VJ Tom Yaz, who plays at Provincetown’s Crown and Anchor and Boston’s Club Café, is the master of video.

BOSTON — VJ Tom Yaz beams when he gets the opportunity to bring someone to what is undoubtedly his second, if not first, home — the library-like VJ booth above Moonshine at Boston’s Club Café that appears more like the control panel of a spaceship than an A/V super station.

“You gotta see this,” says Yaz as he pulls out what he says is his favorite video (actually, the newer stuff is on DVD now). The cut is called “Gay Boyfriend” by the Ukes of Hazzard, and it’s a Pierre et Gilles-esque send-up of two off-key white chicks extolling the virtues of having a gay boyfriend.

“It’s the absolute best of the worst, ... and that’s the best there is,” says Yaz, who is surrounded by hundreds of video tapes dating back to mid-‘80s, photos of his friend Fred Schneider of The B-52’s, video monitors, and a collection of other kitsch.

“Nothing is funnier than this. Two girls who can’t sing, but do off-key harmony, like a drunken Shangri-Las song.”

And there’s more of the same, lots more. But, first, let’s be clear — Yaz is not your typical VJ. Not content with popping in a video, he has perfected the production of original video, something that has kept people coming back to Club Café on Thursday and Friday nights for 12 years. Take for instance the treatment he did of a DJ Rich LaDue remix of the “Theme from the Love Boat,” a montage of just about every ‘70s and ‘80s made-up and wardrobed guest from the opening credits.

“The opening credits WERE the show,” says Yaz, who is also particularly pleased with the dozens of videos featuring clips from the ultra-campy “Wonder Woman” series of the ‘70s.

His latest faves? An homage to closeted athletes, “I Like Mike,” featuring Jay Spears, and his umpteenth remix of The B-52’s “Love Shack” (one of his favorite videos of all time). This one has the voices of the band dubbed over the melody of Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” and it seems to mesh nearly as perfectly as the soundtrack of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” to the images of “The Wizard of Oz.”

“I hate Britney — she is everything that is wrong with the music industry, so anything I can do to Britney and make it hilarious, it’s good,” says Yaz.

“Look at the ‘Sometimes’ video for Britney. She’s singing very seriously, and if you look at the two girls leaning up against the car while she’s singing, one girl takes her finger and scratches her pussy so hard. And I just show that over and over and over and it’s so funny. Come on, whoever edited that video knew it was in there, but people are so entranced with her singing that, if you’re a fan you’re just going to miss that. It’s brilliant. Any fans out there, look close and you’ll know what I’m talking about.”

Certainly, Yaz has been up to this for a long time and anyone who has ever been to Club Café (if you haven’t, you still don’t have your official gay card, by the way) knows that the popularity of the Back Bay hot spot is due in large part to his unique style of entertainment.

Yaz got his start in the early ‘80s at Avalon when it was called Metro. While bar-backing, he took an interest in video, which was then just beginning to hit not only bars, but TV — it was the beginning of the MTV era, and Yaz was on dawn patrol.

At the same time, he was immersing himself in pop culture. He worked backstage gigs for a number of celebrities, including Madonna.

“That was when it cost two bucks to get in to see her and they’d put her on at 10 p.m. because they didn’t think anyone would be in to see her otherwise,” Yaz recalls. “God, I did backstage for everybody while I was getting into the video thing.”

From there, he did gigs at Boston’s Luxor, the Boy’s Club, a handful of straight clubs and private parties before becoming a permanent fixture at Club Café and now Wave Bar at P’town’s Crown and Anchor. Throw into the mix that he was one of the founders of the Love Shack, one of P'town's most famous clubs for years during the early '90s, and Yaz has already had an illustrious career.

“It’s a stable place,” says Yaz of Club Café. “There’s a good turnover of fun and interesting people, which keeps things new. It’s progressive and I like to be progressive, to do new things but stay the same. Even if you do an oldies show, you gotta mash it up and do something new with the oldies, so it’s always great to see the up-and-coming kids. It’s a transient city, so things are always fresh.”

His collection of videos actually dates back to the early ‘60s, and Scope-a-Tones, a type of 8-millimeter film that was used in bars. “It was sort of like a music video peep show,” says Yaz. “Nancy Sinatra’s ‘Boots’ video is a Scope-a-Tone, a perfect example of what that is if you have ever seen that video.”

In the middle of showing some more videos, Yaz takes a call. It’s Fred Schneider, who Yaz counts as one of his best friends. The two collect rare video and feed off their quirky sensibilities.

“He is one of the coolest people in the world to hang out with and an instant party. ... [He’s] just amazing,” says Yaz. “And my idol. I actually run the band’s fan e-mail list.”

But there are a lot of people who idolize Yaz, and sometimes they try unsuccessfully to duplicate his talent, something that isn’t always flattering.

“I would never sell my stuff. You know, people call all the time, and I’d make a fortune, but every bar would have it, and it would be worthless” Yaz explains. “There was a bar that got a hold of my stuff and they ran an ad, ‘If you like Club Café, you’ll love so and so’ and then they ran my name as the VJ. Oh my god! They were playing some tape of mine! I was pissed. ...

“VJs are a rare breed, and you really need a certain personality to pull it off. You’re mixing images and video, and you need someone who can look out into a crowd and read the people and give them something completely fresh and new,” says Yaz. “Or something old with a fresh idea. You have to be cutting edge.”

And speaking of cutting edge, Yaz is expanding his career to include more private parties. In fact, with a new projection system in his box of tricks (“It can project something the size of a drive in theater,” he boasts), Yaz has jumped on the marriage bandwagon and has recently nabbed a bunch of gigs throughout Massachusetts.

“A lot of people who have been following me for years are calling for me to do their party,” says Yaz. “So, I think this is really going to be a new thing for me.”

That said, Yaz has no intention of leaving his post at Club Café or the Crown. “I do things a little differently at the Crown. ... I want to give people a real alternative so I do a lot more of the oldies, late ‘80s, ‘90s, and remix some of the ‘60s stuff like the Mamas and Papas’ ‘California Dreamin’’ stuff,” says Yaz. “So people can circulate around the clubs and find things that are completely different.”

Most important, Yaz introduces new, cutting edge dance music as well. He even reports a biweekly top 10 of dance music videos to CVC magazine (a music video industry trade publication), so he is constantly seeing new videos.

Of course, the big question for Yaz, the magician of manipulation of image and sound, is how he gets away with it.

“I have broken every copyright law ever written — ever! And I’m proud of it. Just don’t tell anybody, wink, wink.” s

Tom Yaz plays at Club Café, 209 Columbus Avenue, Boston, on Thursdays and Fridays, and at Wave Bar, 247 Commercial Street, Provincetown, Mass., on Saturdays and Sundays.

This article originally appeared in in newsweekly.