Nose Flute Fanatics

If you’ve been looking for an opportunity to take nose flute lessons, this weekend’s your chance. Polygraph Lounge will be bringing their nose flutes (which they’ll teach you how to play) and other unusual instruments to Joe’s Pub this weekend for their first New York gig in two years, showcasing an updated version of their hysterical mash-up medley of songs from the past and present.

Polygraph Lounge is the equivalent of sonic reconstructive surgery, or a musical Frankenstein. Verses from different tunes are amputated and dissected and then sewn together into a tight body of work that has a mind of its own: You’ll most likely recognize the original, but notice something new, possibly improved.

“Almost everything we do is taken from music you’ve already heard before,” explains Rob Schwimmer, half of the duo.

“We combine it and melt it into something new that goes by at a very fast pace. By the time you figure out what it is we’re playing, it will already be gone.”

Schwimmer, who just released his solo disc, Beyond The Sky, plays keyboards and “various toys of different sorts,” including a theremin. Schwimmer’s partner in crime, Mark Stewart—whom you may recognize from the Bang On A Can All-Stars and Paul Simon’s band—contents himself with guitar and daxophone, a carved wooden blade that can be plucked or bowed. As an added bonus, the duo will be joined by operatic soprano Melissa Fathman, who’s flying in from Colorado.

Trying to define exactly what a Polygraph Lounge show is proves difficult—even for Schwimmer. He searches for an analogy, and laughs. “It’s a rollercoaster through your own brain. Just go for the ride and have fun.”

June 23, Joe’s Pub, 425 Lafayette St. (betw. Astor Pl. & E. 4th St.), 212-967-7555; 7, $15.