— Ronnie Gurr
We're in a boardgame cafe on Toronto's Yonge Street. He chooses the Strawberry Shortcake game and I happily agree. As ever, I'm keen to sit on the bench with Orange Blossom. He kicks my ass and wants to play again. I agree so that I can return to my Platonic affair with the girl on the top left corner of the board. He tells me that he hates boardgames other than this one and Mastermind. I consider switching games but hesitate due to my loyalty to Orange Blossom. Besides, Mastermind makes me feel like an imbecile. Kids at a corner table are enjoying Popamatic Trouble and we roll our eyes. It's a best four out of seven Strawberry Shortcake game contest for us and he's looking at a sweep.
Nashville Thebodiah Slasher isn't interested in talking about music and I'm not interested in asking him any of the questions I have prepared. I jotted down a bunch of useless queries about the trademark bandages he has wrapped around his head at all times and if he thinks he's influenced by Captain Beefheart and The Residents but I figure he's been asked these a million times before. Instead, as we're getting set for the third game, I ask him about other bands and types of music. I decide we should do some word association. I start gingerly but it doesn't take long before we're rolling. (For his part, Nash scarcely looks up from our game)
PiL: burial
Lene Lovich: rumpus room
Hazel O'Connor: smalltown mayors
Blondie: helpless
Talking Heads: emotional
The Police: pea soup
The Jam: achievement
Squeeze: gum boots
The Pretenders: astro pops
Bruce Springsteen: manufacturing
ABBA: cotton
Paul McCartney: consituency
Gary Numan: funeral
Toyah: chain link fences
Queen: pigeon toes
Stevie Wonder: relationships
Kate Bush: bed pans
Adam & The Ants: inhabitable
XTC: braids
The Specials: back bacon
Ian Dury: bricklaying
Nash the Slash: Circle Square Rancher
Not much revealed there (though it is nice to discover that the Nasher is a strong Christian soldier). Deciding that we've had enough shenanigans, I finish up my visit with Orange Blossom and work up the courage to ask him about his latest record. It is what Smash Hits have flown me over to Canada for. So, Mr. Slash, what made you want to cover "Dead Man's Curve"? Do you like exploring the dark side of innocent pop?
"No", he says while rolling the dice, "it was already dark. I gave it some much needed sunshine".
I suppose you could argue that's what he did. So how much of your public persona matches your private self?
"Nash and Nashville are mostly the same but I try to tone it down a little when I'm out in public. If people think I wear too many bandages they should see me at home".
Does he wrap certain "appendages" in bandages at home?
"You mean my arms and legs? Or the outsized skin tag under my arms pits?"
Yeah, those ones. So, is it true you won't use guitars on your records?
"I'd use a guitar if I could get some different sounds of them. Other instruments are able to sound like guitars but guitars only sound like themselves."
Do you reckon you're cut out for the pop life?
"I must be since my last job was decorating birthday cakes. I got fired after just a few weeks but I still haven't been canned from this one."
All these questions have thrown off his nibs and we're neck and neck in the fourth game. I hope Orange Blossom won't leave me in for him. His strategy of playing hard to get with her appears to be paying off. I'll have to make it up to her somehow. I'm beginning to suspect that the Slasher has found my weakness. I'd better try to get into his head with some more questions. What does he think of making music videos?
"I love making videos. They're much more fun than most of the records. I suggested to my record label that we do a silent music video but they said no."
A silent music video???
"Yeah, like a silent movie but without the music playing. Most songs sound better in my head anyway."
What does Nash like to do for fun?
"Oh, the usual. Cooking shows on TV, slurpees and walking away in the middle of conversations. I'm a simple guy with simple pleasures."
Try as I might, Nash the Slash sweeps me in Strawberry Shortcake game. I ask him if he'd like to play Mille Bornes but he politely declines. He's got a doctor's appointment prior to his concert here in Toronto. The man is one of a kind and he doesn't even know it.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
John Lennon: "Woman"
"Everyone thinks it's about my woman but it's really about 99% of the women, alive or half dead". This is not something John Lennon uttered in his lifetime but he might have done had he lived longer. One of his strengths was to make the personal seem so universal and he did it here just as he did on "Girl" and "Mother" years earlier. ("Julia" is perhaps his one personal statement to a woman that could never have been masked as something else) It probably did seem like pablum in November of 1980 but it has never not been poignant ever since. Lennon detractors will predictably trot out stuff about him beating women but he did try to atone for his sinful past. Well done.
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