You probably shouldn't even read this diary. It is three days before the election and this diary has nothing to do with politics or anything remotely related.
But it is based on news I discovered yesterday and is certainly appropriate to this last day of October.
Nash the Slash will never rise again
The Canadian musician, Jeff Plewman, known as Nash the Slash, died last May at age 66. A longer obituary here.
The name Nash the Slash is derived from a villain in a silent Laurel and Hardy movie. It was a name used by the musician for approximately 40 years. Like many music fans in southern Ontario in the 1970s I first became aware of his existence through the science fiction oriented progressive rock band FM. FM was originally formed as duo in the mid 1970s consisting of Nash the Slash (electric mandolin and violin, backing vocals) and Cameron Hawkins (lead vocals, synthesizers, and bass). An early performance by the duo on TVOntario's Night Music is below. Nash has adopted his first costume (the black one) by this time although his hair is longer than at any later time. Shortly after this FM added drummer Martin Deller to its lineup.
FM's first LP, Black Noise, was, quite unusually, produced and released by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which did not usually release records and certainly not ones by unknown bands. The LP's release was, perhaps not surprisingly delayed for quite some time by which time Nash had left for a solo career. When it did come out Black Noise made quite an impression in Canada. FM quite deftly combined spacey sounds and lyrics about heading out into space to find new homes in the stars with catchy, well constructed songs. I read several local reviews at the time that wanted to hate them on general principles but found them too appealing. One started saying that this band consists of a guy who looks like my brother (Deller who was about as ordinary looking a guy as a rock musician could possibly be), a guy who looks my sister (Hawkins who was slender, fine-featured, and had extremely long hair), and guy called Nash the Slash. Despite this major handicap he thought they were a really good band.
FM's most well known track is below. I saw them play twice in my high school gym a year or so after Nash's departure. His replacement in the band, one Ben Mink, later found success as kd lang's collaborator.
Nash went solo (although he did often play with FM from time to time) and changed direction. In many ways in the late 1970s he was a figure way ahead of his time. Rather than seek a recording contract he formed his own company, Cut Throat Records, and recorded and released his own music. I heard him interviewed on CFNY the local alternative station - he explained that he was able to record his own music by eschewing vocals and all acoustic instrumentation.
Much of his early output was music that composed to accompany silent films or art exhibits, especially those of his friend, hyper-realist Rob Van Der Horst. In 1978 he released the EP Bedside Companion (the cover had Nash serenading a terrified woman with his violin) and the following year the LP Dreams and Nightmares came out. Surprisingly I was able to find both in mall record stores in my home town some 70 miles from the big city (i.e. Toronto). Nash used minimalist black and white imagery in the LP labeling that harkened back to his silent film inspirations. This music was, in my humble opinion, Nash's finest hour. He composed electronic music that was eerie and evocative as well as discordant and disturbing in just the right places. The two videos below have much of the material from this period - they from another episode of TVOntario's Night Music. I actually saw this, more or less by chance, when it was first broadcast, and almost died of joy. The video quality is dreadful - just to warn you.
In 1979 Nash began bandaging his face for all public appearances. Initially he wore a white suit and top hat, sort of an inversion of the black Victorian garb he had favored before. The bandages were used from then on although the rest of the costume varied considerably.
After this Nash switched direction. His next release was single, a cover of Jan and Dean's Deadman's Curve. In addition to vocals the sound was raw, more of new wave version of the 60s song than the sort of experimental version you might expect from Nash. Shortly thereafter he entered his brief period of international fame, touring with Iggy Pop and Gary Numan and once opening for the Who. He made a new LP, produced and released through Virgin Records.
Although his period of fame was brief he was established as an institution, albeit an eccentric one, on the Ontario rock scene. One of my regrets was that I never saw him play live. He began to specialize to covering a wide range of rock classics, both straight versions (e.g. Spirit's 1984) and satirical ones (e.g. Dopes on the Water, below). He did do at least one more album of experimental music entitled Decomposing. All the tracks were composed with the idea that they could be played at any speed. At 78 RPM they were fast-paced dance tracks (or at least Nash's idea of a dance track) while at 33 RPM they were slower, more ethereal tracks. It was really cool idea but maybe a better idea than a piece of music.
Warning - If you have never seen Un Chien Andalou and are unfamiliar with the film, be aware that it contains some rather disturbing imagery
I'm going to end my favorite Nash the Slash piece, the sound track he composed for the Salvador Dali/Luis Bunuel film Un Chien Andalou. I've listened to it hundreds of times since I picked up my copy in the Lincoln Mall one weekday night when I was in high school and it still gives me chills. So long Nash and thanks for making the part of the world where I grew up a little more interesting.