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pogo2posterFINAL2The Last Pogo Jumps Again studies the evolution of Toronto from small town to big city and it’s pop/counter-culture lifestyle during the early and mid-70s.  It centers around the first wave of Toronto punk rock and new-wave music, from the Ramones playing the New Yorker Theatre in ’76 through the police shutting down Teenage Head and causing a riot at the Horseshoe Tavern’s infamous “The Last Pogo” concert in December 1978.

London had the Sex Pistols, New York had the Ramones, but Toronto had a punk movement all it’s own.  The Toronto landscape by the late ’70s was forever changed with the infusion of the DIY/Punk/Alternative Culture(s) movement.  Six years in the making, The Last Pogo Jumps Again successfully explores the whys and wherefores of what was arguably one of the most exciting but misunderstood movements in Toronto’s history.

The DVD contains the 204 minute documentary, plus over a 100 minutes of added material, and a snazzy 24-page booklet.  Check the Shop for details on where you can purchase it.

The Last Pogo (1978) is the documentary that chronicled the last punk rock show at the Horseshoe Tavern when it was run by legendary Toronto promoters The Garys (Topp and Cormier) featuring The Scenics, Cardboard Brains, The Secrets, The Mods, The Ugly, The Viletones and Teenage Head. The Last Pogo was released on DVD in 2008 to great reviews.  Available at the Shop.

Gary Cormier

The Horseshoe Tavern 1978
November 7th, 2015
The Horseshoe 1978. In May, 1978, after they left the New Yorker Theatre, partners Topp, Cormier and Silverman took over management of the Horseshoe Tavern, a dive bar that featured country and western music that was at the down-on-its-luck corner of Spadina and Queen. Opened in the 1940’s by Jack Starr, the Horseshoe had a massive main room that could hold five hundred people, and was a favourite hangout ...
The New Yorker Theatre, Toronto, 1976/1977
October 27th, 2015
The New Yorker in the ’30’s when it was known as The Astor. In 1976, with The Original 99 Cent Roxy still pulling in crowds in the east end, Gary Topp and partner Jeff Silverman opened The New Yorker Theatre, on the Yonge Street Strip, fifty yards south of where the indie underground cinema CineCity once stood. The pinball parlour Funland was across street, and on the next block south ...
Odd and sods blog
November 25th, 2013
Montreal-based artist Rick Trembles did all of the graphics for our movie The Last Pogo Jumps Again, as well as design the promotional t-shirt, poster and the font we used for subtitles.  If you wanna learn more about Rick’s artwork, then you should definitely be clicking on this link here, and watch a PowerPoint presentation.  Good stuff. We came upon this tweet by Globe & ...
Cinema and Punk
October 22nd, 2013
The opening shot of the title sequence for our film The Last Pogo Jumps Again is a photo of an empty movie theatre, The Allenby, opened in 1936.  It would become The Original 99 Cent Roxy Theatre (just 243 steps from the Greenwood subway station!) in 1972, run by Gary Topp.   As Stephen Perry of the radio show Equalizing X Distort (on the University of Toronto’s radio ...
And that’s a wrap.
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November 9th, 2012
Remake/Remodel
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November 6th, 2009
The bulk of The Original 99 Cent Roxy at Greenwood and Danforth has been demolished.   The front lobby remains, as does a stripped-to-the-girders marquee out front.   They’re going to turn it into a convenience store that will adjoin a gas station.   This is the back of the building.  Someone’s spray-painted “Bye Bye Roxy” on the wall. Nash the Slash used to live in the apartment above the lobby.   He was ...
Prayin’ to Elvis on my knees…
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August 12th, 2009
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 ...
More songs about food and buildings.
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February 16th, 2009
Okay, maybe just a blog about buildings. One of the staff here at the bustling headquarters of the feature film The Last Pogo Jumps Again got a new pal on MySpace called Clash on the Danforth 1979, a group for people who went to the old Rex Theatre on Danforth Avenue in 1979 to see The Clash and Toronto’s own B-Girls.  Said staff member doesn’t recall much about the show, being ...
Now I wanna sniff some glue. Then cut ‘n’ paste.
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February 11th, 2009
Half of September 1978 at The Garys’ Horseshoe Tavern. One of the things we wanna do with The Last Pogo Jumps Again is point out the lasting and huge influence the original punk scene has had on everything from music to fashion to art to restaurants … to type fonts.  Check out the lettering on The Dead Boys above;  I’m sure you’ve got a similar font somewhere in the depths of ...
Dada’s Boys
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February 6th, 2009
Photo courtesy Gary Topp Pogo H.Q. was thrilled and very grateful to get a copy of Dada’s Boys, the short filmmaker Peter Vronsky shot in ’77.   A shit-load of great footage by Vronsky and friends was lost by the CBC in thier inimitable style  — The Viletones‘ first trip to NYC; performances by The Ramones and Dead Boys — but the 30 minutes of footage existing is great:  interviews with ...
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