The Last Pogo Jumps Again

The staff at Pogo H.Q. watched the seventh “fine cut” this afternoon, then had the last production meeting of 2011 to determine the final steps to complete 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.

There’s always picture tweaks that can be made, and we do need to chat with Gary Topp one more time to clear up a detail, but mostly its all about wrangling the last of the release forms for music, photos, footage, etc.   There’s a lot of them — 600+ photos, 50+ songs, loads of footage — so it takes a bit.  This week we’re expecting some remastered live bootlegs from The Scenics’ Andy Meyers.

Who can resist a piano-playing monkey and an audience of dogs?  Nobody, that’s who!

The Scenics, photo by Rodney Bowes

Diodes, photo by Ralph Alfonso

Viletones

No, no no — not the 9th Configuration, the 4th Terrabyte.

As post-production ramps up at Pogo H.Q., the hard-drive holding 300+ hours of interviews and archival footage started humming a not so happy tune, and so we instantly despatched a beleaguered p.a. to pick up a massive 4 terrabyte external drive for some back-up.  Safety first, beauty last, financial responsibility a distant third.

No, no no — not men wearing hats…

It might take a village to raise a child, but it takes the whole world to raise the red-haired bastard stepchild known as 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.

The teletype machine in the musty garret of Pogo H.Q. fired off a note to Florence Italy to ask NYC No-Wave filmmaker Amos Poe who exactly handles the leasing of stock shots for his seminal B & W & Nasty film Blank Generation, the film that inspired promoter Gary Topp (later to be one half of infamous Toronto promoters The Garys) to start booking punk and new-wave bands at the New Yorker on Yonge Street (whooo-eeeeee!) in Toronto.

Detail of Rick Trembles’ Toronto map circa 1976.

Meanwhile, Montreal’s Rick Trembles (who’s been doing our maps and is putting together a font for us to use for subtitles and tail credits) informed us that two guys who would, a year later, become part of the first lineup of Montreal’s Men Without Hats, had bombed down from McGill University in Montreal one weekend in 1977, armed with a Super-8 camera, to attend the Outrage concert at Toronto’s spooky Masonic Temple.   David Hill did the sound and John Gurrin did the shooting (and we suspect that both of them did the partying).   We got in touch with David, now in New Yawk, and with a slight discount urged on by Amos Poe, had the Super-8 footage of part of the Viletones set transferred to mini-dv;  just waiting for it to arrive.

Speaking of terrabytes, the day The Scenics opened for Talking Heads at the New Yorker (September 16, 1977), and the day before the Outrage concert T. Rex’s Marc Bolan died in a car crash in England.

Ticket courtesy of Molten Core

Eighth-billed actress Mary Nash is the grandmother of Toronto’s Nash the Slash.

This weekend co-director Kire Paputts takes the bus down to the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, to clear up a couple of points with Margarita Passion, hopefully track down her ex and ex-Viletones and Secrets, Freddy Pompeii, and, natch, eat cream cheese and get stupid at sporting events.

Just a couple more questions, m’am.

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.

Anywhere, Saskatchewan.

Co-director Colin Brunton is holed up for a month in an hotel in Regina, Saskatchewan meticulously grinding through the current six-hour cut (!) of 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, while counterpart and co-director Kire Paputts is living large in lurid Las Vegas with lady friend Liz Worth. (Wow! So many ells!)

Drunk photography, Las Vegas, Nevada.

While Kire takes a breather from what seems to be a never-ending quest to interview everybody who was part of the Toronto/Hamilton/London, Ontario punk/new-wave/alternate music scene slash this slash that, Brunton is alternately guzzling tap water and ordering room service, determined not to glimpse the light of day this weekend, scheming up plans for a couple of hired-gun TV series this fall, catching up on some reading (Jack Reacher rules!) and trying to stick to his Toronto body clock, which means hitting the sack at ten and getting up at six.  It almost makes him feel like he should go jogging or something, but that ain’t gonna happen.   And frankly, the sight of a 55 year old man with a Viletones t-shirt huffing down past the endless big box stores of Regina is not something you’d want engrained in your memory.   With fourteen fourteen hour days of location shooting on a TV series looming, quick evenings are devoted to making notes on the edit, and whittling down the list of Those Who Still Need To Be Interviewed.  Yes, there’s still a few more.   Hey — we want this to be complete, okay?!

Last week Kire hit London Ontario and chatted with NFG frontman Scott “Steve R Stunning” Bentley, who talked about forming NFG in late ’78 (therefore fitting into to our strict timeline) and getting a couple of opening gigs for that other band in London, The Demics.   During the shoot, they ran into Mike Niderman (sp?), who pretty much got The Demics started by convincing them to play their first gig at his loft in 1977.

Torme, not Torment.

That evening Kire set up shop at the apartment of Joey Hardin, former spiritual advisor to The Swollen Members, where he interviewed Joey and SM lead-singer Evan Siegel, a.k.a. Mel Torment, a pseudonym we’ve just discovered that John Lennon used once.   Joey slipped on his thirty-year-plus old leisure suit and demonstrated a few dance moves, and he and Evan cracked wise for a couple of hours.  In a way, The Swollen Members are a big part of why we’re taking so fucking long to make this movie.  Yea, there’s the thing about doing this on weekends, and agonizing over people’s schedules, and convincing others that they are Completely Worthy and are necessary to tell this story.  And this all costs money, yo, so some of us have to work to buy tapes and gas and transfer grainy footage and rent cars and buy lunches and all the other things that go into making a feature film project.  But what has always bugged us here at Pogo H.Q. is that when people think of “Toronto Punk”, they immediately think Viletones Curse Diodes Teenage Head Mods Poles Dents, and you fill in your personal blanks.  There was so much more.  And bands like Swollen Members just seem to be forgotten.   And they shouldn’t be.  They were audacious and awesome and alarming and always, always antertaining (wow! so many ays!)

And speaking of alarming and audacious and awesome, more respect yo, for The Scenics.  For those of you who are into porn, but are scared to buy real porn, and instead buy those “Man’s Magazines” that are, well, mostly soft-core porn — check out the latest issue of UMM (Urban Male Magazine — sorry guys in rural areas, you can’t relate apparently), and you’ll see a tasty review of The Scenics’ 2010 release Sunshine World.  They said this:  “One of Canada’s unsung heroes of first-gen punk, The Scenics reacted to slinky art-rock made popular by New York acts such as Television, The Velvet Underground, and other Warhol-esque colleagues. However, with their sublime understanding of pushing boundaries without sacrificing grooves, their low-fidelity creations are exercises in tight, post-garage accomplishments.
Celebrated on this first ever compilation of their studio works, Sunshine World provides another case in point as to why The Scenics deserve merit for being as innovative as they were- (and now are, given their reunion)- impressive.” Whoo-eee!

Monday, Kire was back in London to talk to Dan Hamilton and get some more insight into the scene in London, Ontario, and will be back again to chat with Mr. Niderman.  Okay, gotta run.

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.

Hand-drawn handbill by John Pearson; 1973; courtesy Mark Moore
We couldn’t make this movie — The Last Pogo Jumps Again: A Biased And Incomplete History Of Toronto Punk Rock Circa September 24 1976 To December 1 1978 — without the generous help of, well, pretty much everyone who was into the scene, a scene that arguably started in the pot-smokey confines of Gary Topp’s subversive Original 99 Cent Roxy Theatre in the mid-seventies, throughout the vibe of alternate art venues like A Space, the anarchistic leanings of The Ontario College of Art (when Roy Ascott ran it), the mutually tolerant Toronto gay community, the stylish conceptualism of art group General Idea, and on and on. The people and stories that thread the story of Toronto punk are big and rich.

Reconstructing Futures, copyright 1977, General Idea
It all came together in late 1976, when New York’s finest, The Ramones, managed by the brilliant Danny Fields were booked by the New Yorker‘s Gary Topp to play Canada for the first time. And for the next two years, the best of the best of NYC bands hit town, and it seemed like every week a new local band was coming together. If you were there, you know what a dense fabric it was; if you weren’t, there’s a ton of people trying to let you know, not the least of all us, and in a few months we should be done with this. We’re itchin’ to get it out to the world.

The Santa Claus parade in Toronto 1976 by filmmaker John Porter; copyright John Porter, natch
For the past four years, as we’ve been putting this project together, not a week has gone by when we haven’t had a knock at the door of Pogo H.Q. or a message through the Internet Machine from someone who was part of the punk rock movement in 1976-1978, offering up more evidence by way of handbills and photos and super-8 footage. And music. Tons of music. And as hard-edged and attitude-filled as those days were, its been a smooth ride, (with the exception of one fucking douchebag who shall forever remain nameless.)

You have no idea how boring Toronto was just before the punk scene.
So just this week, Big Thanks to Mark Moore for sending over old Roxy theatre handbills; Theresa Adams, who sent us some rare photos of The Existers; the Ramones’ management for reassuring us all was cool; Andy Meyers from The Scenics who correctly pointed out that the version of the classic Demics tune New York City we had on the site wasn’t the really good one, and so we’ve replaced it with the better version from the EP Talks Cheap, when the guitar duties were still handled by Rob Brent; Molten Core for more reassurance; Iain Staines from The Demics who chatted us up; Michaele Jordana and Doug Pringle of The Poles who said, yea, sure, we’re still into it, let’s get together; Steven Davey for some good fact-checking; and of course Gary Topp, for letting us take a peak at his amazing collection of stuff.

It’s awesome that we get stuff like this sent to us;  courtesy Rusty Longtrucks a.k.a. Rusty Chambers a.k.a. Mel Torment a.k.a. Evan Siegel

Yea, well maybe a hacker got to us, maybe they didn’t:  The Pogo I.T. department have their hammers and blowtorches out and are in fix-it mode;  Pogo Cyber  Detectives are tracking down the IP address of the hacker; the authorities have been notified.   And The Last Pogo Jumps Again pushes on:   After interviewing Ken Badger of The Scenics in his lair in Owen Sound yesterday, we despatched transport out to Scarborough to pick up a ratty old cassette of recordings by The Swollen Members (no, not the hip-hop band;  the new-wavey punk band prone to wearing matching salmon-pink leisure suits circa 1977 – 1980ish.)   Evan “Rusty Longtrucks” Siegel had scoured his basement, dug up this little gem, and continues to search for more evidence, including but not limited to handbills, set lists, photos, and the straight-jacket he’d sometimes sport when fronting the band, when he wasn’t singing with his back to the audience or just staring at his shoes.  For a whole set.  The note is vintage Mel Torment:  “…cuts one two and three are the best…”;  alas, that’s all the tracks so far.    Today we drop it off to sound designer Daniel Pellerin for a touch-up, and then we’re off to interview Cleave Anderson.

The Scenics’ Andy Meyers’ tale of meeting Ken Badger by artist Gareth Gaudin, Magic Teeth Comics.

Copyright Michaele Jordana Berman – Cyborg, 2009.  Photo painting, Epson fine art print 29″ X 32″

From the press release: Michaele Jordana Berman, a multiplatform artist, is a name that many know, perhaps from different contexts, for she has excelled in more than one discipline to memorable effect. You may remember her as the sylph-like actress in Stefan Czernecki’s film Green Veridian Green. Then she bowled the Toronto art scene over with her exhibition Oceans of Blood at the Isaacs Gallery in 1976. Her large-scale airbrushed photorealist paintings related to her stay in the Arctic, where she drifted on the ice floes with the Inuit and the narwhal. The National Gallery purchased her monumental painting from this period, I Cry Tears of Blood. As the lyricist /singer Michaele Jordana in the new wave/punk band The Poles with Doug Pringle (originator of the “electronica” group, Syrinx) her fragile physicality, ethereal looks and riveting performance of songs such as CN Tower are graven into the musical archives of Toronto.

Now focusing on the persona of her daughter, interactive artist and actress, Ramona Pringle; Berman transforms images of her offspring in her latest series of digitally altered photo paintings.  Cyborg is a sample of her masterful vision with Ramona as both ‘nurse/technician’ and as ‘Cyborg’ – equally convincing and riveting.

In Berman’s words “I juxtapose and reassemble fragments of my photographic work, transposing images from their original context to produce composite frames that become frozen moments in time suggesting a larger narrative.

CYBORG, The Human Condition, like Michaele Jordana Berman’s previous acts of self re-invention, is as memorable as it is absolutely contemporary.

This new show opens this week at Headbones Gallery, 260 Carlaw, #102.  Opening reception this Thursday between 6 and 9.  The show runs until April 24.

As we were sharpening our pencils, jotting down ideas for our Easter Monday interview with The Scenics’ Ken Badger, the teletype here at Pogo H.Q. sent us a message from Andy Meyers, who forwarded the jpg you see above.  The Scenics’ dance hit that shoulda woulda coulda been — Do The Wait — is featured along with Simply Saucer’s Return of the Cyborgs Pt. 2 in this months CD giveaway.   And they’re in good company, sharing the bill with James Williamson, The Flamin’ Groovies, Johnny Thunders,  The New York Dolls, Sonic’s Rendevous Band, and Iggy & The Stooges.