The Last Pogo Jumps Again

From Dangerous Minds dot net.

In January we got some great photos of The Government (Flat Tire, Hemingway Hated Disco Music);  add Bobbe Besold as yet another of the terrific photographers there were in Toronto back in the mid-seventies.   Our total count so far is 612 photos spread over our four hour movie.

We discovered http://chuckmanothercollection.blogspot.com/ and John Chuckman’s awesome collection of postcards.  Unfortunately, not enough dpi to show on the big screen.

How cool was Yonge Street back in the mid-seventies?!  Note that this was even before the “famous” neon record that Sam the Record Man erected in the late seventies.   As with much of what made Toronto cool, virtually none of the stores in this picture still exist.

The Last Pogo Jumps Again co-filmmaker (along with Kire Paputts) Colin Brunton sketched out this rough map as a guide for Montreal artist (and ex-punker from the band American Devices) Rick Trembles in order to create a slicker full-colour map.

We tried (and failed) to get permission to feature a few seconds of the Bunuel/Dali short masterpiece Un Chien Andalou.  Too bad.  Many people will recall Nash the Slash performing for the first time at Gary Topp’s Original 99 Cent Roxy Theatre his musical accompaniment to the film.  Jaws dropped.  Five years later, Pogo filmmaker Colin Brunton would copy the famous eye-slitting scene for his first film, a short called Bollocks that he made with Liz Aikenhead.   Bollocks was in part shot at Club Davids, the infamous gay bar by night, punk bar by later in the night, and featured performances by The Viletones and The Ugly, and appearances by scene notables Wayne Brown and Mr. Shit.    Brunton purchased a sheep’s eye for the scene, just like Lou and Sal did;  a safety pin was used instead of a razor.  Good times.

A fascination with the 1976 – 1980 punk/new-wave scene in Toronto continued as (excellent) photographer Don Pyle’s photo album Trouble in the Camera Club was released in April 2011.

We got our first draft of the map of Toronto circa 1977 from Montreal artist Rick Trembles.   He also drew up maps of Southern Ontario, the U.S., and Canada, pointing out some of the punk hotspots, i.e. CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City in NYC, The Smiling Buddha in Vancouver and the cities Toronto, Hamilton and London in Southern Ontario.

In April 2011, co-filmmaker Kire Paputts packed up the equipment and took the bus down to Philadelphia (that’s just how we roll, people) to re-interview Toronto scenesters Freddy Pompeii, guitarist for the original line-up of The Viletones, and later lead singer of The Secrets;  and Margarita Passion, who used to own New Rose, the cool clothing and record store hang-out on Queen Street East back in the day.

Rick Trembles continued to awe us with his comic-strip rendition of the day back in 1977 when Joey Shithead and his band The Skulls (who would soon later morph into D.O.A.) borrowed the stage at the infamous Gasworks Tavern (the name “Gasworks Tavern” now copyright Mike Myers if you can believe it) from the power pop trio Goddo.  Needless to say, neither was impressed with the other.

Shock Theatre impresario, artist, filmmaker, LSD and music fan William “The Count” Cork showed filmmakers Brunton and Paputts the crypt at Mt. Pleasant Cemetary that he and Ugly singer Mike Nightmare slept in for a six month period back in 1978 or so.  Bill told us that a Vietnamese colonel told him that because they slept under the surface of the ground at a cemetary, they were able to become invisible.   Brunton and Paputts then think:  “Intervew of the year.”

In May, sad news:  super fan and collector Imants Krumins passed away.   Later in the year, the Forgotten Rebels would dedicate their live CD to him.  Much beloved in Hamilton and Toronto, we managed to snag an interview with him when we started this project in 2006;  Imants supplied us with tons of handbills and info.  He’s credited as “Lead Archivist” in the credits to our film.

In June 2011 one of the last band interviews was conducted when Brunton and Paputts drove down to the Beaches area of Toronto to speak with Michaele Jordana and Doug Pringle of The Poles.  Noteworthy for the anthemic single C.N. Tower, The Poles were always slightly controversial, but not how they’d like:  there were quite a few punkers in Toronto that didn’t feel that, somehow, they were as genuine, say, as The Viletones, Teenage Head, The Ugly, Scenics, Martha and the Muffins, The Secrets, The Mods, etc. were.   So — the question of validity was asked, feelings were hurt, and months later, after not being able to come to terms for a music license for C.N.Tower (ridiculous, by the way!) the whole segment and any mention of the band whatsoever was dropped from the film.

We found a photographer in NYC with the uber-NYC moniker Nicky L who licensed us some Super-8 footage of The Ramones at the New Yorker, September 1976.  With bootleg audio of the same show from Randy Johnston and Gail Wetton (who also gave us the ticket stub above), we pieced together the exact moment they hit the stage and changed Toronto music oh those three decades ago.  We’re currently trying to negotiate a deal for the music and are actually 3/4 of the way there.  But that last quarter is a bitch.  More on that later.  Ugh.

Cardboard Brains copyright Vince Carlucci.

After several somewhat unsettling emails from Cardboard Brains‘ lead singer and co-founder (along with guitarist Vince Carlucci) John Paul Young, we gave up hope of ever getting permission to use an original Brains song in the movie.  Boo!  We’re currently scratching our heads on how to solve that one, but hey — out of the 50 songs we wanted to license for the movie, we’ve only lost about four (and we’re still continuing to fight for three of those) so if our movie were, like,  The Toronto Blue Jays, and the filmmakers were the fourth and fifth batters?  We’d be knocking it out of the park!

Our very first Skype interview and our very last band interview, was with the lovely and talented Sally Cato, live from her apartment in NYC.  Former lead singer of The Concordes, The Androids, and later, post-Toronto, Smashed Gladys, Sally gave us a great intervew, and some Super-8 footage of The Androids to boot.  Hey-o!

Picked up a remastered live track of Drastic Measures from ex-Measures and ex-Dishes Tony Malone;  found some hilarious Super-8 footage of the Forgotten Rebels.  And in a thrilling coup, received permission to use an old SCTV clip of the Agoraphobic Cowboy, Rick Moranis.  Thanks, SCTV!  Thanks Mr. Moranis!

Nash the Slash, copyright Paul Till.

Photographer Paul Till sent us a few more pictures of Nash the Slash, for the ‘before and after’ style we’ve been using throughout the film with people we’ve interviewd.  Of course with Nash, he looks eerily similar in photos from 1977 as he does in the interview we did with him in 2007.  Nash was actually scheduled to play The Last Pogo in 1978, as, like the rest of the bands that evening (Scenics, Secrets, Cardboard Brains, Mods, Ugly, Viletones, Teenage Head) he was one of promoters The Garys’ favourites, but punched a wall in his loft above The Original 99 Cent Roxy Theatre and broke his hand.  

We had our third interview with Dishes and Drastic Measures songster Tony Malone in September, visiting him and his pit-bull Bella in Toronto’s west end.  We needed to clarify a point about The Dishes, arguably the first band in Toronto who felt New-Wavish, and who clearned a lot of decks on Queen West for OCA bands and others.

In October we recalled the death three years earlier of Teenage Head singer Frankie Venom.   Around the same time, we finally finalized the Teenage Head songs (seven versions of six songs;  hey, we don’t fuck around!) and completed the deal with Gordie Lewis.  In December we found some more footage (beautiful 16mm black and white) of The Original 99 Cent Roxy Theatre through Facebook pal Talis Briedis which we hope to incorporate.

And now we’re just waiting for a handful of release forms to come back to Pogo H.Q.  Once done, we start the sound edit and mix, and then scheme up the release pattern and festival plans.  Our near six year task is almost done.  Which is bittersweet.

Cheers

The Ramones sing Happy Birthday to Mr. Burns.

Five years ago Colin Brunton started this project with his then thirteen-year-old son Ollie Brunton by interviewing Erella Ganon (nee Vent), in her backyard garden in Toronto’s west end.   A few days later Brunton would interview Kire Paputts (to get a take on what it was like to be the son of a Toronto punk pioneer, Chris Haight, bass-player for The Viletones, guitar player for The Secrets.)

The interview was cut short when they were kicked off of the Go Station platform they’d only been filming on for a few minutes.

Later that week Brunton watched Paputts’ Ryerson University film, Only I Know, and invited Kire to help out on directing duties.

Now five years later the film is nearly done, a true collaboration between not only Brunton and Paputts, but indeed almost the entire Toronto/Hamilton/London, Ontario punk/new-wave community, because without their cooperation, there’d be nothing.  Nothing I tells ya!

Ticket stub courtesy of Molten Core

One of the last interviews we did was with Doug Pringle and Michaele Jordana, the creators of The Poles, one of the first bands on the scene.  With some lighting help by their daughter Ramona, and in the basement of their Beaches’ house, Doug and Michaele talked about their early history and their connection with the Toronto art world, a dominating influence on the scene in Toronto in general.

Next week we conduct what should be the last interview, with Sally Cato of The Androids.   It’ll be the first one we’ve done via Skype and should be interesting:  presented with a list of some of the questions we’d be asking her, Sally responded by saying that she had “…a photograph for every question.“  Find out what that means when our project is released later this year.

The staff foolishly crowded around the radio before realizing their mistake.

The staff at Pogo H.Q. crowded into the screening room to check out a teasing 30 second sample of some footage shot by one Nicky L at the first Ramones show in Toronto, the date of which (September 24 1976) is the opening date of our film 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.  Having gotten permission to use the Fab Four’s likenesses in our film from the generous folks at Ramones’ management, we now only need to work a deal so that some of the footage ends up in our film.   Shot in glorious 8 mm — yup, not Super-8, just 8 — the footage contains a few shots outside the theatre (including a sign advertising gas at $0.86 a gallon) — and pretty much the whole 35 minute concert.   Fantastic.

A  young Don Pyle photographed by Carm Ferrari

Ex Crash Kills Five and Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet  Don Pyle kindly sent us some photos of Tyrrana and himself as a younger man, including the one above, by Carm Ferrari.  Don wrote Pogo H.Q. a note to remind them that prior to the Ramones second show at the New Yorker, in the spring of ’77, he asked theatre manager (and Last Pogo Jumps Again co-director) Colin Brunton how he could get a Ramones’ autograph.  According to Don, Colin told him to just go downstairs to the dressing room and ask them.  Which he did.  (Is it just me or were things just a little bit looser in the seventies?)

No security concerns despite police in the poster.

Co-director Kire Paputts ventured to the wilds of Guelph, Ontario yesterday to chat with The Dishes‘ saxophone player, Michael LaCroix;  last weekend Kire interviewed Dishes’ keyboard player Glenn Schellenberg;  dishing out dishes’ details soon…

Ad for 1978′s Dishes’ EP Hot Property.

Waiting to receive our DVD of Truck Stop Women from filmmaker Mark Lester to augment the section of our film that touches on The Original 99 Cent Roxy Theatre.   Truck Stop Women was a favourite at the Roxy, where loads of people who would later be involved in the scene used to go.  Mark Lester later directed the feature Class of ’84, featuring Teenage Head.

Best punk band ever.

Today co-director Kire Paputts heads up for visit #4 with legendary promoter Gary Topp to shoot buttons and other memorabilia in Topper’s joint.   Meanwhile, Cardboard Brains’ Vince Carlucci’s photo exhibit continues at Oz Studios at 134 Ossington Avenue.  This Friday they’re gonna screen The Last Pogo Jumps Again‘s second-unit director Aldo Erdic’s half-hour doc Circa ’77:  The Diodes along with The Last Pogo, and dvds will be on sale.

Ich bin ein Berliner

And just think of the adventure it might be actually getting to the place, what with snipers on rooftops, 12,000 cops (many of whom are from out of town and can be witnessed gawkin’ at all the big buildings, hyuck hyuck) crazy last-minute re-routing of traffic, and a shitload of protesters in various parts of the city trying to get the attention of the Golly G-20 “leaders” in town for the big photo-op.  (I mean, really.  They couldn’t just set up big-ass monitors at home and Skype the whole thing?)

On another tangent, remember how you might actually get beaten up — or at the least be the victim of snickers and withering stares — dare you play Ramones or Iggy Pop or New York Dolls back in the day?  And how it feels kind of weird and sadly interesting that these days you can’t go to a professional sports event without hearing the familiar Hey Ho Let’s Go as the psyche-em-up music?   Well, it gets better.  The commercial for Major League Baseball’s 2010 All-Star Game features “…a boozy version…” of California Sun by The Dictators.  Brains-behind-the-band Adny Shernoff pointed out on his Facebook page:  “A few weeks ago the world stopped spinning for .34 seconds which allowed a rare vortex to shift space and time ever so slightly.  This extraordinary event allowed the demo that earned The Dictators a record deal many years ago to be surreptitiously inserted into the promotion for this years MLB All Star game…the rock gods are pleased!

Cover of the book by Maria Raha

“Cinderella punks” is the phrase The Existers’ George Higton used to describe  the recent resurgence of first-wave punks.   We can only report what’s been going on in Toronto the past couple of years — new material by The Scenics and The Existers;  rereleases by Simply Saucer and The Mods;  old material redux by Teenage Head;  live recordings from 1977 by The Viletones and shows and mini-tours galore. And there’s an international thing happening too.  The Sex Pistols last year, The Vibrators, The Buzzcocks et al — and New York City is not letting us down and are doing it right:  the latest release from The New York Dolls got terrific reviews, and Iggy is still Iggy (except that he’s recently learned that it’s not so cool to dive into the audience anymore;  “Nobody was there to catch me!”)   Are the original first-wavers finally getting some respect?  Maybe so.  Probably not.

J. Osterberg;  photo from the ‘net, photographer unknown.

When celebrity-of-the-minute George Clooney‘s latest squeeze meanly states that Jennifer Aniston is starting to look a  lot like Iggy Pop, well, uh…we’re actually not sure how to take that.   Four-year-old kids wear Ramones T-shirts, and you can’t go to a major sporting event without hearing The Ramones screaming “Hey, ho — let’s go,” (competing with the unfathomable overuse of the theme song from The Adamms Family — what is that all about?) – shit you would just not have had a chance of hearing at any gathering of more than 75 people thirty years ago.   And you might even get beaten up for it.   (Btw — can the American Federation of Musicians get off their lazy asses and maybe fight for some royalties for these people?)

What the fuck?

So where do we start, Cinderalla Punk fanboys and fangirls?   The Diodes continue the mini-tour that kicked off in Rome, and play with The New York Dolls in beautiful Burlington July 16;  same night, Iggy and the Stooges play a free show at Dundas Square (a.k.a. garish Times Square Junior) — try and give up that standard Saturday afternoon nap, people! Grampa’s gonna rock out with his cock out!  Cheetah Chrome and Sylvain Sylvains‘ new project, The Batusis, with Toronto’s own Cynthia Ross and her New York Junk playing that old vaudeville house on Queen East, what’s it called, The Opera House!  In July sometime, more news later, presented by Gary Topp.

“The Courier” from Magical Mystery Tour.

A steady rain and overcast sky seemed somehow fitting for a tour of punk/new-wave/alternate sites in Hamilton today, lead by original Forgotten Rebels’ Chris Houston and Mickey DeSadist.  We met up with them at Picks and Sticks, where Chris (along with Teenage Head’s Gordie Lewis) teaches Heartbreakers, Viletones, and Ramones tunes to fresh-faced ten-year-olds;  Teenage Head drummer Jack Pedlar was fiddling with a drum set before starting his lesson with an eager young Hamiltonian, who we’re sure will grow up to say that he learned how to play from Jack Fuckin’ Pedlar, dude! (or whatever kids will be saying in the future.)   While Mickey DeSadist, still recovering from his bicycle accident, sat around the front of the store, Chris showed us his workspace, plastered with posters and guitars, and in a half-hour told us enough stories for, well, his own half-hour film.   More later…

The B-movie Caged Heat was shown often at Gary Topp’s The Original 99 Cent Roxy Theatre in Toronto in the mid-seventies.  Written and directed by Jonathon Demme, with an original score by John Cale.   Demme would go on to direct (among many films), The Talking Heads‘ concert film Stop Making Sense.

John Cale would play the New Yorker (Gary Topp‘s new venue) theatre in February of 1977, fanning the flames that the Ramones had sparked four months earlier when they kick-started the “punk” scene in Toronto on September 24, 1976 on the very same stage.   Cale was (and still is) a living legend, and did not disappoint.   He ended his blistering set on his hands and knees, gathering up mike and amp chords in his mouth, crawling off the stage, hundreds of pounds of amps and mikes falling and trailing behind him, pure anarchic and hilarious theatrics, feedback humming and screeching, until finally hiding behind the curtain stage right.   The Wizard of Fucking Oz.    And the packed house might have collectively thought:  “Whoa.  We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore.”

The first encore was Cable Hogue, and then This Heart of Mine.   The Ballad of Cable Hogue was a 1970 movie directed by bad-ass genius Sam Peckinpah that was also shown often at The Original 99 Cent Roxy.   Cale would later write Honi Soit (qui mal y pense), which could be translated, more or less, as “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,”  the cut-line of the movie.  Or more accurately, “Evil be to him who thinks Evil.”

The Talking Heads would play their first gig in Toronto at A Space, artistic home of agit-prop theatrical group The Hummer Sisters and soon-to-be band The Government, fronted by the enigmatic talent Andrew Paterson.  Their second gig was at OCA, home of emerging bands like The Cads, Oh Those Pants, The Dishes, The Doncasters, The Eels (soon to evolve into The Diodes) the seeds of Johnny & The G-Rays and more.   The third gig Talking Heads in Toronto, and the first that including keyboardist Jerry Harrison, was at The New Yorker.  Upstart unknowns The Scenics would get the coveted opening slot, much to the disgust of other bands who felt that they deserved it.   The Scenics made as many fans as enemies that night.

The New Yorker Theatre, before the stage was built, courtesy Toronto Archives.

To be continued…

Poster courtesy of John Catto

For the next month Pogo H.Q. will be hopping with footage of the last batch of interviews, and then the tedious grind of paperwork and deal-making begins.  This week director Kire Paputts interviews Owen Burgess late of Oh Those Pants and The Cads;   L.A. shooter Amy Bellings interviews graphic artist/photographer Rodney Bowes, and over the next two weeks we get even busier with a few more people t.b.a.

Pogo H.Q. got an electronic letter through our Internet machine from a professor in Pennsylvania asking about The Ugly, for a book being written about Bruce McDonald’s feature film Hard Core Logo.  Uh…a book about a ten-year-old film?  Wha?

Interesting tidbit:  someone in Toronto apparently has Super-8 footage of the very first Ramones show in Toronto from September 24 1976 — and were too greedy to make a deal with The Ramones management for their project It’s Alive.  Really?  I mean, we can guess who might control this stuff, but to hold out on a gem like that when it could’ve reached an audience, that’s just bullshit.

Raggedy handbill, 1976;  courtesy of Robert Malyon.

Smoking a joint in the back row of his movie theatre The New Yorker, watching the out-of-synch Blank Generation, promoter Gary Topp twigged on the idea of bringing some of the bands from Amos Poe’s movie into town.  It was 1976.  When he tried to track down The Ramones, few people in the business knew who they were.

Photo by David Andoff.

A concrete stage was built in a few 18 hour shifts over the course of a weekend;  artist David Andoff sculpted a King Kong and painted a NYC nightscape above the marquee –  and “punk rock” officially arrived in Toronto on September 24, 1976 with Johnny Lovesin & His Invisible Band opening for New York City’s The Ramones.

Two years later, Gary would be long gone from the New Yorker, having had moved to the beer-soaked Horseshoe Tavern with partner Gary Cormier;  together they were known as The Garys.   On December 1, 1978, The Garys promoted The Last Pogo, the going-away party for their favourite local bands;  they were being kicked out, and the bar would revert to it’s country ‘n’ western roots for a spell.  The Scenics, The Cardboard Brains, The Ugly, The Secrets, Teenage Head, and The Mods were set to play the historic gig.

Steven Leckie at The Last Pogo.  Photo by Edie Stiener.

Reluctant to join in at first, Steven Leckie ended up crashing the party with his latest version of his ground-breaking Viletones.   And all hell broke loose.   It was captured on film, recorded for an album — and then forgotten for years.   This is the specific time period we’re zeroing in on for our sprawling documentary The Last Pogo Jumps Again:  A Biased & Incomplete History Of Toronto Punk Rock Circa September 24 1976 To December 1 1978.