Music Movies

Hard Core Logo is a Canadian mockumentary adapted by Noel Baker from the novel of the same name by author Michael Turner. Director Bruce McDonald illustrates the self-destruction of punk rock. Released in 1996, the film documents a once-popular punk band, Hard Core Logo, which is composed of lead singer Joe Dick (Hugh Dillon), fame-tempted guitarist Billy Tallent (Callum Keith Rennie), schizophrenic bass player John Oxenberger (John Pyper-Ferguson), and drummer Pipefitter (Bernie Coulson). Julian Richings plays Bucky Haight, Dick’s idol. Several notable punk musicians, including Art Bergmann, Joey Shithead and Joey Ramone, play themselves in cameos. Canadian television personality Terry David Mulligan also has a cameo, playing a fictionalized version of himself.

The film has been frequently ranked amongst the greatest movies ever to come out of Canada. In a 2001 poll of 200 industry voters, performed by Playback, Hard Core Logo was named the second best Canadian film of the last 15 years. In 2002, readers of Playback voted it the 4^th greatest Canadian film ever made.

In August 2008, McDonald stated that sequels were in the works.

Production

McDonald grew up in the Vancouver punk rock scene in the late ’70s and early ’80s and was drawn to Michael Turner’s book about aging musicians. McDonald commented in an interview, “what I thought was really interesting is where it is 15 years later, and what are these guys doing now.” He had just come off the critically acclaimed Dance Me Outside and friends warned him not to repeat himself by making another road movie. However, McDonald did not see Logo as a repeat of previous films. “On the other films, they (the anti-heroes of Roadkill and Highway 61 go down the road and meet a nutty person and things happened. Here you’re with the same people throughout – and they are the nutty people!”

McDonald had to persuade Dillon to do the movie. “He was going ‘Wow, what if the movie is shit, then I’d lose all my fans from the band, I’d lose all my credibility!’” The director auditioned 200 actors for the role but kept coming back to the musician. Dillon remembers, “as soon as he gave me freedom to make the screenplay more believable, I became interested. Bruce allowed me creative input and that’s what made it a special piece for me.” Dillon drew a lot on his own real life experiences of being in a band.

Hard Core Logo screened at the Cannes Film Festival. McDonald remembers, “Cannes was very humbling. You’re in the same arena as Bernardo Bertolucci and Czechoslovakian pornographers. It’s such a bizarre spectrum.” The film went on to be nominated for six Genie Awards, including Best Picture and Director. Quentin Tarantino saw Logo at a film festival and liked it so much that he bought the U.S. distribution rights under his Rolling Thunder label and even toyed with casting Dillon in Jackie Brown.