of some speculation, although the Star profile of 1978 had already matter-of-factly revealed his real name. Nevertheless, in a 1981 interview with the UK magazine Smash Hits, Nash was questioned about his real name, and replied with "Nashville Thebodiah Slasher". As a result of his coyness about his name, some fans came to believe that the Nash persona was an alter-ego of Ben Mink, who replaced him as FM's violinist in 1978. This is a common misconception, but he has been photographed onstage with Mink. The "Nash the Slash" persona came from silent film, and Nash said he took his stage name from that of a killer butler encountered by Laurel and Hardy in one of their first films, Do Detectives Think? (1927), for which he composed a soundtrack score. (The film character's name is actually "The Tipton Slasher"; nowhere on screen does "Nash the Slash" appear.) Images of Nash the Slash are featured in a variety of murals painted by artist Jungle Ling in Toronto. These images are located in the Leslieville district, next to a TD Bank at Queen St. East and Logan Avenue and below Queen St. East on Connaught Avenue, as part of a neighborhood beautification project conducted by the Toronto Transit Commission. Career Nash's music is a complex blend of progressive rock, New Wave, new age, and punk rock, using electric mandolins, violins, drum machines, and a variety of effects and sonic devices. He wrote, played, and produced most of the material on his solo albums by himself, though he also worked with producers Daniel Lanois, Steve Hillage, and Bill Nelson. First group Before working as a solo artist, Nash recorded an unreleased song called "Slasher" with a group called Breathless, which also included his (and FM's) future producer, Michael Waite on bass guitar. The song appeared on a "various artists" promotional album titled Concept (after the Toronto-based management company, Concept 376; this was one of a series of such albums), but was not issued to the public in any form. The promo album does not list the group's personnel, or even a songwriting credit, but Nash is clearly heard singing a song, beginning with the lyrics "Hear the children of the night" (though this was a completely different song from his later work, "Children of the Night"), and playing electric violin. The song also featured a complex organ solo not in Nash's usual style