The Last Pogo Jumps Again

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!

There is no justice.

Okay, we all know about the idiots who thought that Jimi Hendrix was singing “‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy” rather than the correct “‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky.”  Boneheads! Are you effing stupid?!  But…we humbly hung our heads in shame in a sad corner of Pogo H. Q. yesterday when we learned that we were just as guilty.   Being an instant and big fan of The Dictators hours after their 1975 classic album Go Girl Crazy hit Records on Wheels on Yonge Street, The Last Pogo Jumps Again co-director Colin Brunton thought that they were some of the best rock ‘n’ roll lyrics he’d ever heard.   But he thought it a bit weird when Handsome Dick Manitoba sang:  “I won’t be happy, ’til I’ve known foreign wine, with my face on the cover, of the TV Guide.”  This awesome, tough, street-level NYC punk who sings about smoking weed, watching TV, eating at McDonalds and sleeping with the TV on won’t be happy until he’s a wine connoisseur?  Wtf?!

Liner sleeve from Go Girl Crazy.

Earlier this week the teletype at Pogo H.Q. was buzzing with the news that none other Dictators songwriter/bass-player/keyboard player, the legendary Adny Shernoff was coming up to Ontario for a small tour, presenting a show called When Giants Walked The Earth – A Musical Memoir By Andy Shernoff.

Andy Shernoff coming to town, stop.

Our operators got on the Internet machine, and in a few hours Mr. Shernoff graciously agreed to be interviewed.  The Research Team delved into an intense eleven minute Google search and read potential half-truths and lies about the subject, and prepared questions.   They reported back that Adny had actually become a wine connoisseur.  Aha!  Now that old lyric made sense.  Thirty-five years ago Andy Shernoff must have had a tiny seed in the back of his mind that eventually sprouted into a love of wine;  from rock star to oenophile.  So after sending our initial list of questions to Andy (hey, we don’t need any “gotcha” moments in our interviews;  we like our friends to be prepped;  ‘spect, yo) we added one more:  “Andy, years ago you wrote that “I won’t be happy, ’til I’ve known foreign wine, with my face of the cover of the TV Guide.”  So Andy, are ya happy?”   Andy writes back, confirming our schedule and arrangement and adds “By the way, the lyric is actually “I won’t be happy, ’til I’m known far and wide…“   Oh.  35 year old mystery cleared up;  Pogo director feels like an idiot.

In any case, we urge everyone, idiots or not, to catch When Giants Walked The Earth (times and places below.)  At least thats what we think its called.

Cardboard Brains;  photo by Vince Carlucci

Former Cardboard Brains guitar-slinger Vince Carlucci‘s got stuff in a gallery!  “Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell” is a collection of pretty pics he took from 1977 to 1980.   Artists include Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Lou Reed, Deborah Harry, Patti Smith, John Cale, The Viletones, Teenage Head, The Ugly, Cardboard Brains, The Ramones, Frank Zappa, and The Diodes.  Opening night is Thursday, June 10, from seven ’til eleven, and it runs to June 24.  Oz Studios, 134 Ossington, curated by photographer Joe Fuda.

Classic!

Once you’ve taken a look at some of Vince’s pics, you should not miss Andy (Adny) Shernoff, ex-Dictator and ex-cellent songwriter as he spins tales and plays acoustic guitar at Mitzi’s Sister in Toronto, starts at ten.   Teenage Head’s Gord Lewis opens.  If you can’t catch Adny in Toronto, he’s also doing “When Giants Walked The Earth — A Musical Memoir By Andy Shernoff” at Call the Office in London on June 11th, and  This Ain’t Hollywood in Hamilton on June 12.  Were The Dictators one of the best bands to come out of the U.S. of A?  Absolutely.  Did their roadie turned lead singer name himself after the province and/or state that most resembled a penis?  Sure did.  (Sorry, Florida, you just don’t cut it next to studly Manitoba.)  And did Andy write some of the funniest lyrics ever?  You bet:

“Oh Weekend
Bobby is a local punk
Cuttin’ school and getting drunk
Eating at Mcdonald’s for lunch

Oh Weekend
Soon he threw up in the store
But if he does it anymore
I’ll make him eat it off the floor.

The Horseshoe Tavern, June 1978.  So far we’re batting .500 on interviews from this poster.

We’re trying to work out an interview, and dying to ask the question that has been on many a Dictators’ fan’s mind:  Just wtf is a two tub man?  Check out The Andy Shernoff Appreciation Society on Facebook for dates in the States.

Meanwhile, while you’re all out there looking at pictures and listening to stories about growing up with Johnny Thunders and stuff, we’re working people!  Tomorrow night co-director Kire Paputts tracks down The Diodes.  News at eleven.

From the April issue of Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll

This months Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll has a six-page transcription of an interview Last Pogo director Colin Brunton did with Greg Dick at CIUT-FM in 2009, after The Last Pogo was released on DVD (and still available for only $12.00!)   It’s distributed in sixty countries so lots of folks overseas will get a small taste of the kind of action we had here in 1976 – 1979.   There’s lots more pics in the article (big thanks for Stephe Perry of CIUT for gathering up the jpgs, and for Molten Core and Imants Krumins for originally digging them up.)

For those keeping score at home, from top left:  ad for The Last Pogo from The Big Takeover;  July ’78 handbill from the Horseshoe Tavern; another July handbill from the Horseshoe.  Second row:  David Andoff ad for The John Cale Band at the New Yorker February 1977 (handdrawn gun and custom lettering, btw);  Jun ’78 Horseshoe handbill;  Music Hall concert in 1979, featuring the premiere of The Last Pogo.  Bottom row:  June handbill from the Horseshoe;  another June handbill from the Horseshoe;  insert from The Last Pogo album.

On-line memorabilia traders Molten Core gave us a bootleg of the first Ramones show in Toronto — the precise moment the time-line our project The Last Pogo Jumps Again:  A Biased & Incompleat History of Toronto Hamilton London Ontario Punk Rock Circa September 24 1976 to December 1 1978, Part One — starts.

Randy Johnston had had the incredible foresight to interview people in the audience that night (September 24, 1976) at the New Yorker Theatre and ask them what they thought of The Ramones.

Peter Gabriel didn’t like the Ramones?!  Whaaa?!

Randy didn’t catch Peter Gabriel (he’d walked out ten minutes into the show, muttering “Bullshit,”) but he did manage to catch glam-rock band Goddo‘s own Greg Godovitz.   After wondering how “…a lead-singer from New Yawk could have such a good English accent…” he summed up his impressions with a simple “They’re no Goddo.”

So today we called Greg on it (yo, bitch!) — and to talk about how he got Joey Shithead‘s pre-D.O.A. band The Skulls their first gig in Toronto’s beloved shit-hole The Gasworks.   Greg had a million stories.   Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll, much?

Hey, the Holidays are coming!  What better way, etc.  $12.00!  Cheap!

“Greg has stories that would make Caligula blush,” said Toronto legend Rompin’ Ronnie Hawkins and you can read them in Greg’s self-penned memoir and awesomely titled Travels With My Amp (which you can be sure kicks Anvil‘s Steven Spielberg-financed book’s ass.)  Now in it’s third printing — buy it at This Ain’t The Rosedale Library.

Our favourite stories were of Greg’s best trick:  climbing out the back door window of a car going a 150 klicks on the 401, then crawling across the roof of the car, and slipping into the window on the other side.  At 150 klicks an hour.  Really.  Read the book.

Goddo slipped out of the skin-tight silver pants of glam-rock pop band Fludd in 1975 when the core gang of punks in Toronto were fretting about where to buy black jeans and wising up to Patti Smith, The Dictators, The Ramones, et al.

But like Max Webster and F.M. (w/Nash the Slash), while they might not have fit perfectly with the trends and rules, they fit into the scene — especially with Hamilton’s Teenage Head.

Roxy matchbook cover courtesy of Gary Topp.  Greg was a  Roxy regular.

Goddo and Max Webster have both toured with them, and Nash the Slash was supposed to join them at The Last Pogo, but he broke his hand and couldn’t make it.

Nash’s electric mandolin repaired faster than his hand.

A couple of weeks at the The Garys’ Horseshoe Tavern in 1978.

The continued shooting and editing of The Last Pogo Jumps Again has been put on hold for a couple of weeks while we get ready for the DVD release of the original film, The Last Pogo.   We’ve never visited the post-office so much as we have in the last week, shipping orders to stores in San Diego, Glendale, and Chicago;  dropping samples off at local Toronto stores;  and grabbing the cell-phone for various interviews that ace Pogo Publicist (Pogolicist) Woody Whelan has been drumming up.

With a 30 day free trial of Photoshop, we’ve had to relearn how to use it in order to put together a couple of ads we’re taking out.   The ads are okay, but we’ve completely missed the mark on so-called “branding”.  Our ads look different from our DVD artwork which in turn looks different from our website.  I think we’ll be fine, but we don’t foresee Starbucks ordering stock, should they ever decide to take over the retail DVD business like they have the CD biz.  On the other hand, last week we went into a Starbucks, and the coffee dude was so impressed that we were wearing an old Teenage Head t-shirt that he gave us our two coffees for nothing.   Savvy business people that we are, in minutes a DVD and poster was hauled out of the Pogomobile, and said coffee dude was rewarded for his blatant disregard for Starbucks’ strict no-free-coffee-for-aging-dudes-wearing-punk-rock-t-shirts corporate policy.   So maybe there is hope.

Above is the ad we pulled together for The Big Takeover magazine, the NYC bi-yearly music ‘n’ arts glossy operated by Jack Rabid, ex original punk (who’s band used to take delight in covering The Viletones‘ Screaming Fist and Possibilities.)   We’re also taking out one in Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll, part in thanks to a nice review they did in the October issue (making the Top Ten DVD’s of the month no less), and part because it gets distributed to sixty countries around the world.   We’re still waiting for Vice to get back to us (“Dude, I totally forgot!”), and a few others.   And after some gentle badgering, it looks like the Toronto Sun might give us a plug as well.

Working the room, baby, working the room.  One interview type deal we’re looking forward to is chatting with new Ugly singer (and d.j. and haircutter) Greg Dick on CIUT-FM on or about October 18th.  Fun because director Brunton has been asked to come up with some tunes to play, and so he’s currently putting together a playlist spanning his first album bought — Paul Revere & The Raiders, Spirit of ’67 — right up through yearly favourites in the sixties and seventies (Alice Cooper’s Love it to Death;  The Velvet Underground) and on to his fave period, 1975 – 1980:  The Dictators, Ramones, Sex Pistols, Clash, Viletones, Scenics as well as some favourite oddities like Edie the Egg Lady’s Get off the Grass, The Masked Marauders, and what radio golden oldies gig on a college radio station would be complete with The Legendary Stardust Cowboy?!  I ask you:  what?!

So, needless to say, the external drive containing our years of footage is collecting dust and spider webs on the office floor, but we hope to pick up the slack after the DVD is released on October 14th, and tear into the new movie once again.

Webmeister Clayton Hamner’s revised the “Sell Out” page so we can sell some of the DVDs, and in a few weeks we’ll be doing a bit of an overhaul on the whole site, so as not to bore you, dear reader.

Stay tuned for more news on the Last Pogo 30th Bash at the Horseshoe in November, and start sniffing around for a Pogo bash at Lou Molinaro‘s new joint in Hamilton sometime in December.  After than, Santa comes.