by CHRIS BARRY

Name: Greg Dunlevy

Age: 62

Occupation: Busker

Bio: This boisterous Plateau buck had been a leatherworker and happenin' folk singer on the local café circuit in the late 1960s. After leaving it all behind for a lengthy stint in the Maritimes, Greg eventually returned in 1982 to "make it big in the music scene." Not just a gifted flautist and sax player but one damn fine stilt performer, Greg can regularly be found plying his trade in the metro when he's got no other work. "Listen, there's a big difference between stilt walkers and stilt performers. Stilt performers do a lot more than just walk on stilts, and make no mistake about it, I am a stilt performer."

Something that happened on his very first stilt "performance" gig: He broke many bones after crashing to the ground in a bold attempt to do a pirouette. Upon his recovery, Greg was convinced a few dance lessons were in order and wound up studying it for the next 12 years, eventually earning a BA in contemporary dance.

Do audiences laugh and cheer when a stilt "performer" goes down for the count? "Certainly not, it's like the circus when a trapeze artist falls, people get very concerned."

Concerned enough to feel cheated and reach down into his instrument case to get their change back? "Of course not."

His preferred metro station: Lionel Groulx. "I've room to move around there. I must always be very attentive to the crowd."

Is this attentiveness required so as to better avoid teenagers who think it might be fun to watch a 12-foot-high flautist go tumbling onto the tracks? "Maybe not onto the tracks, but you always have kids wanting to knock you over. Kids don't realize how difficult it is to stand on stilts. It's because I make it look easy, you know. But if somebody does manage to tip you over you can really hurt yourself. And that's an assault charge!"

How he deals with rowdy teen troublemakers: "I tell them, ‘Hey, that's not cool.' But some of them get really obnoxious. That's when you need to get really defensive and go ‘Look, I don't appreciate this, and if you keep it up you're going to get one of these [stilts] in your face. And it's going to hurt, so back off.'"

And do they? "Most of the time. But you know, it's not just teenagers who try this. Sometimes I get businessmen in downtown Montreal intentionally walking right into me, trying to knock me down, going, ‘Get out of my way, I pay my taxes here!' I have no idea what angers them about me."

Was he pissed Spin didn't mention him in their recent article about the lively Montreal music scene? Not really.

Last book read: Johnny Mangano and his Astonishing Dogs, by Michel Tremblay.

Musical preferences: Sheryl Crow, Diana Krall.

Words of wisdom: "Look inside yourself if things are going wrong in your life."

Comments? dimwit@openface.ca