In a time where an increasing deluge of acoustically-oriented recordings are being pumped up with words like

"Iconoclastic" or "transcendental," it can sometimes be difficult for the adventurous listener to have any clue as to how to
separate the wheat from the chaff. Hype and hyperbole be damned; this is the real deal. MetzgerÕs title Òmodified
banjoÓ could tend to confuse even the most discerning among us. While it is indeed true that a visual inspection will
reveal an instrument so mutated that it bears little resemblance to that simultaneously venerated and reviled backwoods
icon that it once was (he has added more than a dozen strings, a sitar bridge and otherwise mutated a traditionally limit-
ing instrument into something entirely unique), it is ultimately one's ears that will yield the most incredulous reactions and
ask the hardest questions after being fed their particular set of stimuli, as it is ultimately Metzger's approach to the instru-
ment and the sounds and melodies he wrenches from it that are the greatest and most significant modifications being
made here. Metzger's singular, irreverent approach and fluid dexterity in attack are made evident in his seamless hybrids
of North Indian and Asian influences, jazz and folk forms through a vehicle that typically ruts its wheels in Americana hill
country and are truly unprecedented. Recorded within the acoustically resonant confines of Duluth's Sacred Heart studio
(itself once a church), his three lengthy improvisations venture into the meditative sublime, a deeply cognitive set of com-
positions that exit miles beyond what one normally expects from the banjo.

THE PRESS SAYS:
Debut solo LP voted to be one of the top 10 Minnesota releases of 2004
"By turns meditative and ecstatic, extends his trio's raga-rock rhizomes simultaneously toward Mecca and the
moon." --City Pages

"A scenic sonic vision of a horizon as wide and high as the sky." -- Dream Magazine

"The musicianship is outstanding." -- Aural Innovations

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Improvisations on Modified Banjo and Guitar

Catalog Number: CKM015 Format: CD Release Date: July 5, 2005

UPC #: 656605801520 Label: Chairkickers’ Music

Chairkickers' Music ¥ P.O. Box 600 ¥ Duluth, MN 55801 ¥ www.chairkickers.com