I performed with Tony once, in an ensemble as part of Rhys Chatham's G3 Is My Life performance in Buffalo 2007. All the members of my then band (Bare Flames) were in this ensemble plus other friends involved in the Buffalo underground rock/experimental scene. Tony arrived late to rehearsal, as he had to be coerced by Rhys to play (Rhys and Tony were long-time friends going back to when they both lived in NYC). I'm assuming that he probably didn't play much guitar since The Primitives (pre VU band he was in with Lou Reed and John Cale). We were rehearsing and Tony shows up thru a door and down the steps onto the back of the stage holding a 60's short scale Harmony/Silvertone Bobkat electric guitar, and asks "Will this work?"
I was lucky to have witness quite a few performances as he was quite active in the Buffalo-scene from the late 90's to about the mid/late 00's. He always had the element of surprise he's most well noted for playing violin behind a white sheet with one light such that all you could see is his shadow and hear the long drones, but he also had long string instruments attached to long pieces of 2x4. He had made "phonograph player"
which he performed with in Buffalo a few times, it was a hand-held electric drill mounted on a stand, a long spindle as "the bit" where the records were threaded thru and he manually applied 2 phonograph cartridges as the drill spun the records at 1000's of rpms, the sound was insane, he liked it that way. He also had a children's toy drumkit where the drums heads/skins being made of plastic he had cut round holes into and he bowed these openings and the resulting sound was amplified via contact mics attached to the kit.
He had seen performances of noise/experimental bands/projects I was in mostly because my friends/bandmates/collaborators had been either students/collegues in the Media Study Dept. at the University of Buffalo where he taught. And he would say things like, "...that was interesting in how you did that" or something of the sort...
The man was eccentric, but funny, real funny...
http://www.rhyschatham.net/G3ismylife/Buffalo.html
Part 1 of the Buffalo performance appears on Guitar Trio Is My Life! (CD - Table of the Elements/Radium #11813) Disc 1
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/...io-is-my-life/