The 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.
Screen shot John Catto of The Diodes
The Last Pogo Jumps Again has a ton of 16mm film footage from 1977 and 1978. One of the biggest contributors was filmmaker, author and university professor Peter Vronsky who let us use footage from his Crash ‘n’ Burn movie. We asked Peter how it came about and what happened to the missing footage.
Photo David Andoff
“In 1977 I was living ... 
“The art scene and the punk scene were completely intertwined,” says Erika Larner. A regular at the Toronto’s infamous Crash ‘n’ Burn club in ’77, she now works on TV series and feature films in the wardrobe department.
The Shit Bandit was a performance group who played at C.E.A.C., The Centre for Experimental Art and Communication in 1976.
In the summer of 1977, CEAC lent their ... 
All of the following photos were done by Ross Taylor, and all taken between 1976 and 1980, and they’re all copyright. First one above is The Dead Boys’ Cheetah Chrome with the Viletones’ Steven Leckie. Cheetah is the only non-local featured in our feature doc The Last Pogo Jumps Again, because The Dead Boys played in Toronto a lot and Cheetah is awesome. 
Here’s a page from an issue of the old Pig Paper, featuring an ad for the original The Last Pogo, as well as the news that B-Girl Cynthia Ross married Dead Boys Stiv Bators. Courtesy of our friend Gary Pig Gold. Find more back issues right around here.
As regards the ad? There were three changes from the original ad up to show time. Nash the ... 
Montreal artist & guitarist Rick Trembles created the font, comics, poster and T-shirts (on sale here!) for our movie The Last Pogo Jumps Again, and his father Jack Tremblay co-created Rick.
Jack Tremblay was born in 1926 in Rhode Island. The family moved to Thunder Bay (or Tunder Bay for those with a French-Canadian accent), and then finally settled in Montreal when Jack was eight. ... 
If you go see The Last Pogo Jumps Again, you’ll see a Toronto that is very different from the one you know today. There was lots of stuff that just didn’t exist in 1976.
Like gun violence. It was rumoured that Ugly lead singer Mike Nightmare always packed a piece, and he was a bona-fide criminal, so that was a legit tool of the trade, I guess, ... 
