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Appreciation of Paul Metzger at Khyber Pass.

Appreciation of Paul Metzger at Khyber Pass.


Thursday night, Grand Av.  2 doors east of Snelling, string man Paul Metzger took listeners to extended hikes through instrumental, compositional and cultural landscapes.  It was my first time hearing St. Paul’s Metzger. 

The instruments - one a banjo, the other a guitar, had each been crafted to take a set of strings arranged harp-style running off each neck.  A bow.  A perfectly-sized powered speaker.  

To  my mind Metzger’s first piece, while unnamed, was a tribute to our host, Emel, owner of the tiny restaurant and artist of wonderful abstract paintings on the walls.  The predominant feeling of the banjo-harp display was eastern - Afghan perhaps, but I am not sure.  Metzger plucked, strummed, hammered, bowed, scraped and pushed out notes by waving the banjo from and back to his chest, stirring bits of echo into the room.  The banjo body subbed nicely as a tabla.   Left fingers drumming strings up the  board were equally percussive. This 20+ string banjo created a tremendous range of dynamics throughout the tight improvisation and virtuosic playing.   Music by John McLaughlin and Ravi Shankar provide some popular context for this piece. Metzger, rocking with eyes closed, was engrossed with the process of invention and performance that swirled tempos and sounds for 20 minutes and snapped to a conclusion with the break of a harp string.  

Angelina the Baker, a folk song, was rendered on the guitar harp.  This included a regular guitar neck overshadowed by an extension of the wooden body into a harp neck.  The body extension and curving neck struck me as resembling Popeye’s leg mid-pratfall.  These harp strings were heavy, resonant additions to a sound that was bountiful when only the guitar was used.  A tiny touch of electronica was added, reflecting or was it playing counterpoint with, this challenging version of the tune. This was 10 or 15 minutes of - can you imagine Leo Kottke feeling very experimental?  Metzger again showed ecstasy while playing with great precision. 

Banter of a dada-esque philosophic sort eventually led to this introduction of the last song, which he claimed was the most difficult.  

He explained: “The notes are in a major scale, the most banal of any sequence.  But the most challenging to play (if aiming at)  something halfway meaningful.”  

This song,  a return to the banjo harp, was a joy and reminded me of John Fahey’s early albums.  Meaningful, yes.  Lets listen again. 


Jay Wilkinson 
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