Of Human Bandage: 'Nash the Slash Rises Again!' Filmers on Outsider Art and All Things Nash

By Jim Slotek

Tim Kowalski, director of the lo-fi documentary Nash the Slash Rises Again!, remembers clearly when he first thought about making a movie about the bandaged musical enigma. He was in his teens.

“It sounds almost like a fake story, but my first job out of high school I had a summer job working at a printing house. And this older gent who ran the press next to me tapped me on the shoulder and asked, ‘Have you ever heard of Nash the Slash?’

“And I said, ‘Yeah!’ I grew up seeing him on TV and he really fascinated me with his spooky get-up.

“And he said, ‘I played on Nash’s first record.’”

Kowalski then heard the story about the artist who lived in the late ‘70s behind the projection booth in an old Danforth theatre (Toronto’s now-defunct “Original 99-cent Roxy”), who, behind his bandages, kind of looked like Elton John, and played on-the-spot soundtrack music for silent horror movies like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu.

“And I thought he was probably pulling my leg, but part of me thought, ‘If this is real, then this sounds like a movie I want to see!’”

Decades would pass before Kowalski and writers Kevan Byrne (of the band King Cobb Steelie) and (Schitt’s Creek producer) Colin Brunton would see that vision realized.

Director Tim Kowalski

But in short order, Nash the Slash would have no need for bandmates (though he would be on-and-off with the prog-rock band FM through the years). A multi-instrumentalist playing multiple-genres, Nash (real name Jeff Plewman) had a career as a one-man band, a techno wizard making magic with analog equipment. He was the kind of mercurial and temperamental creative force who would back away when he started to get noticed for one thing and do something else.

“I will say that in music, when you reach a certain place in terms of being signed to a major label, there are expectations that start to creep in,” Byrne says. “And there are demands and obligations that maybe Nash was aware of and didn’t want any part of. And I experienced them myself. I know that there are things you will be asked to do that make you uncomfortable.

“I think Nash was too true to his vision to do that. He probably had no interest in being that popular if it meant that many compromises.”

Co-writer Kevan Byrne

If he was ahead of his time, some notables saw something intriguing. He toured with Gary Numan (who’s in the movie providing commentary) and Iggy Pop (who’s in the movie with Nash in archival footage). He signed a short-lived deal with Richard Branson’s Virgin-owned label Dindisc, and even had a friendly relationship with Branson himself.

“Fast forward to 2014, after Nash had passed, I started looking into his backstory, and all those things the guy had told me were true,” Kowalski recalls. “And it felt like a green light. And I thought, ‘Well, this movie isn’t going to make itself.’ So, I started telling my friends, putting out feelers. And one thing led to another, and here we are eight years later.”

Though Nash the Slash is a very Toronto story, the first-time feature filmmaker and his partners were gratified to discover “OG Nash fans” were everywhere. After debuting earlier this year at Toronto’s horror themed Blood in the Snow festival, Nash the Slash Rises Again! played at genre festivals in London, England, Calgary, Whitehorse, Montreal and Beaumont, Texas.

“We tried to make something beyond a cult film or a fans-only film,” Byrne says. “We were really hoping we could tell a story that was more fulsome. It’s about struggling against a system that, particularly in Canada, is not generous to outside art and stuff that is considered weird. It’s a pretty universal theme.”

At the same time, with neither Kowalski nor Byrne ever having met the man, Brunton, as the Boomer in the room, had a role to play in the telling of that particular New Wave era of Toronto.

“We were really lucky to have Colin,” Kowalski says. “He was very outspoken about things, especially the Roxy. ‘You’re missing this element! What about the pot smoke? The 24 hour marathon weekend marathons? What about Nash doing his first performance as Nash the Slash doing (the soundtrack) for (Luis Buñuel)’s Un Chien Andalou in that venue?’”

And, appropriately enough, on Friday the 13th this week, Nash the Slash Rises Again! starts its Canadian theatrical run, including a show at Toronto’s Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, with a screening, Q&A, and performance by various artists who took part in an album of Nash the Slash covers (among them Ian Blurton, Kevin Breit and The Rheostatics’ Dave Clark).

I suggest to Kowalski and Byrne that I have trouble wrapping my head around the notion of a Nash cover, his sound being so singular and unique.

“I know what you mean,” Byrne says. “We just did this thing in Whitehorse, and I was asked to do an opening set of music, so I had this the idea at the time that I’m going to do a Nash cover.

“And man, I could not figure out how to do one. As you said, too singular, too weird, too outsider, too beyond my capability, I was just like, ‘I can’t do it.’”