StLJN Saturday at the Movies: An improvisation from Paul Metzger, plus bent-circuit sounds from Tim Kaiser

This week, let's take a look at video clips from Paul Metzger and Tim Kaiser, who will be playing next Tuesday, March 18 at Open Lot arts collective and performance space, 1310 S. 18th St.

Metzger modifies and builds guitars and banjos to do things that regular store-bought instruments can't do, and in the video clip above, he's improvising on a customized banjo that has four conventionally fretted strings plus seventeen sympathetic strings that vibrate along with the instrument's body and neck, not unlike some of the instruments used in Indian classical music. If this strikes your fancy, you can see more videos of Metzger playing his modified instruments on his YouTube page.

As seen in the second clip, Kaiser's performances usually have some sort of visual element as well as audio that draws on found instruments and so-called "bent" electronics, which are mass-produced instruments, toys or consumer electronics items that have been custom-modified to produce sound and/or process audio in ways not intended by the original designers or manufacturers. This clip is from the Bent Festival held last year in Minneapolis, and is actually the first of four available from this performance. You can see the other three parts here, here and here. For more info on next Tuesday's performance and other activities and events at Open Lot, you can email them at open.lot@gmail.com