Like countless others at this university, you and your friends may want to start a band. Play music, get popular, kick some ass, right? Wrong.

Unfortunately, you have no talent, no showmanship, and no sex appeal. But fret not, budding rock stars, because right here in Kingston, a few dangerously self-deluded artists have found an answer to the classic quandery, ‘how do I achieve my dreams of musical stardom, without actually playing a note?’ Their solution: just lie through your teeth. Make it all up. Case and point: Pelvic Thrush, a burgeoning Kingston hoax band For the uninitiated, Pelvic Thrush is a completely fictitious two-piece group, fronted by Queen’s student Anthony Bologna (stage name “Tony Baloney”), Arts ’01, and his friend Sasha. Sasha is Bologna’s pet goldfish — a fact which makes Thrush’s meteoric rise all the more compelling. In Bologna’s words: “Despite my dreams of rock-star popularity, I was living alone all summer, with only my dear Sasha for company. Spicing up the vast expanse of lonely hours required immersion into a desperate fantasy world. I got hooked, I admit. Pretending to be in a band, I discovered, was the next best thing to actually being in one. And it’s not a lie, if you believe it’s true.” Using this disturbingly twisted logic, Bologna and Sasha quickly found themselves on the avant-garde of hoax music. End result: Pelvic Thrush Five-time Grammy winner* and Rock-n’-Roll Hall of Fame inductee*, an existential musical juggernaut and — some would say — purely a figment of Tony Baloney’s imagination. (**N.B. these are fake honours) Pelvic Thrush differs from conventional acts, ones who tend to rely on musicianship and songwriting. These guys lack talent. Thrush freely admits they can’t sing, play, or write lyrics. Says Baloney, “I wouldn’t know a G chord if it beat me over the head with a metal pipe. Our salvation has been my lack of shame coupled with a scorching case of schizophrenia” Baloney and Sasha use ‘utter falsehoods’ to compensate for their artistic inadequacy.

Not surprisingly, the most important part about being in a hoax band is that they “have to make stuff up all the time.” The list of Pelvic Thrush accomplishments — phony, by all accounts — is nonetheless long and impressive. Notable highlights include gigs at Glastonbury and Woodstock ’99, as well as an appearance at the Last Supper (29 AD) and an rock solid set in celebration of the erection of Stonehenge (circa 3000 B.C.). “There was also that time that Sasha and I rocked at Newport with Miles Davis and John Coltrane,” adds Baloney, “Sasha simply buried the Trane on the sax — used her little goldfish gills to work miracles. Sure, it may not actually have happened, but so what? Get off my back, dad.”

With no actual production expenses, and no musicians to pay, Pelvic Thrush’s profit potential is off the charts. Album after pretend album gets churned out, and the public doesn’t seem to mind in the least: “They’re pigs for that make-believe shit, absolutely eating it up and rolling around in it!”

What else besides sheer chutzpah can explain the hoax music phenomenon? Lies and deception — the not-so-secret ingredients behind their success-have been around for centuries, after all. Since the days of Adam and Eve, falsehoods have been useful tools for boosting personal esteem. As Kingston’s hottest hoax performers, Pelvic Thrush admits they owe a spiritual debt to those big fat liars of the past “Yeah, man, we got to give props to Satan and all those hellcats. The Great Deceiver and everything. We owe that guy our souls.”

Opponents of the movement claim that hoax bands, with their spread of lies and unsubstantiated rumours, are carrying on in a grossly irresponsible way, reaping undue acclamations for non-existent accomplishments. Does hoax in fact equal hype, or is that an oversimplification?

Well, in all fairness, the life of a hoax band is not that easy. “Things tend to get pretty complicated for Thrush,” explains Baloney, “It’s tricky, you know, keeping track of all the lies.” To wit, a controversy arose this summer when Pelvic Thrush announced that the band’s main musical influences were “Mozart, Paul Anka, and Stalin”. This was in direct contradiction to earlier claims by Baloney that the band’s style was “one part Tina Yothers, two parts Snoop Doggy-Dogg”. Baloney has dismissed the alleged inconsistency as trivial, but was somewhat jaded after the ordeal: “In retrospect, I would venture to say that the message of hoax music is lost on some Pelvic Thrush fans. One has to keep in mind that the driving creative force behind all of this is not simply vulgar music in any of its separate distillations: rap, polka, banshee, whatever. Ultimately it’s got to be about blatant self-indulgent fraudulent deceit.” Like they say in their imaginary hit single, you should ‘Let the Facts Walk, and Let Your Ass Talk’.

As long as the rest of the world is listening, the asses of Pelvic Thrush will continue to speak volumes.

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Pat Tanzola is telling bold-faced lies again… but MiSC. model Jacob “Baloney” Gross-Sobol truly is a handsome man.