The story of one of Canada’s first—and most controversial—punk rock bands.
THEM. HERE.
Canadian punk in the late ‘70s tended to be strictly a local affair, with no nationwide touring circuit to speak of. The sheer size of the country, and the prohibitive distance between population centers, made impossible the sort of cheap, speedy touring that allowed punk to propagate in the U.K., and along the U.S. East Coast.
The Viletones were better-travelled than most first-wave Canadian punk bands, even scoring several showcase gigs in New York City; but for the most part, remained Toronto’s problem. New musical movements will always face resistance from the established order, but in Toronto of the 1970s, the very idea of punk rock engendered such moral panic that the Viletones’ very first gig was greeted with a screaming newspaper headline: “NOT THEM! NOT HERE!”
BAD DOGGIE
To be fair, the Viletones courted controversy. Frontman Steve Leckie performed under the purposely combative stagename “Nazi Dog.” Crafting a stage presence that combined the brutal physicality of Iggy Pop with the poetic pretension of Patti Smith, Leckie fostered rumors that he planned to end the Viletones’ short career by killing himself on stage. If nothing else, the rumors made the Viletones a can’t-miss ticket, since every show might literally be their last. (They still managed to record two albums, in 1977 and 1978.)
These days, the heyday of the Viletones is remembered fondly. They were even the model for the fictional band Screaming Fist in William Gibson’s seminal science-fiction novel Neuromancer. Steve Leckie took a long hiatus from the music in 1983 and now runs an art gallery. Since 1998, he has occasionally released new music and performed under the Viletones moniker. But in a way, the rumors came true—because when Steve Leckie performs now, he’s billed under his real name. “Nazi Dog,” he says, is dead.
An inuksuk is a human figure made of stone and it is displayed on the Nunavut provincial flag.