The Last Pogo Back In The Pit

10/17/08 10:51am

by Dan "The Mouth" Lovranski (CHARTattack)

Long-time Canadian filmmaker Colin Brunton has been at the helm of such films as Rude, Cube and Hedwig And The Angry Inch. He's now working on CBC's Little Mosque On The Prairie.

But it all started with The Last Pogo, a short film that documented the last punk show ever booked by The Garys (Toronto promoters Gary Topp and Gary Cormier) at the Horseshoe Tavern in December 1978. The show featured the cream of the punk rock landscape at the time, including The Viletones, The Mods, The Ugly and Teenage Head. It was such a spectacle that the cops tried to shut it down and threw Teenage Head off the stage after only one song. In return, they got a full-scale riot.

Except for a screening at this year's NXNE festival, the film has largely gone unseen for 30 years. Brunton re-released it on DVD on Oct. 14 to make way for an even bigger project about the punk rock scene of that era.

ChartAttack: In the liner notes of the DVD, you talk about how you just blurted out that you would make a film of this final concert for The Garys at the Horseshoe. Had you always wanted to get into filmmaking, or was this the start?
Colin Brunton: I got the bug working with Gary Topp at his repertory movie theatres, the Original 99 Cent Roxy and The New Yorker. I saw hundreds of movies, ranging from Roger Corman and Russ Meyer to [Federico] Fellini and [Francois] Truffaut and [Luis] Bunuel to up-and-comers like [Martin] Scorsese and [Francis Ford] Coppola. I smoked lots of pot and got to meet a lot of really cool people.

A few years after high school, I took a night course in filmmaking at the old Toronto Filmmakers Co-op, and that sealed it. I was driving a cab and making handbills for the Horseshoe when I walked in one night, heard The Garys talking about The Last Pogo and thought it would be neat to film it. Of course, I had no idea what I was doing, but Patrick Lee [the filmmaker who'd taught the film course] came on board and together we somehow pulled it off.

What did you expect on the night of the show?
I really didn't know what to expect. I was pretty shell-shocked, this being the first time taking on a project like this.

Were you ready for the violence that erupted?
There were always fisticuffs and scuffles in the Toronto scene, and singers like [Viletones singer Steven "Nazi Dog"] Leckie and [late Teenage Head singer Frankie] Venom would roll in broken glass on stage, cut themselves open and other fun antics, but smashing tables and chairs was something new. No one was ready for that, except maybe Gary Topp, who immediately put on [Sex Pistols'] "Anarchy In The U.K." once the fun started.

What went through your mind when the riot started?
The phrase "holy shit" rings a bell.

What other outstanding memories do you have of that night? Which band made the greatest impression on you and why?
I think The Secrets took a lot of people by surprise. They definitely had the most adrenaline. They sprinted down Queen West from another gig, ran up on stage and jumped right in, offering up their punked-out R&B. What was interesting was that three-quarters of The Secrets were the original Viletones and, after they finished their set, Steven "Nazi Dog" Leckie and his new Viletones made a surprise visit. And you just never knew what to expect from Leckie.

That's when it started to get tense. And then the whole drama of the cops on stage trying to shut down Teenage Head — that was memorable.

In the film, there's a bit with Mickey DeSadist from The Forgotten Rebels taking a poke at The Last Pogo. What is the story here? Were the Rebels supposed to play?
The Rebels were never supposed to be on the bill, but when we went down to New Rose [the original punk rock record and clothing store run by Freddy Pompeii and Margarita Passion] to interview Margarita, Mickey was there and wanted an interview and we went for it. We loved the fact that he totally dissed the whole thing. He's just as funny in The Last Pogo Jumps Again. Plus, he's completely naked.

Why did you wait so long to revive The Last Pogo? Are you just getting us all ready for the next project, The Last Pogo Jumps Again?
No one was much interested in this film, so it sat in my storage space collecting dust. For a while, it was tied up with a distributor, and I got the rights back a few years ago, but I missed both the 20th and the 25th anniversary. Now that it's the 30th, I figured it's either now or I wait until the 50th in 2028. By then I'll be in my 80s, and I might not have the energy to do anything, especially if I'm dead, in which case it would be even more difficult.

Tell me a bit about The Last Pogo Jumps Again and what it will feature and focus on. Will there be more footage from The Last Pogo that never made it into the original?
We were on a really tight budget when we shot the original, so there's not much unseen footage. We shot 40 minutes for a 25-minute film. So not much, but we've found some terrific Super 8 footage of the night, so there will be some new Last Pogo footage, and we've got a lot of excellent photos from the night.

The Last Pogo Jumps Again uses the original movie as the spine, and we weave the history of punk circa 1976 to 1978 in Toronto/Hamilton/London around it. We're focusing on how exactly the scene came together here and in Hamilton and London, and find out what happened to everyone who was part of that scene.
We're trying to do it in a very irreverent way, and see if we can't reinvent the wheel of rock docs a bit.

We've had incredible support from everyone who was involved, and none at all from the usual suspects like Telefilm and NFB. I don't think a week's gone by where we haven't received DVDs of old concerts, jpegs of photos or leads to help us track down people.

It's been a lot of fun reconnecting with old allies, but it's been a long haul. We've been at it since June 2006. Apart from talking to all of the people that played there that night, we've also managed to snag interviews with people who played Toronto back then: Tommy Ramone, [Rocket From The Tombs guitarist/singer] Cheetah Chrome and [Stranglers singer/guitarist] Hugh Cornwell, and we're crossing our fingers for Suicide and John Cale and David Byrne.

I don't know if you know anything about the soundtrack, but are there any plans to reissue it as well? I have the album, and it's pretty good.
I never had anything to do with the original Last Pogo album. It's not really a soundtrack per se, but we're hoping the soundtrack to The Last Pogo Jumps Again is going to give everyone a better idea of how eclectic and vibrant our scene was.