The Viletones / Fleurs Du Mal (Vinyl LP)

Description

Vinyl LP / Reissue – Remastered

Spring 1977 2-track recordings (recorded in 2 hours), remastered spring 2021 by Greg McWhorter to Steven Leckie’s specifications. Track 10 (Rebel) inspired by Steven Davey.

1977-CAN

Format: Vinyl LP

#Ref: SPR036

Release date: 2021

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Release notes

Are you ready for a sucker punch to the throat? Do you remember the power of ‘Screamin’ Fist’ and the reviews of the legendary, and chaotic happenings of the original punk terrors from Canaduh? Steven Leckie and the Viletones were chaos and mayhem personified. Now, for the first time ever, the 1977 studio material by the Viletones is available on vinyl LP! 17 song LP on record collector black vinyl with two-sided insert.

Holy hell! Fleurs du Mal by the Viletones is finally on vinyl.
_ by Johnson Cummins

It’s finally here! Fleurs du Mal, the unsung opus by one of punk rock’s most dangerous bands, the Viletones, finally gets its well deserved place, forever burned into virgin vinyl for the first time.
Oddly enough, it’s a yank label, Artifix Records down Californi-a way, that finally got the rights to press up this Canadian punk classic. True that da ‘tones did leave two completely snotty, young and loud seven-inches in their wake, but it’s this live to two-track recording that really showed all the teeth-gnashing white heat that these Toronto punks could generate. All 17 songs are first-take stormers with warts and all, but the record hits like a fistful of nickels.
In our Lord’s punk year of the spring of nineteen seventy fucking seven, these acne-ridden and bottle-slashing warriors entered a mild-mannered studio in Toronto and scorched the earth with absolutely killer punker lashings including the ultimate punk rock song of all time “Screamin’ Fist,” which rightfully starts off this set. With a pummelling bass that dares to overshadow “Ace of Spades,” things just ratchet up from there. Like any tried and true punk killer, the song barely makes it to a second chord as poster pin-up punker Steven Leckie (will not glorify his “punk” moniker at the time here) screams as if heading up a gang fight. If you have even a slight passing fancy for dangerous and raw rock ’n’ roll, you need to get online, punch in “Screaming Fist” and hold on for dear life.
To say that this collection of 17 blasters is about as good as punk rock ever got would be completely accurate … along with amazing packaging with an insert that easily overshadows the graphically thrown together ’94 CD. Obviously overseen by Leckie, it features about 30 pictures of the lead singer in punk poses while only about three pics of members and chief songwriters Freddy Pompeii, Chris Haight while drummer Motor X is almost blotted from the Viletones legacy. What is really going to make this sell like hot cakes to the unsuspecting punker, though, is the front cover featuring a picture of Leckie swinging a chain in the middle of the dancefloor while unsuspecting gawkers clambered to get out of the man’s way. Totally punk, Duder.

Steven Leckie, leader of the legendary Toronto punk band The Viletones, died on June 12, 2025, at age 67, after a long battle with cancer. He had faced many health challenges in recent years, including multiple sclerosis.

News of his death fuelled an eruption of tributes on social media, and comments confirmed Leckie’s status as a genuine pioneer of Canadian punk rock, one whose reputation and work also had an impact and influence internationally.

Leckie founded the Viletones in 1976, alongside Freddie Pompeii on guitar/vocals, Chris Hate (Chris Paputts), on bass guitar/vocals and Mike Anderson (aka Motor X), on drums/vocals. The original line-up was active in 1976 and 1977, and thereafter featured Leckie as the only original member, with various backing musicians. Later Viletones lineups comprised leading Toronto players of the day, including bassist Screamin’ Sam Ferrara, drummers Tony Vincent and Jeff Zurba, and guitarists Steve Koch, Steven Stergiu, Conrad Wiggins, Ian Blurton, Scott McCullough, Myke Adaptiv and Steve Scarlet.

In 1977, the Viletones released their first single, “Screamin Fist” b/w “Possibilities” and “Rebel,” on their own label Vile Records. In 1978, they released the EP Look Back In Anger, which featured the songs “Don’t You Lie” and “Dirty Feeling” b/w “Back Door To Hell,” “Swastika Girl” and “Danger Boy.” The same year Pompeii, Hate and X left The Viletones to form The Secrets.

That year, the new lineup of the Viletones appeared at the legendary concert and documentary The Last Pogo, filmed at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, May 1, 1978. In 1983, the Viletones released their first full-length album, Saturday Night, Sunday Morning, recorded live at Larry’s Hideaway in Toronto. In 1994, the record label Other Peoples Music released a retrospective collection, A Taste Of Honey. In 2023 Californian label Artifix Records released a collectors edition vinyl retrospective, Fleurs du Mal.

Leckie’s discography with the Viletones may not have been extensive, but those early cuts are now recognized as genuine punk rock classics. Nirvana once jammed a segment of “Possibilities” in a live show. A reference to another classic, “Screamin’ Fist,” is found in the pages of Neuromancer, a best-selling novel by William Gibson.

Perhaps even more than this material, the Viletones reputation was based upon their infamous live shows. Steven Leckie is rightfully viewed as one of the most charismatic performers in punk rock, and his onstage antics certainly generated publicity. He routinely cut himself onstage, with a broken bottle or razor blade, and fights with audience members were not rare. Couple that with his adopted stage name of Nazi Dog (one he reportedly later regretted), and Leckie made great tabloid fodder.

After quickly making a splash on the Toronto club scene, Leckie and the Viletones made their initial foray to New York City in 1977, right in the midst of the punk rock conflagration there. In a post on the Queen Street West Music Scene, 1975-1989 Facebook page, filmmaker Peter Vronsky set the scene this way: “I shot my CBC documentary Crash’n’Burn with Steve and the Viletones in the New Yorker and the Crash’n’Burn in Toronto and at CBGBs on the Bowery in New York City on his first tour in July 1977 in the Summer of Sam.

“When Steve got up on stage at [punk mecca] CBGBs that hot summer night on July 7, (7-7-77) and he cut his arms open with shards of beer glass picked off the floor, he blew away all the New York poser punk rockers. They had never seen anything like that! He was what they were pretending to be. Steve and I laughed about that night often in the years to come.”
Included on that visit were two other leading Canadian punk bands, The Diodes and Teenage Head, but it was the Viletones who grabbed the attention of legendary rock critic Lester Bangs. In a 1981 feature for the Village Voice, Bangs recalled that “This guy Nazi Dog hung from the rafters, crawled all over the stage, and hurled himself on the first row until his body was one huge sore.”

Tracklisting

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