The Last Pogo Jumps Again

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.

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.

Today marks The Last Pogo’s acting debut!  Playing the part of “Anonymous silent filler on TV screens”,  bits and pieces of The Last Pogo will be seen in the background of scenes set in a bar called “Shooters”, in reality a bar/restaurant called The Wooden Nickle in charming Indian Head, Saskatchewan for an upcoming episode of Little Mosque on the Prairie.  Various technical difficulties forced The Last Pogo to sit in his trailer and sulk for a while, but eventually there he was, adorning the “sports bar” screens and doing his best to act silent and anonymous.  And since that’s pretty much what The Last Pogo’s been doing for the past thirty years, he was a natural.   A late-bloomer, The Last Pogo hopes to get a bit more attention when he hits the road in October, selling himself in record stores near you.  Yes, you!

And up above you can see the final artwork for the DVD poster, designed by John Pearson, who did the artwork and titles for the film way back in 1978.

The Screwed — Cleave Anderson, John Borra, Steve Koch and Steve Scarlett — continue their almost weekly assault on the senses as they hit Graffiti’s Bar and Grill for a late afternoon shin-dig and hullabaloo this Saturday at 4:00.

And if he couldn’t be busier, a couple of months ago Cleave handed over a song he’d written and recorded called The Last Pogo; we’re sure to squeeze it into the epic documentary The Last Pogo Jumps Again once completed early next year.

Out west, director Brunton has started picking away at an “assembly” of the film, i.e. a real big long version that will be eventually edited down to a slightly less big and less long version, his new hard-drive surrounded by sandbags and secured by bungee cords and 24/7 security (i.e. the sandbags) on his dwarf-like hotel desk. (If you hadn’t heard, the last hard-drive couldn’t take the heat, and to get out of the kitchen — fast — dove a deadly foot and a half to its untimely death.) A couple of hours or so of cutting a night, then up bright and early (okay, up early) for another day on the set of Little Mosque on the Prairie out in the charming small town of Indian Head, Saskatchewan (baseball fans take note: Satchell Paige pitched there in the ’40′s with barnstorming members of the Negro League, and how cool is that?! And they have an air-raid siren that reminds everyone at exactly noon each day that it’s time for lunch.)

Further out west, Andy Meyers works on the Scenics studio album (out in 2009), and starts to play with the soundtrack of the original Last Pogo movie, tweaking and adjusting and playing around — and that’s just his pants, BAM!

The guy who did the original handbill for the Last Pogo movie poster, John Pearson, corrects a half-dozen typos on the artwork of the DVD cover, adds a few more thingies here and there, and puts the finishing touches on the promo poster for the Last Pogo release this October; poster up on this site next week.

Woody Whelan, Minister of Propaganda, and head honcho of Mag Wheels Records, continues to drum up interest, and surprise surprise — there is interest. We here at Pogo H.Q. West are well chuffed to find out that Vice Magazine, Alternative Press, and Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll (amongst a bunch of others) are all going to take their first look at the movie and probably get their first small taste — an amuse douche, as it were — of Toronto/Hamilton punk that it offers up. Orders from Chicago, orders from L.A. and New York…here’s hoping that the world finally finds out just how hot our punk scene was.

Greg Dick and David Quinton are working on the deets to the big Last Pogo 30th bash this November; confirmed so far are The Scenics, The Mods, The Ugly — with Greg filling in for the late Mike Nightmare, and like we’ve said before, if you can’t have Mike, you’ve got Dick — and few others that are close to buying in on what should prove to be a fun evening.

Zero of ZRO4; photo Nathan Robinson

A blast from the past last Friday at the grungy old-skool watering hole The Silver Dollar in Toronto as first-wave punkers ZR04 and Tyranna hit the stage and played the hits. Camera operator/solar panel dude Dave Watts earned a camera operator credit for The Last Pogo Jumps Again by simultaneously shooting footage and consuming large amounts of suspect beer in “very low-light” (or was that you on the verge of passing out, Dave?); LPJA director and DIY Punk Videographer Aldo Erdic of 2BScene did duty with three-camera HD coverage, as well as help wrangle Zero for an interview by Dave and Zero’s pal Tracy Idon’tknowherlastname.

By all accounts, Zero was in fine form, aided by the constantly gigging Cleave Anderson on drums and old pal Dave Joudrey on guitar. With only a couple of rehearsals and playing for the first time in 20 years, the 20 minute set managed to include her groping someone in the audience, and kicking someone in the front row during “Attitude”;   we’re assuming not the same lucky audience member. Hair dude/radio interviewer/30th Anniversary of The Last Pogo organizer/new lead singer of The Ugly — whew! — Greg Dick was there, as well as scribe Liz Worth (getting set to release her book on all things punk, or at least, all things punk in Toronto, Hamilton and London, Treat Me Like Dirt) and Paul Ecknes and Margaret Catto and Giambi Bowker…and lots of other people, but this is all second hand ’cause we’re out here in Indian Head, Saskatchewan tracking emails and shooting bits of Little Mosque on the Prairie and we’re not quite sure what really went down, but we’ll take your word for it. And thanks to Nathan Robinson for the shot of Zero.

And tonight, live from a hotel room in Saskatchewan, the soundtrack of The Last Pogo shall be stripped out, boxed up, then signed sealed and delivered to Allowed Sound Studios in Salt Spring Island where producer Andy Meyers will fire up the bunsen burners, balance beakers, twiddle dials and do a smart “Duophonic” re-mix of the score, all in time for the general release on October 14th.   So far the response to the DVD from the few critics we’ve sent it to has been positive, and Little Mosque Sask crew member Donavon Fraser told us how impressed citizens of Regina (rhymes with China and angina!) have been with his Last Pogo t-shirt.

After being M.I.A. for almost thirty years, The Last Pogo will finally be in record stores (and on-line here) October 14th. While it woulda been cute to sell it retail for $19.78, that’s a bit much for a half-hour film, so it’ll probably cost about twelve bucks or so. Twelve bucks! That’s nothin’! Nothin’, I tells ya!

If you’re a first-time visitor/long-time listener, here’s a brief synopsis of what it is, cribbed from the NXNE 2008 notes Flip Publicity’s Liz Armstrong:

Grab some safety pins, practice your sneer and get ready to revisit Toronto’s thriving punk scene. THE LAST POGO documents the raucous 1978 punk concert held in Toronto’s legendary Horseshoe Tavern—a night of unhinged music and unbridled mayhem.

On December 1, 1978, legendary Toronto concert promoters Gary Topp and Gary Cormier—better known as The Garys—presented The Last Pogo, a rollicking, riotous concert at the venerable Horseshoe Tavern. On the bill were seminal bands from Toronto’s punk rock scene: The Scenics, The Cardboard Brains, The Secrets, The Mods, The Ugly, The Viletones and Hamilton’s Teenage Head. During the concert, the frenetic energy of 500+ thrashing fans in the club boiled over and a near-riot ensued. Filmmaker Colin Brunton was there with a camera crew to capture it all, from the irreverent punk musicians and the slam-dancing audience to the police who tried to stop the show and the firefighters called in to escort people from the premises.

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Meanwhile, The Last Pogo Jumps Again is chugging along. Kire Paputts is busy uploading all two years of footage after the external hard drive that everything was stored in took a disastrous leap off of a coffee table a week and a half ago, and 100+ hours of footage turned into so much land-fill. The monster project is scheduled to be completed in March, 2009.

Director Brunton is heading off to Saskatchewan for a couple of months to work, and is looking forward to holing up in his hotel room and carving out a feature-length documentary out of the material gathered to date.

Some of you might be interested to note that we’re also working on a quirky DVD project called A Trip Around David McFadden. For those of you not in the know, David McFadden is a Canadian poet and author who if you didn’t know better, would think let popular American author Bill Bryson borrow his style. Almost determined to remain under the radar, we hope to blow McFadden’s cover late this winter with a triple-bill of short films based on works by him. The DVD will contain short films A Trip Around Lake Ontario, featuring an original score by Nash the Slash; The Mysterious Moon Men of Canada, winner of the Genie Award for Best Live Action Short, and featuring a score by Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, and The Cow That Swam Lake Ontario, still to be completed, with another original score by Nash the Slash.

And if all that ain’t enough to keep a fella happy and busy, we were gifted today with an awesome present: a ratty and torn poster of “The Anarchy in the U.K. Tour”, featuring The Sex Pistols, The Damned, Johnny Thunders’ Heartbreakers, and some band that opened the tour called The Clash. Dated December 4, 1976 at King’s Hall, Derby. Nicely framed, it now is the center of attention in Pogo H.Q.’s living quarters. Big big thanks to Paulo Perin and Chris Toudy.

Keep checking in to find out about the 30th anniversary of The Last Pogo to be held this winter at the Horseshoe Tavern. We’ve been sworn to secrecy about who’s on the bill, but the cat shall be out of the bag soon.

And keep those cards and letters coming, folks!

L – R: Tony Torcher, Sam Ferrara, Steven Leckie, and Steve Koch; photo by Ross Taylor.

First, the good news. Dave “Tank” Roberts has put the worst behind him after a week-long stay at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Toronto. We spoke to him today, he sounded great, and he hopes to be home in a day or two. (Read post below for details on the whys, wherefores and what-the-effs).

The above photo is the version of The Viletones that were interviewed for The Last Pogo back in ’79.   Steve Koch wasn’t in the Viletones that played The Last Pogo, but by the time we did interviews to round out the film, he’d joined the band.

Pogo crew member Ollie Brunton, June 2008, and then July 2008.

Greg Dick that is. Hairstylist to the fabulous and radio journalist for CIUT-FM, Greg will be fronting a 2008 version of The Ugly, trying his best to replace the irreplaceable original singer/madman Mike Nightmare. Backed with original scene stalwarts Steve Koch, Tony Torcher and Screamin’ Sam Ferrara, the new gang will be unleashed on July 12th at the Bovine Sex Club. Stay tuned for details.

Speaking of hair, Pogo crew member Ollie Brunton got his long locks chomped off just in time for Bummer School by original Poles manager Bruce Appelby. To balance things out, a fake moustache was apparently needed. Ollie will be trying to relearn math and science for half his summer break, two subjects you need if you wanna be a successful filmmaker.