of punk, jazz, folk, tango, klezmer, cheap red wine, woolly pinstriped suits, newsboy caps and one waxed moustache," is a quartet founded in 2002 by Nicolay and clarinetist Peter Hess (World/Inferno Friendship Society, Balkan Beat Box) to accompany performers from the Coney Island sideshow at a weekly show at CBGB. They became a part of the growing New York gypsy-punk scene and released a full-length, self-titled album in 2004 and the EP "Drink The Best Wine First" in 2005. In 2005, Guignol made a guest appearance on the album "Smash the Windows," by the Philadelphia folk-punk band Mischief Brew. In 2009, they released a full-length collaboration called "Guignol & Mischief Brew Fight Dirty," which included six songs by each band, as well as covers of songs by Django Reinhardt and Iron Maiden. "Fight Dirty," off "Guignol & Mischief Brew Fight Dirty," appeared in the superhero movie Deadpool 2: Super Duper Cut, and on the soundtrack album. The Hold Steady After guesting on The Hold Steady's debut "Almost Killed Me," Nicolay joined the band in 2004: "World/Inferno played some shows with Lifter Puller in Chicago a long time ago, then when Craig moved to New York he was doing A&R for the now-defunct DCN live label and signed us up for the live record "Hallowmas at Northsix". Over the course of working on that, we'd go out drinking with him and Tad when the Hold Steady was kind of coming together as "this new band we're sort of working on". When it finally happened, they called and asked me and Peter to come play on the first record ("Almost Killed Me"), which led to me coming and playing those three songs on NY shows whenever it worked out, which led to "Hey, do you wanna get together and work on some songs for the new record?", which became "Well, do you want to join the band?" During his time with the band, The Hold Steady earned almost universal praise by the press for their performances and records. In 2010, Nicolay announced he had left the Hold Steady after five years with the band. In 2016 The Hold Steady announced a series of concerts celebrating the tenth anniversary of Boys and Girls in America, featuring Nicolay with the band. Their 2021 album "Open Door Policy" was their first Billboard top-ten record. Solo In 2007, Nicolay released Black Rose Paladins, a set of