The Last Pogo Jumps Again

Zero of ZRO4; photo Nathan Robinson

A blast from the past last Friday at the grungy old-skool watering hole The Silver Dollar in Toronto as first-wave punkers ZR04 and Tyranna hit the stage and played the hits. Camera operator/solar panel dude Dave Watts earned a camera operator credit for The Last Pogo Jumps Again by simultaneously shooting footage and consuming large amounts of suspect beer in “very low-light” (or was that you on the verge of passing out, Dave?); LPJA director and DIY Punk Videographer Aldo Erdic of 2BScene did duty with three-camera HD coverage, as well as help wrangle Zero for an interview by Dave and Zero’s pal Tracy Idon’tknowherlastname.

By all accounts, Zero was in fine form, aided by the constantly gigging Cleave Anderson on drums and old pal Dave Joudrey on guitar. With only a couple of rehearsals and playing for the first time in 20 years, the 20 minute set managed to include her groping someone in the audience, and kicking someone in the front row during “Attitude”;   we’re assuming not the same lucky audience member. Hair dude/radio interviewer/30th Anniversary of The Last Pogo organizer/new lead singer of The Ugly — whew! — Greg Dick was there, as well as scribe Liz Worth (getting set to release her book on all things punk, or at least, all things punk in Toronto, Hamilton and London, Treat Me Like Dirt) and Paul Ecknes and Margaret Catto and Giambi Bowker…and lots of other people, but this is all second hand ’cause we’re out here in Indian Head, Saskatchewan tracking emails and shooting bits of Little Mosque on the Prairie and we’re not quite sure what really went down, but we’ll take your word for it. And thanks to Nathan Robinson for the shot of Zero.

And tonight, live from a hotel room in Saskatchewan, the soundtrack of The Last Pogo shall be stripped out, boxed up, then signed sealed and delivered to Allowed Sound Studios in Salt Spring Island where producer Andy Meyers will fire up the bunsen burners, balance beakers, twiddle dials and do a smart “Duophonic” re-mix of the score, all in time for the general release on October 14th.   So far the response to the DVD from the few critics we’ve sent it to has been positive, and Little Mosque Sask crew member Donavon Fraser told us how impressed citizens of Regina (rhymes with China and angina!) have been with his Last Pogo t-shirt.

Chris Haight at the screening of The Last Pogo at NXNE, June 2008.

We’re making plans to get The Last Pogo out on DVD by December 1 this year, the 30th anniversary. Since the original Pogo is but a scant (yet action-packed and aurally exciting) half-hour, we’re going to beef up the DVD to a full two hours with “extras” and a couple of “easter eggs”. We can’t tell you what the easter eggs are going to be (for the non-tech-savvy of you, an “easter egg” is a hidden extra usually found while clicking around the main menu) but one of the extras will be a commentary by original Viletones’ guitar-player Chris Haight. What’ll make this a bit different than most commentaries is that a tiny head of Chris will float in the corner of the screen while the rest of the screen is filled with The Last Pogo. Chris’ commentary is hilarious: at first he can’t remember that he was even there, but then proceeds to make some great comments on the bands and characters you see in the film, including himself in The Secrets, the band of ex-Viletones who on the night of the Pogo were also playing the Beverly Tavern, and literally had to run down Queen Street to hit the stage in time. And the adrenalin shows. Another extra will be some recooked studio footage of The Scenics, with the audio juiced up by Scenic Andy Meyers.

We’re aiming for a suggested retail price of … $19.78 (get it?!), which is also the new price for our snazzy retro Last Pogo t-shirts (once the webmaster gets the PayPal thing figure out). Stay tuned for more info on where you can get the DVD, and of course, all the news that’s fit to print on the progress of the sequel — and reason for this blog — THE LAST POGO JUMPS AGAIN.

In addition to all the people we promise to interview, but haven’t gotten around to yet (Steve Koch, Nora Currie, Patrick Lee, Anna Borque, Johnny Garbage Can, Isobel Harry, Gary Cormier, Stephen Davies, MIchael Jordana and more…it’s hard to keep track), we’ve recently been contacted by Evan Weber of The Wads who will wax poetic on all things Wad-ish at some point in the future, and we hope to make return trips to chat with Steven Leckie, Gary Topp and Gary Pig Gold.

We’ve also been contacted by an old buddy who might be able to unearth some old video of The Ugly from 1978, as well as recorded interviews with the likes of the Viletones and Teenage Head. He just has to convince the ex to let him in the door. Fingers and other things crossed.

And if that ain’t enough, kultural king Gary Topp has found a 32-year-old reel-to-reel recording of his band Corvettz, featuring drumming by Chris Massingham and “bass playing” by Pogo director Colin Brunton. Truly underground, they never made it out of the basement of the New Yorker theatre, where they were legends in their own minds with a hit song “Let’s Roam”, and a killer version of “Hava Nagila (sic?)”. The only way Topp could top that discovery was by coming up with a new “cut line” for The Last Pogo: “Just like The Last Waltz, but with different bands”.