August 13, 2006. Back up to cottage country again, this time for a
wedding. On the way up, listening to the Ipod, we heard neither “Don’t
Fear the Reaper” nor “Lucretia MacEvil”. The wedding was cool, outdoors,
with a barefoot bride and groom, dogs running up and down the aisles, a
four-foot hookah stoked with tobacco (yes, tobacco) and “Sunshine of
Your Love” cranked as they walked from the altar. Ah, there’s just no
escaping “classic rock” when you’re out in the country.
Since I’m only blogging stuff relevant to The Last Pogo, here it is: out of a
group of maybe 75 people, only two of whom I knew, I was astonished to
discover that there were two people there who attended The Last Pogo (!).
How crazy is that?! 75 people three hours from Toronto, and two of them
were at The Last Pogo?! So in between beers and snacks in the barn, I
talked to Sandy MacFadyen, currently with ex-Cardboard Brains’ Vince
Carlucci’s band “Stationtwang”, and a fully uniformed Canadian Coast
Guard officer, who recalled being turned away from the door at The Last
Pogo…then surprising the doorman with an actual ticket, dumbfounding
them and gaining entry to see the show. Ah yes, the hidden dramas
continue to unfold… At some point, we’ll be interviewing them both, and
ideally, also thwart a huge drugs ‘n’ guns operation on Lake Ontario. (The
other surprise at the wedding was the appearance of loverly actress
Christie MacFadyen, who came with her bro, and who director Brunton last
saw while working with her on Peter Mettler’s feature film The Top of His
Head). Stranger things, etc.
Noticed that Teenage Head got a four-star review in the Toronto Sun
today for their re-release re-mastered debut album from 1979, TEENAGE
HEAD. “…Canada’s answer to the Ramones, with a dash of Elvis…”.
August 11, 2006. Back from the cottage for another year, and looking
forward to getting back to interviews next week. We had a black-out at
the cottage that lasted seven days, and without use of our Ipods, we
listened to classic rock on “The Moose FM”, the radio station for
Haliburton cottage-country. I don’t want to hear “Don’t Fear the Reaper”
by Blue Oyster Cult or “Lucretia MacEvil” by Blood, Sweat, and Tears ever
again.
In our absence, we came home to a number of emails, including one from
Roger Dirt-bag, who was featured in The Last Pogo movie (can’t wait to
chat with her), Gary Topp, working out details for the Jandek shoot in
September, dozens of pitches for gambling websites, and only a couple of
long-lost millionaire Nigerian uncles.

July 6, 2006. Interviewed Kire Paputts, son of ex-Viletone, ex-Secrets Chris Hate. We met with Kire to borrow a DVD of his award-winning film ONLY I KNOW, but thought we’d chat with him about his Dad as well. As we wrapped up the interview, we were kicked off the property (a Go Station train platform) by security. Next it was off to see Evan Siegel, a.k.a. Mel Torment of the old punk band Swollen Members (yeah, we know there’s a hip-hop band with the same name). Evan didn’t play at The Last Pogo but was there, in character, as Dr. Strangelove. When the tables and chairs started flying, Even stayed in character, and in the wheelchair ’til the bitter end. When we pulled up to his house (easy to find with a Unimog out front), Evan told us that he had to get to Hamilton immediately because he had to work, and he was really sorry, etc., but we’d have to do the interview at another time. Despite his protests, we started rolling the camera. And when he got in his truck and took off — we took off too. He lost us for a moment, then we spotted his truck up ahead. We ambushed him and asked him why he wouldn’t talk about The Last Pogo. Spooked by our journalistic perseverance, he begged off, said he had to “go back to his house” to get his cell phone. We took another route to his house, and hid around a corner, and when we spotted Evan a few minutes later, we took chase. Pulled up beside him at a street light, but still he refused to talk, said he “was busy”, “had to get to work” or he was up “shit creek”, etc. Almost as though he had something to hide. And then he pulled a sneaky right-hand turn down Clonmore Avenue, we were stuck in a left-turn lane — and we lost him for good. We tried our best to pick up his trail again, trying to anticipate his moves, and finally gave up at Brown’s Line and the QEW, 40 minutes later. Evan Siegel: a keen adversary indeed. Check out the Quicktime movie above for proof.

July 5, 2006. Today a great interview with Stewart Pollack, ex-Teenage Head road manager and currently the owner/curator of the cutting edge Spin Gallery. Some very funny stories, non-Last Pogo trivia, and interesting insights. A story he told about Johnny Thunders and
Walter Lure (The Heartbreakers) was beyond Spinal Tap; we may have to go back; he told us the story after the camera stopped rolling.

July 4, 2006. Down to Queen West to get a couple of establishing shots, and ran into filmmaker Julian Grant, an old buddy. To our surprise, he said he’d been at The Last Pogo, so we hauled him into a lane off of Queen, and interviewed him for a few minutes; later added a couple of Cardboard Brain songs, reshuffled the website a bit.

July 1, 2006. Topped up the website with lots of old Horseshoe handbills from back in the day; an original article by Scenic Ramesh Andy Meyers from a book Andy is writing; an old article by Donna Lypchuk from Eye (hey, Donna, where are you? I need your permission!); added some old Bomb Records promos for the album The Last Pogo; Cardboard Brain Vince Carlucci sent me a pile of stuff, including a review of the album from Trouser Press (gotta figure out how to scan it so you can read it, but it’s nice to look at); added some “before and after ” photos in the section “That Was Then”; added a few more people to The Honour Roll. Later today I’ll add a Cardboard Brains song on one of the pages — and then start planning out shooting next week.

June 30, 2006. About four hundred people descended on the Horseshoe Tavern last night for the Radio X T-shirt launch. Ex-Curse Anna Burke summed it up nicely: “It’s like a high-school reunion after a flash fire”.

Local band The Screwed were tight and exciting, and played host to a variety of guests, including Mickey de Sadist, Johnny McLeod, Steve Mahon, Screamin’ Sam, Chris Haight, and others, and were followed by an impressive reunion of The Raving Mojos. It was fun to feel your heartbeat and digestive system altered by a booming bass.

There’ve been a ton of people we were having a hard time tracking down, but last night we hit pay-dirt, and ran into, amongst many many others: filmmakers Suzanne Naughton, Bruce Pirrie, and Elizabeth Aikenhead (who made the short film Bollocks with filmmaker Brunton, and who apparently has been stuck in some sort of cryogenetic sealed chamber, because she has not aged a day since ’78); Cardboard Brain Vince Carlucci; one half of The Garys (Cormier); beloved bouncer “Tank” — and a ton of faces we hadn’t seen for 28 years. For filmmaker Brunton, it was the first time back at The Horseshoe since The Last Pogo. Lots of business cards, phone numbers, and hugs exchanged.

Our business card only has the email address and website, and it was funny to find out how many people don’t use the Internet “I don’t play with kids’ toys”, said Forgotten Rebel Mickey de Sadist, as he alternately puffed on a cigarette, snorted snuff and got ready to blow everybody away.

And today, the day after, I’ve been flooded with so many new photos and things that it’ll take most of the weekend to sort out; we’ve got to totally revise our growing website.

We continue shooting next week.

June 29, 2006. We spent an hour or so shooting Dane “The Green Lantern” Morrison, ex-Ugly, ex-Wads, and ex-Dick Duck & The Dorks. Besides giving a great interview, Dane wowed us by playing the drums and simultaneously answering calls for the film studio he runs in downtown Toronto. Then we went back to Stacey Case’s studio, and taped a bit of The Last Pogo t-shirts being printed up. L.A. photographer Theresa Kereakes kindly gave us permission to publish “before” and “after” photos of ex-Mod, ex-Dead Boy, and currently a top entertainment lawyer, David “Quinton” Steinberg.

June 28, 2006. Geez, I thought I was “under the weather” yesterday, but in fact, I was completely stressed out because I had to do my tortuous yearly piano recital. Taking the stage immediately following a seven-year-old, I only made one mistake (apart from starting piano lessons three years ago) — and felt way better afterwards. I don’t know how performers do it.

Today we got some footage of photographer/artist Edie Steiner who took all the great shots on the — what else — Edie Steiner page of the site. Then we scooted over to tape a bit of the t-shirts being made at Stacey “Merch Guy” Case’s sweat-shop. Alas, the Pogo shirts weren’t being made when we were there, but we’ll get them tomorrow. Right after we interview Dane “The Green Lantern” Morrision, ex-drummer for The Ugly.

June 27, 2006. Under the weather and laying low. Called about a half-dozen record stores in Philadelphia trying to find Freddy Pompeii, and finally, at the Philadelphia Record Exchange I spoke to “J.C.” who said “Hey, I saw Freddy walk by here yesterday!”. So now J.C.’s going to try and find Freddy, and let us know how to get hold of him. (And, according to J.C., “Freddy’s doing fine, he seems really happy.”

June 26, 2006. Heard from a lot of LAST POGO people over the weekend, up-dated The Honour Roll, and gave it it’s own page. Watched, and was inspired by the feature doc NEW YORK DOLL, which tracks down ex-New York Dolls’ bass player Arther “Killer” Kane. Great movie. Spending today lining up interviews and tracking down people: today’s mission? Phone every record store in Philadelphia and see if I can find Freddy Pompeii.

June 24, 2006. No filming this weekend; getting interviews lined up for next week. Recieved an email about the circa ’77/’78 T-shirt show at the Horseshoe next week — I’ve attached the cool jpeg I just got. And hey, nothing much to do with The Last Pogo, but I caught Kevin Quain and The Mad Bastards last night, and they were amazing. I’ve attached a link to Kevin’s website.

June 23, 2006. We just shot our first footage, an hour or so with Erella Ganon, a.k.a. Erella Vent. Lots of insights and funny stories. She’s got a steel-trap mind, an amazingly decorated home — and a very visually cool backyard.

June 22, 2006. Just had a great meeting with Steven “Nazi Dog” Leckie and Blair Richard Martin. We exchanged notes on both our films; I tried to steer them away from filmmaking in general, and once during the converstaion, the new word “primordially” came up. Later, I saw a fabulous five minute movie called “Modern Dental Implants”. Very inspiring.

Updated the site a little by adding a new tune by The Scenics (my favourite band of the era), “O Boy”. And soon The Scenics will have a website up and running. Meeting Steven Leckie and ex-Raving Mojo Blair Richard Martin today to have a Summit Meeting. But first, I’m off to buy drugs! (For my dog Kiddo. Because his hips hurt.)

June 21, 2006. Left a message for Steve Leckie, and producer Jim Mauro is making arrangements to start shooting this Friday. Added some new photos of The Last Pogo on the “photos” page. Added some more names to the Honour Roll on the page about the new film. Sounds like a new job may be lurking, so I’d better film fast.

June 20, 2006. Lots of emails and responses to the site and press release. Picked up some new lighting and sound equipment so that we can start shooting this week. Hoping my agent doesn’t have a gig lined up for me.

Ramesh Andy Meyers of The Scenics sent me an MP3, and I put it up on the site (look out below!)

June 19, 2006. A press release written by Gary Topp went out today; web site up and running.