When people talk about the early days of punk rock London, England and New York City (NYC) always feature prominently in their conversations. CBGBs and Max's Kansas City in New York and the 101 in London are club names spoken of with almost as much reverence as the names of the musicians who made the venues famous. However, in 1976, about twelve hours north of NYC, across the border in Canada, the sleepy little city of Toronto, Ontario was starting to wake up and discover it wasn't just a cultural outpost for Europe and the US. In a country with no record labels of its own, where theatre performances were primarily touring road shows from England and the US and the only films being made were deliberately awful so they could be used for tax write offs by their investors, an explosion was needed to jump start its circulation.

That explosion was punk, and the epicentre was a few square blocks in the city's downtown core. From 1976 - 1978 the first wave of punk hit Toronto with all the grace and power of a beer bottle thrown from a fire escape exploding on the street below. Sure there were casualties, but the aftershocks sent reverberations through the cultural make-up of the city, and by extension the country, which helped to redefine the arts in Canada forever. Those who didn't live through the times, or even the six or seven years following them, might not realize the impact punk and its Do It Yourself ethos had on Canadian culture.

The documentary film, The Last Pogo Jumps Again (named for an infamous concert in 1978 called The Last Pogo which gathered a number of local bands together for a final two day blow out concert at the immortal Horseshoe Tavern after the owners balked at letting promoters book any more punk bands - it ended with the police shutting the bar and fans smashing the furniture) directed by independent directors and producers Colin Brunton and Kire Paputts does an amazing job of not only recreating the atmosphere of the times, but also in depicting the scene and its major players warts and all.

Probably very few outside of Toronto have ever heard of Nazi Dog (Steven Leckie) and The Viletones, The Curse, The Demics, The Diodes, The Forgotten Rebels, Teenage Head, The B-Girls or many of the bands who appear in the film. A couple of them managed to attain some status beyond the city's borders; Martha and the Muffins were fortunate enough to sign with a British label. (The irony of having to buy a Toronto band's album as a British import was a sad commentary on the state of the Canadian record industry at the time) Those few bands, Teenage Head and The Diodes, who did manage to get record deals were screwed over by the industry. In spite of the former selling over a 100,000 copies of a single album, they never really made it big or any money.

Through present day interviews with former members of the various bands, the promoters who booked the spaces for them to play and various others who were part of the scene, the film makers chronicle the key years of 1976 - 78, punk's fermentation in Toronto. At three and a half hours (cut down from its original five) you'd think this movie would be over long, but you don't notice the time passing at all. The people, the subject matter and the way the movie has been pieced together pulls you in so beautifully you're completely involved with the story. For those of you who want even more, there's a DVD of special features included in the package which is the over 100 minutes cut from the film.

What makes the movie so fascinating, and so poignant, is the wonderful mix of personalities and people we meet. Some of them remain the defiant and witty selfs they were nearly forty years ago. They are still working on their own terms as artists but not hanging on to whatever brief glory they had in the past. They have obviously moved on with their lives but continue to draw upon the same creative energy which fuelled them in the beginning. Unfortunately others haven't been so fortunate. We see men who have obviously had their lives ravaged by booze and drugs. Guys who once lit up a stage and a room with their presence who now look like wrecks of their former selves.

It's unfortunate because these were the men and women who were directly responsible for bands like Arcade Fire and The Metrics being able to forge careers. Without them there wouldn't have been an independent music scene in Canada. Back in the 1970s the major labels, CBS, RCA and the others, all had affiliates in Canada. However, none of them, save CBS, could sign a Canadian band without approval from head office in Los Angeles. While they might have all been signing New York punk bands, none of them were interested in Toronto. This forced most of the bands to form their own labels and produce their own records. Heck The Diodes even built their own club, The Crash & Burn, as there were almost no venues initially for the bands to play in.

One thing the documentary makes clear, is that the punk scene in Toronto wouldn't have been anywhere near as successful as it was without the men who became known as The Garys. Gary Topp and Gary Cormier got seriously into promoting music when they took over operation of a run down cinema on Toronto's main drag, Yonge St. In 1976 they booked The Ramones into The New Yorker for their first ever Canadian concert. They were followed by The Talking Heads, Wayne County, The Cramps and Tom Waits. When the New Yorker became too expensive, they moved onto the Horseshoe tavern and threw it open to local as well as international bands. They went onto to open The Edge, which continued to mix local talent with out of town groups like Gang of Four, B-52's, XTC and even Nico - former Velvet Underground singer.

However, concert promoters can only nurture a scene, they don't create it. Without the individuals who had the nerve to want more than what was on offer at the time and to do something about it, there wouldn't have been anything to promote. The Last Pogo Jumps Again delves into the heart of that scene and tells us the stories of the people who made it beat to its unique drum. The legacy of Toronto's punk scene can be heard and seen in everything from cover bands in Japan playing songs by Teenage Head, Nirvana's cover of a Viletones song and a thriving independent music and arts scene in Canada forty years later. As Steve Leckie says near the end of the movie, "Punk maybe dead but its still bleeding". You can buy this fascinating piece of music history through its web site's shop. Its worth every penny and more.

A version of this review first appeared at Blogcritics.org as The Last Pogo Jumps Again: Punk Toronto Lives)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 4:03 PM | Permalink