DON’T MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE BAND

Steven Leckie of the Viletones.

“You cannot make friends with the rock stars...”
- Lester Bangs, via Philip Seymour Hoffman, Almost Famous

Something strange happens when you write a book and your characters are real people who can call you up on the phone, or who you can meet in person.

And who you might have friendships with. Or fallout with.

That was my experience with my first book. Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond was a book I’d had in my heart for several years before I got to work on it.

Truthfully, I had been waiting – expecting, assuming – that someone would publish such a book at any moment. I discovered Toronto punk in the year 2000, via a novel called 1978 by Toronto author Daniel Jones.

Jones’ work was a hybrid of fiction and reality, its characters set against what was a real-life punk scene in Toronto in the late ‘70s. I was 18 when I read it and it blew me away: You mean to say that the city I grew up in had its very own punk movement, just like New York or London or L.A.?

You have to understand what it’s like to grow up in Canada, where our biggest celebrities often have to leave home to make it elsewhere first. We are a nation that is humble to a fault, reluctant to celebrate or obsess over anything homegrown.

While it was no problem to find books like Please Kill Me on store shelves here, I was baffled that we didn’t have our own oral history of Toronto punk.

Please Kill Me was a huge success. Certainly Canada could compete, right?

But as the years rolled on, local punk history remained a mystery to me. And so in 2006, after graduating from journalism school, I decided to write the book I wanted to read.

It was a project I only could have started with the naivete I had at the time. I was so convinced that this story was important (I still feel that way) that I didn’t stop to question the logistics of it, or what kind of emotional, financial, or spiritual toll it might take.

I just did it. I started tracking down anyone I could find from the Toronto punk scene.

Steven Leckie was top of my list. He was the singer of the Viletones, one of the city’s most notorious first-wave punk bands. But he wasn’t eager to talk at first: He’d been approached in the past, by people whose projects didn’t come to fruition.

I kept on him, though, and after several months he finally agreed to meet with me – if I was willing to buy him a pitcher of beer.

I agreed. It was a small price to pay for what I knew would be one of the most important subjects of my book.

We met on the patio of the Rhino, a popular bar in Toronto’s Parkdale neighbourhood. I’d quit smoking but when Steven offered me a cigarette I accepted. I was so caught up in his storytelling, the way he could make the most mundane ideas sound interesting.

He had been known for a stage act that involved cutting up his arms or inciting fights within the audience. There is a photograph of him whipping a thick metal chain around at a gig.

He had the reputation of someone people either loved or hated. But even the ones who hated him would admit, without hesitation, that he was charming as hell.

And no one could deny his importance in Toronto’s music history.

Steven was also my first lesson in what it was like to working with living, breathing characters in a book. While he’d been reluctant to talk at first, once we connected he called me regularly – often daily, and sometimes multiple times a day – for about two years after that.

We did a series of interviews together throughout those two years, but we kept in touch outside of anything on the record. The research for TMLD coincided with the filming of Colin Brunton’s documentary The Last Pogo Jumps Again. The two projects had stirred up the old Toronto punk scene.

Bands were reuniting. Friends were reconnecting. Shows were being lined up.

It was also just before Facebook went mainstream. We were coming out of a time when it easier to lose touch with your past, and when it was commonplace to lose track of old friends.

Steven and I would end up at the same events. He also got a new version of the Viletones together and I covered some of his revival gigs for a couple of local magazines I freelanced for back then.

But I knew that the relationship we had wouldn’t last.

There’s a scene in Almost Famous when Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is on the phone with William (Patrick Fugit), the young music journalist who’s in over his head with the band he’s on assignment to write about:

“Aw, man. You made friends with them!” Lester says.

Don’t make friends with the band: It’s a rule I have broken at certain times. But it’s also a rule I think has merit.

Because music journalism and musicians have a strange relationship. We need each other: Artists want press. The press wants a story. But whether the story always becomes what the artists want is another thing.

The press also wants to document, capture, archive.

But archiving requires an objective lens. And Steven’s story – like many of the subjects in TMLD – wasn’t always a flattering one. He was a complex person who polarized his audience.

Even some of biggest fans will admit to Steven’s polarity.

And as an individual, he was as unpredictable as his stage presence. Some days, he’d call at 2pm and sound completely sober. An hour later, he’d call me again with slurred speech and circular arguments.

Other days, he’d want me to meet him at a bar: “Bring your tape recorder. I forgot to tell you something.” But when I’d get there, he would be outside, propped up by the bartender: “He owes us $43, but he can’t stay inside anymore. We’ve called him a cab. He can pay his tab tomorrow.”

I knew that if I showed all sides of Steven – which I felt was necessary in order to allow for all sides of the story to be told – he would be mad at me.

And when my book came out, he was.

The same thing happened when the Last Pogo documentary was released.

While Steven courted the press, he had trouble accepting the reality that was reflected back to him.

So I knew our friendship – if that’s what it was – wouldn’t last.

Still, I always appreciated having known him for the time I did. And I never doubted his contribution to Canadian punk.

He will remain one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met.

When I got news on June 14 that he had died this month, I was sad, but I wasn’t surprised. Even before my book was published in 2009, Steven had had a number of health issues and had to cancel some shows as a result.

In more recent years, I’d heard that he was struggling with cancer.

The last time I saw Steven was – gosh, I can’t even remember the year. Maybe in 2013 at The Last Pogo screening.

There are so many stories I have about those days of hanging out with Steven Leckie and other members of the Toronto punk scene. There’s so much I haven’t yet shared about what it was like to work on that project, and how I feel about it looking back all this time after.

But for now, I will simply say thank you, Steven. You gave us a lot, and you were appreciated so much more than I think you ever knew.

Until next time,

Liz

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