The Last Pogo Jumps Again

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

Comic strip review, copyright Rick Trembles.

The absolutely coolest review our project The Last Pogo (1978) got was Rick Trembles‘ comic strip review that appeared in the Montreal Mirror as part of Rick’s weekly Motion Picture Purgatory series upon the release of the DVD in 2008.   (And hey — there’s still copies to be had for the low low price of $12.00;  visit the store.)

Detail from same review, and still copyright Rick Trembles.

We’re now talking to Rick about contributing some work for our epic feature 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.   We’d like to get Rick to create some cool maps, so people know we’re talking about London, Ontario instead of London, England, etc., but much more fun will be his interpretations of some of the stories people tell.  It won’t be old-school cell animation (too Disney, too expensive) nor will it be Toy Storyish computer animation (too eerie, too common) but rather comic strips that we’ll simply pan across and zoom in and out of (tres punk, just right.)   Dude is perfect for the job, too, because not only is he a keen artist with a sharp wit, but he’s a founding member of Montreal‘s longest-lasting post-punk band (est 1980) American Devices, so there’s that.

Self portrait by R. Crumb, copyright R. Crumb.

Iconic American device and legendary artist R. Crumb said about Rick:  “…even more twisted and weird than me.”  So there’s that, too.

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.

Snagged from a 2007 Drunk Jays Fans post.

And speaking of Drunk Jays Fans — is it okay to be a baseball fan and still enjoy putting together the puzzle that is The Last Pogo Jumps Again:  A Biased & Incomplete History Of Toronto Punk Circa September 24 1976 To December 1 1978?  For sure!   As we wind down on the last interviews over the next couple of weeks, a few of us here at Pogo H.Q. are chomping at the bit for the baseball season and our beloveable losers The Toronto Blue Jays to start playing ball.  If you’re like us, and you like your John McDonald defensive artistry at short as much as you appreciate the bass-playing skills of Sam Ferrara or the tidy madness of drummer David Quinton, then the site you have to check out is Drunk Jays Fans.   And like a shitload of stuff that’s great about Toronto today, this one too has a direct link back to those heady days of ’76 – ’78 that we’re covering, because the main author of Drunk Jays Fans — Andrew Stoeten — is not only a decent drunk writer, but he fronts a punk band called Action Makes and is a nephew of one of The Sophisticatoes, who we interviewed a few months back.

Stolen from dragons-eye.com

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.

After almost four years of shooting for The Last Pogo Jumps Again, here’s a list of all the local bands from the specific era September 24 1976 to December 1 1978 that we’ve represented in the film:    The Androids,  Arson, The Battered Wives, The B-Girls, The Cads, Cardboard Brains, Crash Kills Five, The Curse, The Dents, The Demics, The Diodes, Drastic Measures, The Existers, The Fits, Forgotten Rebels, The Government, Johnny & The G-Rays, Lance Charles Syndrome, Martha & The Muffins, The Mods, Nash the Slash, Oh Those Pants!, Rough Trade, The Scenics, The Secrets, Simply Saucer, The Skulls, Swollen Members, Teenage Head, The Toys, Tyranna, The Ugly, and The Viletones.   We’re still trying to interview someone from The Dishes, The Poles, The Everglades and a few others.  Who have we forgotten?

In addition to those local bands, we’ve also spoken to members of The Police, The Dead Boys, Goddo, The Heartbreakers, Fucked Up, The Ramones, and The Stranglers and several dozen fans, critics, photographers, managers, hangers-on etc.  We’ve dug up rare, and in some cases “never before seen” footage of Teenage Head, Viletones, Ugly, Mods, Government, Secrets, Scenics, Cardboard Brains, Johnny & The G-Rays;  the Original 99 Cent Roxy Theatre, the New Yorker Theatre, Yonge Street in the mid-seventies, and more.

We’re trying to nail down the very last of the interviews in the next few weeks so we can meet our deadline of having this sucker packaged up and ready to ship out by the end of the summer this year.  So if you can think of anyone we’ve missed, dissed or pissed off, please let us know.

Last week the Pogomobile tooled over and visited with The Existers’ George Higton, who was also the founding publisher/editor of the late seventies local fanzine Shades.  Prior to that, George wrote for the seminal NYC paper The New York Rocker.  And once we upload the tape (into our third terrabyte of footage for all you geeks out there) we’ll let you know what was going on in George’s head.

Handbill from the collection of Gail Wetton.  Eight days at the Horsehoe Tavern in 1978.

An absolutely rollicking week at Pogo H.Q.:

We topped off last week by chatting with fangirl Erika Larner, who’s lineage goes from  Gary Topp’s Original 99 Cent Roxy Theatre, where many seeds of punkish suberversion were planted,  to the Ontario College of Art when it was directed by avante-garde administrator Roy Ascott to helping and hanging out with OCA-based bands like The Cads, and Oh Those Pants, and selling beer at the Diodes‘ six weekend hangout The Crash ‘n’ Burn.

An interview with 75% of the original Cads included an attempt at an a cappella version of “Sex Is The Only Way Out.” A brainstorming dinner with ex-Mod and legal mind David Steinberg and Gary Topp, arguably the most import person in Toronto as regards alternative culture, and The Last Pogo’s Colin Brunton, who was awed by the bootleg of John Cale at the New Yorker Theatre in 1977 Gary gave him.

Shades Magazine publisher Sheila Wawanash held court a few days later on what it meant to put out a magazine in the late seventies, and showed us a nice picture of The Garys posing with The Police and a gold record.  The Police’s Andy Summer (about whom a whole series of docs could be made) cheerfully agreed to hook up with our director in L.A., Amy Belling, fresh off a two hour chat with photographer and graphic artist Rodney Bowes.  Today co-director Kire Paputts is journeying to Stouffville to talk about The Battered Wives with guitar-player John Gibbs.  On Sunday Kire and Colin look forward to a long-overdue interview with the fascinating Andy Paterson to talk about his band The Government, punk in general, music, art, and donuts.

The teletype machine at Pogo H.Q. has been burning overtime as well, sending out requests for Skype interviews with director John Waters, godfather John Cale, Richard Hell, Alan Vega of Suicide, Tina Weymouth from Talking Heads, Guns ‘n’ Roses’ Slash, ex-Nirvana’s Dave Grohl — and if you know your history of Toronto music between ’76 and ’78 you know why there were all important.  If you don’t know whey they were important, then watch out for the release of our movie later this year.  Buckle up;  it’ll be around five hours long.

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.

Deal with the Devil;  copyright Kim Northrop.  Check out his art at kimnorthrop.com

A year after interviewing the Topp half of The Garys, we’ve now chatted with the other half, sexy man-beast Cormier.   Gary had tons of interesting stuff to say on the partnership with Gary Topp and their years at the New Yorker and Horseshoe Tavern and The Edge and punk and rock and roll.

Coming up this week is an interview with Johnny Garbagecan, the late Mike Nightmare’s right-hand man, confidante and partner-in-crime, as well as a boardroom chat with Mods‘ drummer (and The Last Pogo Jumps Again’s legal counsel) David Quinton.   Apart from yer basic rock ‘n’ roll smarts and amazing history, Davids been a huge help with some of the legals we’ve had to deal with (and with any luck, he won’t have to spring into action later this week on our behalf to deal with a certain you-know-who.  I mean, really dude, can’t we just get along?)

The B-Girls at the Beach;  photo copyright/courtesy of Rodney Bowes.

Later on this weekend we’re talking to Cynthia Ross of The B-Girls, and then we’re hoping to get all of  The Curse together in an estrogen explosion of atomic proportions, and then…we’ll see.  There’s always someone else we can talk to who can help fill in the blanks. So while co-director Kire Paputts interviews and cuts, co-director Aldo Erdic cuts some of the footage from The Last Pogo 30th Anniversary Bash, co-director Brunton is out in Indian Head, Saskatchewan coordinating archival footage and stuff, and looking forward to seeing Alan Zweig’s footage of Yonge Street circa 1978;  we can’t get enough of those mullets!  Let’s hope there’s a glimpse of The Gasworks.  Hey-o!

(Pogo H.Q. got a sneak listen to Sunshine World by The Scenics, their CD of remastered songs from 1977.  Along with what you might call their hits, there’s great covers of Tommy James’ Mony, Mony (which, until you actually hear them sing the words mony, mony, you wouldn’t know what song it was;  it made us laugh out loud — thats LOL for the digi-gen) and The Kinks’  Where Have All The Good Times Gone.   More on that later, gotta go to work!)