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 ...
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 — ...
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 ...
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 ...
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.
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.
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.
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 ...
R.I.P. Alex Chilton.
The next issue of Englands Uncut magazine, with Iggy on the cover, features a CD giveaway of “proto-punk” bands and including “Do the Wait” by The Scenics and Cyborgs Part Two by Simply Saucer. Meanwhile, over in San Francisco, the next issue of Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll has an edited transcript of the interview Greg Dick did with Last Pogo director Colin Brunton last year on the U ...
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.
