The Last Pogo

Dream Tower

Dan "The Mouth" Lovranski (CHARTattack)

10/15/2008 5:43pm

The Last Pogo is a great piece of original Canadian punk history from the '70s. It deals with an event at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern that ended a nine-month run of spectacular punk and new wave bands from around the world gracing the venue's stage. When the club owners had had enough, the promoters, the infamous Garys, decided to have one final blowout to celebrate their tenure.

Thus, The Last Pogo was born and a chaotic collection of Toronto punkers like The Ugly, The Mods, The Scenics, The Secrets, The Viletones and Teenage Head thrashed about for all they were worth. In fact, they got so out of control the cops showed up and only let Teenage Head do one song, which, of course, led to a riot that saw the club get somewhat trashed.

This 26 minute documentary was actually the first film by Canadian filmmaker Colin Brunton, who has since produced such films as Cube and Hedwig And The Angry Inch and has currently been working on CBC's Little Mosque On The Prairie.

The film resembles a good punk song in several different ways. It's not overly long, it's in your face and you're left wanting more. Luckily, we will get just that, as Brunton appears to be using this to get the buzz going for next year when he releases a feature length documentary entitled The Last Pogo Jumps Again, a history of the Toronto-Hamilton-London punk axis circa '76-78.