The Last Pogo Jumps Again

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!

Hand-drawn handbill by John Pearson; 1973; courtesy Mark Moore
We couldn’t make this movie — The Last Pogo Jumps Again: A Biased And Incomplete History Of Toronto Punk Rock Circa September 24 1976 To December 1 1978 — without the generous help of, well, pretty much everyone who was into the scene, a scene that arguably started in the pot-smokey confines of Gary Topp’s subversive Original 99 Cent Roxy Theatre in the mid-seventies, throughout the vibe of alternate art venues like A Space, the anarchistic leanings of The Ontario College of Art (when Roy Ascott ran it), the mutually tolerant Toronto gay community, the stylish conceptualism of art group General Idea, and on and on. The people and stories that thread the story of Toronto punk are big and rich.

Reconstructing Futures, copyright 1977, General Idea
It all came together in late 1976, when New York’s finest, The Ramones, managed by the brilliant Danny Fields were booked by the New Yorker‘s Gary Topp to play Canada for the first time. And for the next two years, the best of the best of NYC bands hit town, and it seemed like every week a new local band was coming together. If you were there, you know what a dense fabric it was; if you weren’t, there’s a ton of people trying to let you know, not the least of all us, and in a few months we should be done with this. We’re itchin’ to get it out to the world.

The Santa Claus parade in Toronto 1976 by filmmaker John Porter; copyright John Porter, natch
For the past four years, as we’ve been putting this project together, not a week has gone by when we haven’t had a knock at the door of Pogo H.Q. or a message through the Internet Machine from someone who was part of the punk rock movement in 1976-1978, offering up more evidence by way of handbills and photos and super-8 footage. And music. Tons of music. And as hard-edged and attitude-filled as those days were, its been a smooth ride, (with the exception of one fucking douchebag who shall forever remain nameless.)

You have no idea how boring Toronto was just before the punk scene.
So just this week, Big Thanks to Mark Moore for sending over old Roxy theatre handbills; Theresa Adams, who sent us some rare photos of The Existers; the Ramones’ management for reassuring us all was cool; Andy Meyers from The Scenics who correctly pointed out that the version of the classic Demics tune New York City we had on the site wasn’t the really good one, and so we’ve replaced it with the better version from the EP Talks Cheap, when the guitar duties were still handled by Rob Brent; Molten Core for more reassurance; Iain Staines from The Demics who chatted us up; Michaele Jordana and Doug Pringle of The Poles who said, yea, sure, we’re still into it, let’s get together; Steven Davey for some good fact-checking; and of course Gary Topp, for letting us take a peak at his amazing collection of stuff.

The Scenics’ Andy Meyers’ tale of meeting Ken Badger by artist Gareth Gaudin, Magic Teeth Comics.

Copyright Michaele Jordana Berman – Cyborg, 2009.  Photo painting, Epson fine art print 29″ X 32″

From the press release: Michaele Jordana Berman, a multiplatform artist, is a name that many know, perhaps from different contexts, for she has excelled in more than one discipline to memorable effect. You may remember her as the sylph-like actress in Stefan Czernecki’s film Green Veridian Green. Then she bowled the Toronto art scene over with her exhibition Oceans of Blood at the Isaacs Gallery in 1976. Her large-scale airbrushed photorealist paintings related to her stay in the Arctic, where she drifted on the ice floes with the Inuit and the narwhal. The National Gallery purchased her monumental painting from this period, I Cry Tears of Blood. As the lyricist /singer Michaele Jordana in the new wave/punk band The Poles with Doug Pringle (originator of the “electronica” group, Syrinx) her fragile physicality, ethereal looks and riveting performance of songs such as CN Tower are graven into the musical archives of Toronto.

Now focusing on the persona of her daughter, interactive artist and actress, Ramona Pringle; Berman transforms images of her offspring in her latest series of digitally altered photo paintings.  Cyborg is a sample of her masterful vision with Ramona as both ‘nurse/technician’ and as ‘Cyborg’ – equally convincing and riveting.

In Berman’s words “I juxtapose and reassemble fragments of my photographic work, transposing images from their original context to produce composite frames that become frozen moments in time suggesting a larger narrative.

CYBORG, The Human Condition, like Michaele Jordana Berman’s previous acts of self re-invention, is as memorable as it is absolutely contemporary.

This new show opens this week at Headbones Gallery, 260 Carlaw, #102.  Opening reception this Thursday between 6 and 9.  The show runs until April 24.

As we were sharpening our pencils, jotting down ideas for our Easter Monday interview with The Scenics’ Ken Badger, the teletype here at Pogo H.Q. sent us a message from Andy Meyers, who forwarded the jpg you see above.  The Scenics’ dance hit that shoulda woulda coulda been — Do The Wait — is featured along with Simply Saucer’s Return of the Cyborgs Pt. 2 in this months CD giveaway.   And they’re in good company, sharing the bill with James Williamson, The Flamin’ Groovies, Johnny Thunders,  The New York Dolls, Sonic’s Rendevous Band, and Iggy & The Stooges.

What is Punk Haiku?   Straight off of The Scenics official site:

Ken Badger and I started the Scenics in 1976. The band lasted till 1982, and after that, Ken and I only talked every few years- a phone call, a letter…

In 2004, Ken mailed me a box of a dozen live Scenics tapes. We had recorded them from 1976-82 in a bunch of Toronto punk dives, and he said “Please, put these on CD before they fall apart.” I put them on a shelf in my studio and they sat there for three years.

Eventually I hauled them out. I had a weekend free and was playing catch up on a lot of old business. I grabbed a tape marked “Scenics live at the Beverley 1977″.

The Scenics meant everything to me when they were happening, but I hadn’t heard them for a long time. All sorts of wonderful (and not so) things had happened since, and I wasn’t expecting to hear anything in particular when I pressed play. But…

The Scenics knocked me out. Their songs, their intensity. How wild they played. It was a trip to hear the 19 year old me cracking wise from the stage. So familiar, yet, where had he gone?

As the tape played, I literally sat down and began writing about those days, not knowing where it was going. Over time I talked to Ken, and other friends from back then, and got some facts straight.

That writing became “Punk Haiku”, a memoir of what is was like to be in the Scenics, to be part of an intensely creative band that kind of travelled alone through the Toronto Punk scene. “Punk Haiku” also remembers the larger story of the punk DIY revolution, 1976 to 1982- hearing Talking Heads as a trio for the first time in a tiny art gallery. Hearing the 1st Ramones LP in 1976, and Television and Pere Ubu’s first independent 45′s, and the impact they made. How all these sounds and experiences affected the Scenics, and where it all led.

Hearing those tapes in late 2005 led to getting back in touch with all the Scenics. To begin listening to the 300 plus hours of punk era Scenics we have on tape. To releasing “How Does it Feel to be Loved”  and again playing live together. To releasing the Last Pogo DVD and, in Nov 2008, to going back into the studio, and recording new material. To releasing “Sunshine World in October 2009.

But all that is a different story.  This is “Punk Haiku”, the story of the Scenics, the sounds and the scene, 1976 to 1982.

Collage from thewritingspider.wordpress.com

I don’t want to hype Punk Haiku beyond the facts:  Punk Haiku is a bi-weekly posting of my fly-on-the-wall memoir of those first-wave punk days (PUNK HAIKU). It is the story of that moment in our culture- My jaw dropping as I heard the Ramones for the first time, seeing Talking Heads as a trio, etc. As well, it’s the story of the day-to-day of being in a band that was always exploring, and always travelling outside of the crowd.

As part of Punk Haiku, every two weeks i am pulling 2-3 songs from our archive of 300 hours of Scenics recorded live 76-82.  I am pulling the very best stuff, arranged chronologically (mostly) to parallel the story. These songs are available for streaming, and are downloadable  on a free/donation basis.

This is a truly unique project.  The Scenics have been recognized by some of North America’s finest critics as a band of substance. We are still unknown to the vast majority of proto-punk and exploratory music fans. We are unspooling an in-the-moment replay of those impactful, liberating years in our culture.  Backbeating  it with a full soundtrack of the best music the Scenics ever played, intimately recorded in basements and bars, and offering it all for free- a multi media portal to year zero/1976. Based on the length of the memoir, Punk Haiku will run for  over 2 years.

They got booed and heckled at their first Toronto gig, opening for Talking Heads in September 1977.    But first-wavers The Scenics are taking another kick at the can after thirty years as they hit the stage of the El Mocambo Tuesday, October 13 to kick off a five date tour in synch with the release of their new CD, Sunshine World.    Seven measly bucks gets you in the door, and you get a copy of the CD as well, and you know that they’re going to play their hearts out, and of course lots of beer and old friends.

Sunshine World was culled from 300 hours of tapes The Scenics made during their run from 76 – 82, and features studio-recorded tunes from ’77 and ’78.    Friends of The Last Pogo Jumps Again still scratch our heads at the lack of recognition The Scenics got back in the day (sentiments shared by, amongst others, Scenic pals Talking Heads drum/bass combo Tina Weymouth and Chris Franz.  A few years after the Scenics infamously opened for The Talking Heads at The Garys’ New Yorker Theatere, Tina and Chris said to Ken and Andy after hearing about their woes:  “What? I thought you guys would’ve made it by now.”

Ironically, most people point to the opening gig for Talking Heads at the New Yorker as the first and final straw in their relationship with the other scenesters and musicians.

September 16, 1977;  courtesy Molten Core.

Everyone wanted that gig, and promoters The Garys — who would later manage The Scenics — thought it would be a great surprise to have this great band come out of nowhere (y’know, as opposed to ones that might’ve been around for two months, lol) and be the opening act.  A special treat for the loyal fans of this new thing called New Wave and Punk.   But…not so much.  There were rude catcalls from the audience — “Boring!” — and The Scenics lost potential friends and fans as soon as the handbill promoting the show was stapled around town.

The show itself was great, but there was real resentment, and The Scenics became outsiders in a group of outsiders.  It wasn’t like they were pelted with eggs, mind you, but apart from fast friends like The Demics and some others, The Scenics somehow didn’t fit follow the cryptically infused rulebook on emerging new-wave/punk rock bands.  But sticks ‘n’ stones and fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.  The Scenics just wanted to make music.  They didn’t dress the part, go to the right parties, or even do the right drugs.  It was all about creating music. They would rehearse and jam for hours upon hours week after week and play in every bar in Toronto, only to break it up in the early eighties, defeated by geography (Ken Badger lived in the country, and had a family and everything) and partially due to a pronounced lack of recognition, apart from their loyal yet tiny fan base. (Hi Gary!  Hi Blair!)

Courtesy Molten Core

Flash forward a few decades, and songwriting/frontman partner Ken Badger (he of the auto-asphyxiated singing style) sends songwriting/frontman partner Andy Ramesh Meyers a shoebox of tapes.  (The Scenics recorded everything.)  Andy starts to listen to them.  Obsessively.  Ken and Andy  put together an audacious collection of live Velvet Underground covers called How Does it Feel to Be Loved, and it gets critical kudos from colleges and newspapers, and a vote for the Best CD of 2008 for The Village Voices Pazz & Jop Poll from respected critic and ex-Creem Magazine staffer Jeffrey Morgan (author of the just-released official bio of Iggy Pop) who just drools over it, and it charts at colleges in Canada and the U.S.

Getting a taste of the kind of respect ‘n’ recognition that so ably avoided them during their initial run, The Scenics are inspired.   Andy and Ken call up former members Mark Perkell and Mike Young and start to make plans.  First up is the release of the Velvet’s cover CD, then a few gigs in Toronto (including The Last Pogo’s 30th Anniversary Bash.)   Apart from the new tour and the CD, The Scenics are also going to start podcasting Punk Haiku, Andy’s memoirs from the late seventies punk days, and will be putting together a new CD of new material soon.

Ken Badger in 2008;  photo by Edie Stiener

Andy Meyers in 2008;  photo Kevin Lamb

The staff at The Last Pogo Jumps Again had a chance to have a sneak read of the first one, and it’s great;  you’re right there.  One of our favourite stories is of their quest for the perfect drummer.   After going through a couple that didn’t work out, they get a new guy, and start to rehearse.  In the middle of a song, the drummer has an epileptic seizure, Ken later remarking “Gee.  I thought he finally got it.”  Check out their site in our list on the right hand side.

If you miss them in Toronto (don’t!) they’ll be in Ottawa, Montreal, London, and Hamilton in the next week.

For a much more thorough write-up of The Scenics, check out Steve McLean’s excellent blog.  Cut and paste this http://stevemclean.blogspot.com/2009/10/scenics-i-have-to-review-gaslight.html

Okay, so buy it already.  Twelve bucks.  Canadian!

As we continue to shoot and edit The Last Pogo Jumps Again, we thought we’d make a pitch to you, dear reader, to buy a copy of The Last Pogo, the 1978 punk rock doc that has an amazing batting average of .1000 with critics and bloggers.  1000!  That’s like Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth birthing a super-baby — with A-Rod acting as the doula — but without the steroids or massive amounts of booze and hot-dogs and secret over-the-counter crazy Dominican drugs!  But seriously folks:  not a bad word yet.  And it’s only twelve stinkin’ dollars!   That’s like eight or nine propped-up U.S. bucks.  And we’ve got cases of these things!

After feature articles in Absolute Pop, Exclaim, The Big Takeover and all the local Toronto rags, people said stuff like:  “Punker than you’ll ever be.” — Peter Howell, Toronto Star.   “A masterful disaster-piece.” — jspicer, Tiny Mix Tapes.  “It’s like watching a National Geographic special about some lost tribe.” — Kevin Quain, awesome Toronto musician, and our favourite “Now THIS is a fuckin’ documentary.”  — John Harvey, poet, ex pro-wrestler.

Japan’s Doll Magazine love us long time.  Thanks to Ian Warney, we’ve got a rough translation of the review we got recently.  Emphasis on “rough.”  And here ya go:

The title “The Last Pogo” makes you grin, doesn’t it?  Toronto Punk Rock has video of live show and staff interviews from Horseshoe in 1978.  The Viletones swears ’70′s punk like Johnny Rotten.  A stylish mods band called The Mods.  The Secrets strums on trash and R & R.   The Ugly were incredibly wild.  The audience gets excited by both boring and crazy playing by Teenage Head…etc.  This stuff is too good to believe it was 30 years ago!

Nat Records, Tokyo, Japan

Sorry, no time to chat!  Busy looking over a few hundred hours of footage, thinking about the missing pieces of the puzzle that was the punk rock scene in Toronto1976 – 1978, and starting to put together our feature doc THE LAST POGO JUMPS AGAIN, schedule to be completed in 2009.   There’s a million details.

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The Last Pogo (1978) is available at indie record stores in North America, Spain, and Japan — or on-line here.  Just click on the “Store” page, click in PayPal or write a money order (for only $12.00, cheap!), and a uniformed government worker will hand deliver your own copy of The Last Pogo:  The original 25 minute 1978 movie featuring Teenage Head, Viletones, Ugly, Mods, Secrets, Cardboard Brains and The Scenics;  a scorching 20 minute set by The Scenics in 1978;  a 30 minute commentary by Chris Haight of The Viletones and Secrets;  and a couple of hidden features.

Canada: Toronto: CIRCUS BOOKS & MUSIC 866 Danforth Avenue at Jones, 416-925-6116 CRIMINAL RECORDS 493 Queen Street West Toronto, ON M5V 2B4, Canada (416) 364-5380 ROTATE THIS 801 Queen Street West Toronto, ON M6J 1G1, Canada (416) 504-8447 HITS ‘N’ MISSES 860 Bloor Street West Toronto, ON M6G 1M2, Canada (416) 535-7817 FRANTIC CITY (formerly BABEL)  123 Ossington Ave, Toronto ON M6J 2Z2 (416)533-9138 SOUNDSCAPES 572 College Street Toronto, ON M6G 1B3, Canada (416) 537-1620 PAGES BOOKS 256 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M5V 1Z8 : 416-598-1447 WILD EAST 360 Danforth Avenue Toronto, ON M4K 1N8, Canada(416) 469-8371 SUNRISE RECORDS across Canada SUSPECT VIDEO, Markham Street, Toronto TUNEOLOGY, Main south of Gerrard, Toronto THIS AIN’T THE ROSEDALE LIBRARY, Kensington Market, Toronto.  Waterloo: Orange Monkey, 5 Princess St. W., 519-886-0939  Ottawa: CROSSTOWN TRAFFIC, 593-C Bank St  Ottawa Ontario  K1S 3T4 Oshawa: STAR RECORDS, 148 Simcoe Street South, Oshawa, ON L1H 4G9 (905) 723-0040 Hamilton, Ontario:  CHEAPIES RECORDS, 67 King St E., Hamilton ON, L8N 1A5, Phone #: 905-523-0296 DR. DISC, 20 Wilson Street, Hamilton, Ontario. CANADA L8R 1C5 Phone #: 905-523-1010 London, Ontario: GROOVES, 353 Clarence Street, London, Ontario, N6A 3M4, 519-640-6714, SPEED CITY, 299 Springbank Drive, 519-858-2680 Victoria, B.C.: Ditch Records, 635 Johnson Street, 250-386-5870 Vancouver, B.C.: ZULU RECORDS, 1972 W 4th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. (604) 738-3232 SCRATCH RECORDS, 726 Richards Street, Vancouver, B.C. (604) 687-6355 HMV MEGASTORE, 788 Burrard Street, Vancouver, B.C. (604) 669-2289 Nanaimo, B.C.: FASCINATING RHYTHM, 51 Commercial Street, Nanaimo, B.C. (250) 716-9997 Edmonton: Megatunes, 10355 Whyte Ave, 780-434-6342, Freecloud, 10764 101 St., 780-429-1476 Calgary: Melodiya, 2523A 17 Ave SW, 403-246-8916, Sloth Records, 1508 4 St. SW 403-265-6585 Saskatoon: Vinyl Diner, 628 Broadway Ave., 306-525-4040  Winnipeg: Music Trader, 97 Osborne St., 204-475-0077 Regina: X-Ray, 2323 11th Avenue, 306-525-4040 Kingston: Jungle, 123 Princess St 613-547-1544, Montreal: Sonik, 4050 Berri  Fredericton: Backstreet 506-458-8832  St. John: Backstreet 506-693-9425,  Halifax: Divorce 2687 Fuller Terrace

US. COBRASIDE DISTRIBUTION, Glendale,  Calfornia, Phone (818) 548-9001 CARGO RECORDS AMERICA INC., 1525 West Horner Street Chicago, Illinois (888) 508-5265   INTERPUNK at www.interpunk.com,

Spain: BOWERY, C/ Luna, 18, Madrid, Spain. Phone 91-532-8360

Japan: ITA/NAT RECORDS, Tokyo, Japan;  RECORD SHOP ANSWER, Hase BLD NO. 2 NAKA-KU NAGOYA-City Aichi 460-0011 Japan, 052-241-0667

France:  SUGAR & SPICE, Paris, France, sugarandspice.fr

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.