The Last Pogo Jumps Again

No, no no — not the 9th Configuration, the 4th Terrabyte.

As post-production ramps up at Pogo H.Q., the hard-drive holding 300+ hours of interviews and archival footage started humming a not so happy tune, and so we instantly despatched a beleaguered p.a. to pick up a massive 4 terrabyte external drive for some back-up.  Safety first, beauty last, financial responsibility a distant third.

No, no no — not men wearing hats…

It might take a village to raise a child, but it takes the whole world to raise the red-haired bastard stepchild known as 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.

The teletype machine in the musty garret of Pogo H.Q. fired off a note to Florence Italy to ask NYC No-Wave filmmaker Amos Poe who exactly handles the leasing of stock shots for his seminal B & W & Nasty film Blank Generation, the film that inspired promoter Gary Topp (later to be one half of infamous Toronto promoters The Garys) to start booking punk and new-wave bands at the New Yorker on Yonge Street (whooo-eeeeee!) in Toronto.

Detail of Rick Trembles’ Toronto map circa 1976.

Meanwhile, Montreal’s Rick Trembles (who’s been doing our maps and is putting together a font for us to use for subtitles and tail credits) informed us that two guys who would, a year later, become part of the first lineup of Montreal’s Men Without Hats, had bombed down from McGill University in Montreal one weekend in 1977, armed with a Super-8 camera, to attend the Outrage concert at Toronto’s spooky Masonic Temple.   David Hill did the sound and John Gurrin did the shooting (and we suspect that both of them did the partying).   We got in touch with David, now in New Yawk, and with a slight discount urged on by Amos Poe, had the Super-8 footage of part of the Viletones set transferred to mini-dv;  just waiting for it to arrive.

Speaking of terrabytes, the day The Scenics opened for Talking Heads at the New Yorker (September 16, 1977), and the day before the Outrage concert T. Rex’s Marc Bolan died in a car crash in England.

Ticket courtesy of Molten Core

Eighth-billed actress Mary Nash is the grandmother of Toronto’s Nash the Slash.

This weekend co-director Kire Paputts takes the bus down to the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, to clear up a couple of points with Margarita Passion, hopefully track down her ex and ex-Viletones and Secrets, Freddy Pompeii, and, natch, eat cream cheese and get stupid at sporting events.

Just a couple more questions, m’am.

Illustration by Rick Trembles

Yea, we know the map isn’t accurate, but its close enough for rock ‘n ‘ roll.    It gets one more pass:  we have to dirty the streets up a little, especially filthy old Yonge Street.

Illustration by Rick Trembles.

What’s long and hard on a Pogo staff member? Making 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, Parts One And Two.   We started back in June 2006, but we’re now in post-production, albeit with one or two more interviews we’d like to do.   While we’ve dug up tons of archival footage and photos and other bits of evidence, sometimes we’ve needed to illustrate stories, like the one above:   Joey Shithead and his pre-D.O.A. band The Skulls borrow Goddo’s equipment and take the stage at The Gasworks to show ‘em how its done.  Greg Godowitz stares daggers at Joey.  Good times.  (Other stories to come include Long John Baldry’s bouncers beating on the brats at the Colonial Underground;  The Ugly throwing a flaming guitar at The Viletones at the Outrage concert, and The Demics first appearance at The Horseshoe Tavern.)

Copyright Robert Crumb

Last week infamous L.S.D. chemist, Grateful Dead soundman, and Grateful Dead logo creator Owsley Stanley was killed in a car crash in Australia.  Jimi Hendrix wrote a song about his favourite brand of Owsley acid (Purple Haze), the psychedelic band Blue Cheer named themselves after another,  and there’s a good chance we’d be writing this on a typewriter and distributing it like a broadsheet if Apple’s Steve Jobs and Microsoft’s Bill Gates hadn’t indulged in the drug that Owsley refined, popularized and manufactured by the millions in the mid to late sixties.

A computer is a typewriter on acid.

We’re also pretty certain a majority of the musicians and artists that comprised the punk scene in Toronto wouldn’t have had some of their ideas and perception had they not dropped a hit or twenty in their lifetime.  (Kids — don’t do drugs! But make sure to watch out for 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, Parts One and Two when it’s released later this year and you’ll hear lots more tales of sex, drugs, rock and roll.)