The Last Pogo Jumps Again

Yea, so it was 33 years ago that The Garys presented The Last Pogo at Toronto’s venerable Horseshoe Tavern.  Beauty first, safety last was the rule of the night as 800 sweating kids crammed into a bar with a capacity of 500.

A fat drunk detective waddled up from the bar around midnight to slur to Teenage Head as they took the stage that they could only play one song, and bingo — sweet fucking chaos!

The concert was captured in the eponymous short film, the riot not so much (film crew booted out) and bits of it are used in the new project.   (GEEK ALERT:  We’ve been getting High Definition transfers done of 16mm films and video footage, and its just awesome.  You see stuff  you couldn’t see in the original footage.  Mind blown.)

We’ve still got some DVD’s of The Last Pogo in stock, so … y’know…nice cheap present for someone.   Go to the Store page.  Now!  Twelve measly dollars!  C’mon!

Engelbert Humperdink rocking his ‘stache; it was always Movember for him.

Fast, cheap and good:  when you’re making a film you can’t have all three, which is why it’s taken us over five years to put our four epic together — but the end is in site.  We are what you call “picture locked”, i.e. we’re done editing — and now its all about getting people to sign release forms so we’re legal and legit.  Of course while we wait for people to mail us back the releases we continue to nip and tuck here and there and mull stuff over.  And we’re still hearing about snippets of footage that we could use (including some never before seen stuff from the Crash ‘n’ Burn that we’re going to see in a few weeks.  C’mon archival workers!   Crank up that Super-8 projector for us!)

First two weeks of August 1978 at Toronto’s Horseshoe Tavern.

The Last Pogo Jumps Again:  A Biased And Incomplete History Of Toronto Punk Rock And New Wave Music Circa September 24 1976 To December 1 1978 continues.  Today co-producer/director/editor Kire Paputts was heading off to the west end to check out memorabilia with Drastic Measures’ Tony Malone.  It’s our third visit with Tony.

Here’s an example of the absurd work-to-final-product ratio involved in our film:  we wanted to find a newspaper clip from London Ontario in 1977 that was about how much beer The Demics would sell at a show, right?  We’d show the clip in our film, and it would take up maybe five seconds of screen time.   We sent an email to the London Free Press;  the replied with a link to a library in London, and then specifically a place called “The London Room.”   We were put in touch with a part-time librarian called Jill.

We had to hand over our credit info.   Research costs around eight bucks an hour, and then there’s shipping and copying fees, etc.

But Jill read a little about our project, and got right into it.  At first she couldn’t find the specific article we wanted, but now she’s getting all Girl With The Dragon Tattoo on us, and has dug up a couple of awesome little clips for us.   So — a couple of emails, two phone-calls, hand over sensitive documents, wait for stuff in the mail — and all for about five seconds of screen time.

Most boring.  Blog.  Ever.

The bulk of The Original 99 Cent Roxy at Greenwood and Danforth has been demolished.   The front lobby remains, as does a stripped-to-the-girders marquee out front.   They’re going to turn it into a convenience store that will adjoin a gas station.   This is the back of the building.  Someone’s spray-painted “Bye Bye Roxy” on the wall.

Nash the Slash used to live in the apartment above the lobby.   He was supposed to jam with Teenage Head during The Last Pogo, but when he knocked his mandolin on the floor and broke it, he punched a wall and broke his hand.   The first live appearance by Nash was at the Roxy.  With tape-decks humming, electric mandolin in hand, and a candelabra beside him, he performed a live soundtrack to the Bunuel/Dali short film Un Chien Andalou.  And jaws dropped.

After initiating midnight screenings at Cinecity on Yonge Street, Gary Topp (later of The Garys) started The Original 99 Cent Roxy in the early seventies.  Many of who would later be called Toronto’s punks got their first taste of Roxy Music, Velvet Underground, Little Feat;  Russ Meyers, John Waters, Fellini (and much more) there.   The Last Pogo director Colin Brunton got interested in film while working there as an usher.  Filmmaker/Raving Mojos Blair Richard Martin and Viletones’ Steven Leckie were regulars, and cite the Roxy as one of the biggest influences on the Toronto punk rock scene.  Handbill courtesy of Gary Topp.

After Gary began showing Reefer Madness to stoned midnight crowds, the joint was jumpin’, pun intended.  When a severely edited version of John Waters’ Pink Flamingos played, he complained that the Ontario Censor Board “Cut out the sex, and kept in the shit.”  Photo of poster in lobby courtesy Cheryl Daniels.

The lobby in the mid-forties, courtesy of Toronto Archives.  (Please do not reprint.)   The art deco display window and doors in this photo remained the same up to the seventies, but the walls were plastered with posters and photos.

The Original 99 Cent Roxy played the best music in between shows.  Gary Topp used to offer to let people in for free if they could identify Roxy Music’s Bryan Ferry from a photo, but not many could.  When Roxy Music came to Toronto for the first time, in 1975, Gary Topp got artist John Pearson to create hand-made invitations to the show for the entire Roxy staff.  (John would later design the titles for The Last Pogo.)  We had fifth row centre seats;  it was awesome.  After the show Gary Topp said:  “All the girls wanted to be in his pants and all the guys wanted to be in his shoes.”

The Roxy matchbooks that were given away.   Plans to hand out Roxy rolling papers never panned out.  On weekends there was a cloud of weed and cigarette smoke in the theatre.  Jpg courtesy Gary Topp.

In 1976, Gary’s last year at the Roxy, he and partner Jeff Silverman opened up The New Yorker Theatre on Yonge Street.  Needing to get their snack-bar redesigned, artist David Andoff introduced Gary Topp to carpenter and ex-music promoter Gary Cormier.  They immediatly hit it off and became known as The Garys.   The first band they booked into the New Yorker was The Ramones.  David Andoff painted the outside of the theatre, and built a huge paper-mache King Kong.  Photo courtesy David Andoff.

It’s been a rotten few months in the world of old-skool punk.  In October, Teenage Head singer Frankie Venom died from throat cancer;  in January, Stooges’ guitarist Ron Asheton passed away from a heart attack, and today Lux Interior, frontman of ground-breaking psychobilly punk rockers The Cramps died in an L.A. hospital from a pre-exisiting heart problem.  His wife and original guitarist Poison Ivy issued a statement today.

We here at Pogo H.Q. were fortunate enough to see The Cramps in action in 1977 at NYC’s Max’s Kansas City, and later at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto.  Totally entertaining, frightening to those who didn’t get the joke, and incapable of a dull moment, The Cramps were fun and rocked, playing punked up rockabily with straight-faces and tongues slightly in cheeks, murdering it with the same intensity that The Gun Club inflicted on the blues (a common denominator of both bands being guitarist Kid Congo Powers.)   One of the many bits of memorabilia that we’ve lost over the years was the original Cramps’ business card, a campy ’50′ish card with the phrase “Will play weddings and parties!”.  We fondly remember  Lux Interior in Toronto, ripping down the handmade sequined horseshoe (that Gary “The Garys” Cormier’s then wife Martha Harron made) stitched to the backdrop of the stage at the Horseshoe, and legend has it, getting it on with one of The Curse in a gutter near the Crash ‘n’ Burn.  Good times.

July ’78 Horseshoe handbill by Colin Brunton; courtesy Imants Krumins

Ripped off from MTV:

“Born Erick Lee Purkhiser, Interior started the Cramps in 1972 with guitarist Poison Ivy (born Kristy Wallace, later his wife) — whom, as legend has it, he picked up as a hitchhiker in California. By 1975, they had moved to New York, where they became an integral part of the burgeoning punk scene surrounding CBGBs.

Their music differed from most of the scene’s other acts in that it was heavily steeped in camp, with Interior’s lyrics frequently drawing from schlocky B-movies, sexual kink and deceptively clever puns. (J.H. Sasfy’s liner notes to their debut EP memorably noted: “The Cramps don’t pummel and you won’t pogo. They ooze; you’ll throb.”) Sonically, the band drew from blues and rockabilly, and a key element of their sound was the trashy, dueling guitars of Poison Ivy and Bryan Gregory (and later Kid Congo Powers), played with maximal scuzz and minimal drumming.

Because of that — not to mention Interior’s deranged, Iggy Pop-inspired onstage antics and deep, sexualized singing voice (which one reviewer described as “the psychosexual werewolf/ Elvis hybrid from hell”) — the Cramps are often cited as pioneers of “psychobilly” and “horror rock,” and can count bands like the Black Lips, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the Reverend Horton Heat, the Horrors and even the White Stripes as their musical progeny.

Over the course of more than 30 years, the Interior and Ivy surrounded themselves with an ever-changing lineup of drummers, guitarists and bassists, and released 13 studio albums (the last being 2003′s Fiends of Dope Island). They also famously performed a concert for patients at the Napa State Mental Hospital in 1978 (which was recorded on grainy VHS and has since become a cult classic) and appeared on a Halloween episode of “Beverly Hills, 90210.” Their video for the song “Bikini Girls With Machine Guns” also drew rave reviews from Beavis and Butt-head on a memorable episode of the show.

Despite the band’s long history, fans generally agree that the group’s peak was in the early ’80s, with the albums Songs the Lord Taught Us and Psychedelic Jungle. Many clips of the Cramps’ chaotic live shows from the era can be found online; look for their version of “Tear It Up” from the 1980 film “URGH! A Music War.” One memorable (and typical) show in Boston in 1986 found Interior, clad only in leopard-skin briefs, drinking red wine from an audience member’s shoe, and ended with him French-kissing a woman (who wasn’t his wife) for 10 full minutes with his microphone in their mouths.

Due to their imagery, obsession with kitsch and dogged dedication to touring — they wrapped up their latest jaunt across Europe and the U.S. this past November — the Cramps commanded a loyal fanbase, and even earned a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in the form of a shattered bass drum that Interior had shoved his head through.”

(Hey — we don’t mind cribbing notes from MTV, because they’re assholes.  Do you think they ever played The Cramps in the past twenty-years?   Or The Stooges, or Teenage Head?  Or even mentioned them?  We here at Pogo H.Q. got our taste of it when we tried to drum up interest in The Last Pogo dvd release.  We were stonewalled and duffed off with an assistant chuckled “Uh, what?  You want us to cover a thirty year old film by a fifty-three-year-old guy?  Riiiiiight.”)

But enough about us.  Well, okay maybe a bit more about us.  To trace back the threads of Lux’s death to The Last Pogo Jumps Again in a kind of Kevin Bacony six-degrees-of-separation thing:  a decade after finishing The Last Pogo, in 1990, co-director Colin Brunton produced his second feature film, Highway 61 (on the heels of producing Roadkill with director Bruce McDonald, and with a cameo by Joey Ramone) and after securing funding partly on the basis that Iggy Pop was going to play a character, was flabbergasted and majorly pissed-off when Iggy reneged at the last minute.   The film that swelled Iggy’s head was a part n a John Waters movie.  Back in 1976, a couple of years before The Last Pogo legendary Toronto Promoter Gary Topp of The Garys called up filmmaker John Waters after watching Amos Poe’s Blank Generation and Night Lunch at the New Yorker in 1976 and urged him to check out this new thing called punk rock.  A month later and the Ramones would be playing the New Yorker;  two years later Waters would cast the late and legendary Dead Boys lead singer Stiv Bators as Bo-Bo Belsinger in Polyester starring Divine, and years later Iggy Pop in Crybaby.

Back to 1990 and Highway 61.  After Iggy dropped out, Brunton went into a frenzy of letters, faxes, and phone calls and tried to come up with someone –  anyone — who could replace Iggy, and who had enough street cred, and who would fit in — and hope it got the Highway 61 team out of the jam.  (The day the news that Iggy was dropping out happened, the producers got a call from the BBC, who were putting up some of the money.  After “How are you?” and “How’s everything going?” it was all  “And you’ve still got Iggy Pop in the film, is that right?” and we’re all like “…there might be a scheduling problem, gotta go!”   They had two weeks to get out of the mess, and if the BBC money fell through because they didn’t have a “name”, the rest of the financing would tumble like dominoes, and not only would we they be in a world of hurt, money-wise, but boy, would their faces be red!

The Highway 61 wish list to replace Iggy at the last minute was The Cramps‘  Lux Interior, The Sex Pistol’s Johnny Rotten and Joey Ramone — but Joey was busy, and Lux and Johnny Rotten could not be found, no way no how.   They got turned down by the likes of David Byrne, Keith Richards (touring with some other middle-aged guys that summer) Alice Cooper (who was flattered but booked), Elvis Costello (booked for the next three years), and Ozzy Osbourne (who sent a charming note with genuine Ozzy stationary explaining that “It’s hard enough being a rock star let alone trying to become an actor”)  and ended up casting Canadian Art Bergmann, who was on the original cast wish list before they’d thought of “star power” like Iggy.  And Art is still alive ‘n’ kicking on the west coast, and he did a great job.

R.I.P. Lux, and The “Black” Donnellys, the infamous family from Lucan, Ontario who were beaten to death by a gang of thirty men — in part organized by the town priest and local constable — at the stroke of midnight on this day in 1880.  Lux Interior, meet Tom Donnelly, Canada’s first punk.  Tom, meet Lux.

Fast Eddie Smith, photographer and bon vivant, is fashionable in Rome.

Stage manager Nip Kicks;  photo by Jean Trivett

After two and a half years of shooting, we finally finished principal photography on THE LAST POGO JUMPS AGAIN by taking our swat-team of a shooting crew down to our old haunt, The Horseshoe Tavern, and shooting The Last Pogo 30th Anniversary Bash.

We’ve still got some interviews we need to do — you know who you are! — but we’re finally moving into post-production on our feature film.   There’s so many people to thank for all their devotion and hard work, that we’d rather wait for another to day to thank them all, because we know some are going to slip our mind.   But this thing would never have happened without the support and encouragement of all the kids from back in the day, and we never would’ve gotten anything shot without the tireless devotion of co-directors Aldo Erdic and Kire Paputts;  the backbone and smarts and heart of David Quinton Steinberg and Gary Topp;  and the support of everyone who’ve given us jpgs and film-clips and interviews and shared thier stories;  who’ve connected the dots, dotted their i’s and croosed their t’s.   We’ll save the credits for the movie.

Photo by Katrin Clark-Citroen

The Last Pogo 30th Anniversary Bash was great fun and a non-stop party.  There’s not too many shows we can recall where you announce a nine o’clock start time — and there’s 450 people waiting in line at 9:00.   When the doors opened, the place was packed, and our 16mm camera caught the first couple of hundred faces, both familiar and fresh, as they filed into the old haunt.

Each band stuck to the strict twenty-minute set, and it was truly without flaws — except for Moog Audio on Queen West who completely dropped the ball by neglecting to drop off the turntables and mixer for D.J. OPP.   After some desperate phone calls to other, more reliable businesses, Gary Topp called daughter (and member of Steven Leckie and the Solutions!) Alex, and she dug around Garys home office and sent down some mix CDs that were used to fill the gaps between bands.  Mixes by Topp can’t be topped.

Gary Topp;  photo by Jack Skellington

Ever since the Original 99 Cent Roxy Theatre, Gary has created tapes specifically for each show, whether it be a night of movies or a line-up of bands.  At the The Original 99 Cent Roxy, and later the New Yorker Theatre, the music before movies was played at the right volume, which usually meant “loud” but not always cranked up to eleven.   On the rare occasion (a couple of times a month) someone complained about the volume, it was “Sorry, you can have your money back if you want, but we like to play our music loud.”   “But I can’t even have a conversation!” they’d protest.    “Well…maybe you should go to another movie theatre then.”    After spending the last week planning out his evening, and rounding up over a 100 vintage 45s, Hits ‘n’ Misses owner DJ OPP realized it just wasn’t gonna happen, so he cabbed it back to his store, stashed his prize 45s, and came back to the Horseshoe where he vented his frustration in an interview in the men’s room.

Kire Paputts;  Toronto Star

While the bands were playing, Directors Brunton and Paputts were either outside getting shots, or down around the dressing room, luring people into the Men’s Can (quiet, nice light, interesting ambience) for impromptu interviews.   Caught with their pants down were:  The Ugly’s Tony Torture, DJ OPP, The Mods’ Greg Trinier, The Cardboard Brains’ Vince Carlucci, The Screwed’s John Borra, The Scenics’ Mike Young, and the Forgotten Rebels’ Mickey de Sadist — who we coerced into apologizing to everyone he dissed on camera in the original Last Pogo movie — and various others, including an impromptu “Everyone get outa here!” rant by The Wads’ and Dick Duck and the Dorks’ Paul Ecknes.  And we shot the gradual evolution of the towel machine throughout the night (starts intact; then bunching up on floor;  then completely on floor, in pool of mystery fluid.)

Colin Brunton;  photo by Jack Skellington

The bulk of the shooting at Last Pogo Jumps Again was handled by director Aldo Erdic and his three other shooters, covering the bands’ performances.   A generation in-between co-directors Kire Paputts and Colin Brunton, Aldo’s company To Be Scene has shot literally hundreds of hours in the past few years for a ton of bands — and a truckload of goodies for The Last Pogo Jumps Again.

Aldo Erdic;  photo tobescene.com

For all you film/tv techno geeks out there, we had four small Sony HD cameras covering the bands’ performances; a sound guy hooked into the sound board;  ambient sound from audience cameras;  for old-times’ sake, a 16mm Bolex camera worth about twenty minutes of Kodak Vision 2 footage; the workhorse Panasonic DVX 100A  MiniDV; a Sennehauser Wireless mike;   125 Watt Pocket Par portable light, with a chimera, filters, and three commando-style battery belts.  Total cooperation and buckets of sweat.  Three people shooting interviews, four people shooting the bands (not to mention the footage we’ve already been offered by audience), and lots of friends in the audience who would’ve helped out if called upon for duty.  There’s a lot of punks in TV and film.

Vince Carlucci and Sandy MacFadyen of Cardboard Brains;  photo Kevin Lamb

Zero of ZR04 opened the show with an upbeat and “lets get to it” intro to the show by dedicating it to Teenage Head’s Frankie Venom, The Ugly’s Mike Nightmare, ZR0$’s Tony Brighton, and Ruby Teases and opening band Cardboard Brains.  Guitarist Vince Carlucci gave a shout-out to M.I.A. lead singer John Paul Young, and fill-in singer Sandy MacFadyen did just swell (and a 360 degree flip from his performance at the original Last Pogo where as an audience member he yelled good-natured obscenities at Cardboard Brains.  (Vince is back in the hunt searching for JP.)   Sandy was in ]the 1977 band Swollen Members who’s lead singer, Evan Siegel, is featured in one of the “hidden features” in The Last Pogo DVD.  (WhaaAAA?!  You didn’t know there were “Easter Eggs” in the Special Features menu?)

Wayne Brown and Paul Eckness;  photo by Jean Trivett

Around 9:30 the Gothic Cowboy, ex-Fifth Column and Thee Immaculate Hearts (and original Last Pogo attendee) singer Wayne Brown walked into the club with Paul Eckness from The Wads, who walked into the club at a unique, tilting east.   A bouncer went after him, bemoaning his task, but determined to obey strict liquor laws (the Man) and came back empty-handed;  Paul had given him the slip.  “Man, you can smell the weed in there already.”    His partner shook his head in disgust and sighed.  “Maybe we’ll get Paul later.”  It was going to be a long night.

The Garys, Topp and Cormier;  photo by Jack Skellington

Mickey de Sadist was dressed to the nines, and amongst other gems, told the audience:  “Some of you girls look familiar, but not too familiar.  I think i mighta f*#ked your mother thirty years ago.”   The Forgotten Rebels ended their tight twenty-minute set with their classic “Surfin’ on Heroin” just as original Rebel and Hate-Filled Man Chris Houston, co-writer of “Surfin’” showed up with a flair for synchronicity and did some biz for the camera out front with Rojer Moxie Streets aka Roger Dirtbag aka Roger Fucking Streets.

Roger asked:  “Is The Last Pogo Jumps Again going to be the Chinese Democracy of punk films?”    For the record, we’re aiming to have the movie completed in 2009.

Mickey de Sadist;  photo by Kevin Lamb

Trouble in the dressing room! For some reason everyone kept blaming Cardboard Brain Vince Carlucci for taking off with the key to the dressing room, and as the Scenics waited around to get in the room so they could get ready to go on the stage, Pogo director Brunton make a feeble attempt to pick the lock, and finally barkeep and ex BopCat Teddy Fury fished it out from under the bar, the Scenics got settled in, and a few minutes later took their turn on the stage, blasting through a tight set after spending a week in Toronto laying down tracks for a new album, and ending the set with their last-minute version of “I Heard Her Call My Name”.   Drummer Mark Perkells’ 82-year-old mother drank beer at the front of the stage and watched her son keep the beat, while Andy Meyers jumped for joy.

Andy Meyers of The Scenics;  photo by Kevin Lamb

2008 audience; photo by Jack Skellington;  1978 audience, The Last Pogo

Former B-Girl (and now bass-player for the punky NYC-based New York Junk) Cynthia Ross flew in from the Big Apple to introduce The Mods, and in the twenty minute break between the Scenics and The Mods, ran into a couple of other B-Girls in the basement:  Xenia, there just for kicks, and Lucasta, getting ready to introduce Steven Leckie and the Solutions!

Sam Ferrara lends Cynthia Ross a prized bass;  photo by Kevin Lamb

Meanwhile, original Viletone and The Best Commentary Reader Ever (watch his stuff on The Last Pogo DVD) Chris Haight forgot his ticket at home, and drummer and man-about-town Cleave Anderson had to open the back door of the Horseshoe to sneak him in.  Yes, security was that tight.  In a perfect world, of course, Chris would’ve been on the guest list or better, up on stage playing, but just having him there was pretty cool.   Cleave, under the influence of beers and perhaps something else, with no intention of doing anything but having a good time, was quickly snagged by the B-Girls as their plot developed, and Ugly guitar-player (and –okay, this is confusing — Viletone in an interview portion of The Last Pogo movie, but not on stage at the time, go figger) Steve Koch was lured into the surprise attack that they were planning.

Cynthia introduced The Mods, the only band there that night featuring all of the original members, and without saying word one performed a crowd-rousing, tight, fast set of hits.  Dressed exactly the same as they did thirty years ago.   “That drummer is a maniac!”, said audience member Casey Sebert.  Well, Casey, if ya didn’t know, he’s also a highly respected lawyer and the main guy for getting this whole show happening.  It was a little odd to see David at the end of the night, still dripping sweat, carefully doing the accounting for the bands’ payday.  In true punk fashion, the box-office was split equally amongts all musicians, and everyone walked away with a couple of hundred thousand dollars.  Whoops, I mean pennies.  Or tenths of pennies.  Hey — it wasn’t about the money anyways!

Steven Leckie;  photo by Kevin Lamb

With much anticipation, Steven Leckie and the Solutions! were up next, and Leckie surprised everyone by ignoring his classics from the era for a few cover tunes, including a great version of Lou Reed’s Caroline Says, then a spoken word piece that mostly extolled the talents and importance to Toronto’s culture of The Garys Cormier and Topp, and then a couple of more tunes.   “The Solutions!” were Jim Masyck, the late Handsome Ned’s brother, on guitar, and keyboards and programmes by Alex Topp.  It was a nice touch for Alex to use glitter letters to spell out “Solutions, The” on the front of her keyboards.

Alex Topp of Steven Leckie and the Solutions!; photo Edie Steiner

The surprise of the evening was a couple of tunes by The B-Girls, who shoulda been at the first Last Pogo, but were in NYC at the time.  Joined by Ugly guitar-slinger Steve Koch and a very loosened-up Cleave Anderson, the girls belted out a few tunes and looked great.

Xenia and Lucasta of The B-Girls; photo by Kevin Lamb

The show went out with The Ugly with ex-Dream Dates Greg Dick replacing the late Mike Nightmare (“He’s good,” said drummer Tony Torture, “But he can’t do 100 push-ups like Mike could.”  They squeezed in an encore, and ended the evening with bassist Sam Ferrara inviting some friends on stage to join them.

David Quinton of The Mods with Greg Dick of The Ugly; photo by Kevin Lamb

Greg Dick serenades an audience member, while another has an epileptic fit; photo Kevin Lamb

Freddy Pompeii with The Secrets at The Last Pogo, December 1st, 1978.  Photo copyright Edie Stiener.

Rock-steady crew member Ollie Brunton partied away his 16th birthday at Pogo H.Q.,  and the monopolization of all TV, Internet, and munchies for the evening allowed director Colin Brunton to go through some of the DVDs and tapes he’s been given over the past few years.   Short films by Suzanne Naughton and Bruce Pirrie;   hours of tape of The Viletones;   super-8 footage of The Last Pogo;  two live recordings of the show;  a treasure trove of photos by the likes of Edie Steiner, Don Pyle, Patrick Cummins and more;  and on and on and on.

With the big 30th Anniversary show of The Last Pogo coming up in November (more on that later), we’re scheduling the last of the footage we need to get to complete principal photography (since June 2006), and getting deeper into the editing.   Oddly, it’s awesome how well Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass‘ Spanish Flea works under some scenes.    All in all, it’s terrifically encouraging, and we’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, etc.  And we’ve said this before, but all you people out there who we’ve said we’d interview, we’re still on it.

The Pogomobile got a call at 9:30 sharp this morning from a wide-awake and up-beat Steven Leckie, who is clearly excited about The 30th Anniversary show at the Horseshoe this November.   He’s closing the books on The Viletones finally and forever, a name that’s been around off and on since 1977, and is all set to unleash The Steven Leckie Solution.  “People are gonna remember this show the rest of their lives,” he enthused.   And Steven had other news too:  he’s been included in the recording of a tribute album to The Band, Steven joining ranks with fellow musicians like Leonard Cohen and Gordon Lightfoot.  He got a shot of Band keyboardist genius Garth Hudson holding up a Viletones album.

As we get set to release The Last Pogo DVD, we’re about to get some nice press from the U.S.:  Vice, Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll, Alternative Press,  Austin Chronicle.

And finally, word will get out soon about the big 30th Last Pogo Anniversary at the original scene of the crime, the Horseshoe Tavern, at the end of November.  We’ve already heard from people who’re coming in from London, England and at least one person from Italy (!)  It’s sure to be a great show, and everyone involved to date are made up of a bunch of people who’ve in their own way, never given up the ghost of 1978.   The Scenics, The Mods, the aforementioned Steven Leckie, and The Ugly, with Greg Dick replacing the late, great Mike Nightmare, rumours of possible appearances by The Forgotten Rebels‘ Mickey DeSadest and special guests TBA.

Brain full.  Must go.

We hit the NXNE press conference/launch last night, and ran into Last Pogoers Gordie Lewis from Teenage Head and Vince Carlucci from the Cardboard Brains. Fast Eddie Smith snapped shots as we were deluged by a constant flow of eats and beers, and it was all pretty crammed and jammed. Kudos to Liz Anderson of Flip for doing such a decent job of promotion. Apart from hearing the low-down on the run-down of all the bands ‘n’ stuff, we ran into a few more ghosts from the past including Virginia Kelly of VK and Associates, and filmmaker Bruce McDonald.

We caught word that Hugh Cornwell of The Stranglers is going to be at NXNE to show off his new movie, and so we’re gonna have to try and track him down during the frenzy of the fest; one of the most memorable of the relentlessly awesome shows at the Horseshoe in 1978 was The Stranglers blowing the roof off the joint to an overflow crowd of 500+.

Meanwhile, back at Pogo HQ, co-director Kire Paputts is busily transferring the 150 hours of footage we’ve compiled since we started shooting The Last Pogo Jumps Again back in June 2006. On top of this footage, we’ve got miles (er…kilometres) of archival footage, some never-before-seen footage of The Last Pogo, and a growing pile of photos and handbills. Finally, in sad news, all-round helper-dude Ollie Brunton confessed that he skipped history at his high-school yesterday. We’ll have to see if his grounding affects the shooting we have planned for this weekend. Because no one loads a camera and fiddles with a tripod quite like Ollie.

And just for shits ‘n’ giggles, we dug up the above photo from a cardboard box deep in the catacombs (i.e. basement) of Pogo HQ. For those of you who didn’t have the pleasure of meeting Mr. Ramone he was the proverbial nicest guy you’ll ever meet.

After a month of down-time, we’re back with a slightly slicked up and slimmed down website and all the stuff we’ve been doing since we last left you in March…

While we gone, The Scenics snuck into town. With Andy Meyers on the left coast on Salt Spring Island and the other Scenics scattered around southern Ontario, rehearsals were taped in Toronto, sent by passenger pigeon to Andy, who’d jam and sing and add and subtract notes and riffs and after a while flew to Toronto to meet the band, version 2008: long-time partner/co-creator Ken Badger, drummer Mark Perkell and bassist Mike Young. Gary Topp presented them at the original scene of the crime, the Horseshoe Tavern with lots of family and old friends there for the occasion. They had to duck out of an interview at CIUT-FM when technology failed and everything fell apart (through no fault of interviewer Greg Dick, I should add); they got lost in the wilds of Hamilton on the way to an interview with B.F. Mowat; charged through a sweat-soaked hour and forty-five at Club Absinthe, made the hearts grow fonder, and then back to Toronto (didn’t get lost this time) for a final last blast at the Dakota Tavern.

Here to have fun, make noise, and promote their awesome and audacious CD “How does it feel to be Loved”, (on ITunes!) a collection of live Velvet Underground covers, the Scenics were big and noisy and as hell-bent creative as ever, doing old tunes new ways and new tunes old school, and looking forward to coming back in June when for NXNE.

On Friday night directors Richard Fiander and Kire Paputts headed down to Healey’s Roadhouse (r.i.p. Jeff Healey) for the Teenage Head record release of their new album, Teenage Head with Marky Ramone, a collection of olden-goldies and total-effin-goodies redone with you guessed it, legendary drummer (two terms of duty with the Ramones; drummer with the most service) Marky Ramone. The former Ramones drummer couldn’t make it up here, but we got lots of good back-stage stuff, one-liners, antics and chatter and then the show for the sold-out crowd. Tight, fun, the kind of shows they’ve been doing off on and for, oh, thirty years (!). In June, they head out west for an all-too-rare trip beyond the city limits, so take note all you cowboys and cowgirls, yee-haw, Teenage Head are comin’ to town! But seriously, kids, you get a chance, go see them.

Awesomely enough, the next day we hooked up with…drumroll, please…Tommy Ramone, the last man standing of the original fabulous four, the first manager, the producer, the guy who helped with Band of Gypsys with Jimi Hendrix when he was a teenager, the one, the only. In town for gigs with his new bluegrass band Uncle Monk (named after jazz icon Thelonious Monk and painter Edvard Monck, and “because it sounds cool”). The interview was pulled together by uber-promoter and all-round good guy Gary Topp. Tommy offered up his theories on punk rock, the line from punk to bluegrass, a bit of Ramones 101 (“Joey and Dee Dee were there for fun. Me and Johnny were on a mission…to bring rock ‘n’ roll back to America”). At the end of the interview, Tommy signed the Pogo Mobile Unit’s bumper-sticker — and that’s why we’ll never wash our truck again.

Finishing up the weekend and saving ‘best ’til last, Brunton’s Ollie and Colin finally made visit #1 with legendary promoter Gary Topp who told tales of rock ‘n’ roll, Steven “Nazi Dog” Leckie, drunk cops, misadventures, the genius and genesis of punk and the lasting effect. With a steel-trap mind (and a firm-handshake, I might add) Gary talked about gigs by Suicide and The Contortions and Edie the Egg Lady and Mike DeVille, how Gus the cook would brandish a knife and threaten Nash the Slash when he’d play the Horseshoe (“too loud, too loud!”) — endless great stores and insights. He brought us down to a basement cubby-hole to file cabinets stuffed with handbill, newspaper clippings, pictures, all sorts of stuff.

Please bear with us — we’re still working out the kinks with the new website, digging up the old archives, and picking pretty pictures to show off. We plan to update at least weekly, so please check in later.