Polygraph Lounge's offbeat sound is on the nose

Nobody said they had to give every paid ticket holder a nose flute. Or tell the story of ''Moby-Dick" through the Who, Procol Harum, and the theme to ''The Beverly Hillbillies."

But for Rob Schwimmer and Mark Stewart, the musical pranksters known as Polygraph Lounge, the ideas made perfect sense.

''We're very serious about being ridiculous," says Stewart.

Since its debut on a lark 10 years ago, Polygraph Lounge has developed a loyal following, mainly in New York City, by tossing the high- and lowbrow into an offbeat, reference-heavy musical melange. Schwimmer and Stewart have played Boston before, but not as Polygraph Lounge. Both are well-traveled session players, and were members of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel's touring band during the folk duo's recent reunion tour. Tonight, they make their Boston debut as Polygraph Lounge, bringing their Spike Jones-inspired alter egos to the Somerville Theatre.

Along with the ''Moby-Dick" medley, the musicians promise to bring together, at last, Alvin and the Chipmunks and Barry Manilow. They will perform their operetta of Tchaikovsky's ''Nutcracker Suite," a creation that somehow involves the Troggs and a slide organ whistle. For Nutcracker and several other works, they'll be joined by regular guest singer Melissa Fathman.

''To me, it's like the 'Moulin Rouge' soundtrack," says Anthony Gatto, a music professor at Foothill College in California who has booked Polygraph Lounge at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. ''They have this uncanny ability to go anywhere, at any time."

Their references run the gamut from classical compositions three centuries old to television theme songs, Broadway standards, and Led Zeppelin. As influences, they cite Jones, Firesign Theatre, and Tom Lehrer. But beyond the sonic slapstick, the duo is known for its arsenal of homemade instruments, which are crafted by Stewart. Many creations from the ''lab," immortalized in a 2003 New Yorker ''Talk of the Town" piece, will be played in Somerville. The amazing daxophone is named after a badger, as the German word for the animal is ''dax." The instrument, a musical saw made of wood, serves as the voice of Moby-Dick in the show. The uboingee is a guitar of strings and springs.

''They're brilliant musicians with incredible chops, total virtuosos with what they do," says Bill Bragin, director of Joe's Pub, a performance venue inside New York's Public Theater. ''It's musical reference after musical reference, like a classic Warner Bros. cartoon or 'The Simpsons' or 'South Park.' There are jokes you get on the surface and jokes you get underneath."

At first glance, Schwimmer and Stewart might seem an unlikely team. Schwimmer is largely self-taught, a keyboardist by trade who spent most of his teenage years in rural Pennsylvania. He has recorded an album of theremin music, played in a klezmer trio, and worked with everyone from Laurie Anderson to Muddy Waters.

''Rob has the greatest natural musical ears I've ever come across," says Stewart. ''He can play anything he's ever heard in any key and any style. And because he's such a Marx brother, the things he's able to do, he can play one song in one hand, the other in the other in the same key, and at the same time be mugging."

Stewart studied cello at the Eastman School of Music and taught at Mansfield University in Pennsylvania for four years. He's worked in the orchestra pit for several Broadway shows, and is a member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars and Steve Reich and Musicians. Stewart and Schwimmer met in the late '90s -- not in a recording studio but an East Village bar, DBA, that was popular with musicians.

''We didn't play a note together for a year and a half," said Schwimmer, 50. ''We would just spend time drinking together and trying to crack each other up."

The music emerged when a local producer put together a CD featuring many of the musicians who hung out at DBA and asked the two to perform together.

''We kind of looked at each other, and Mark said, 'I don't want to do my classical, new music thing.' I said, 'I don't want to do the jazz thing,' " said Schwimmer. ''We figured if we just took the year and a half as material, perhaps we could take the drinking off our taxes retroactively."

That first 20-minute set featured a medley of interchangeable songs, from the ''20th Century Fox Theme" to the Yes prog-rock warhorse ''Roundabout," then the theme to ''Bonanza," and finally the words of Jimi Hendrix's ''Purple Haze" sung to the tune of the theme to ''Green Acres," and vice versa.

After that, Schwimmer and Stewart began to perform the act as Chuck McCubbin and Ernest Tuber, claiming to be performing at the Polygraph Lounge in downtown Montezma, Iowa. Eventually, they dropped the spoof monikers, thinking they created too much confusion, but kept the fictitious club as a band name.

With time so tight -- Schwimmer is currently recording a solo piano album, and Stewart will soon be touring with the Bang on a Can All-Stars -- Polygraph Lounge can perform fewer than a dozen shows a year. But they tend to be memorable. At one performance, Paul Simon, their sometime boss, came onstage to help out on a version of ''50 Ways to Blow Your Nose Flute."

The act is always developing, usually when they get together in Schwimmer's Brooklyn brownstone. The rules of rehearsal are basic: There are no rules. So referencing Philip Glass's opera ''Einstein on the Beach" can lead to a narrative, musical journey about the scientist. Or to the Eagles. Or both.

''We look at almost everything that we do with the idea that you can write a doctoral dissertation about it or you can have a really good ride," says Stewart. ''We're not above a really good fart joke, but we will have a lot of fun with the history of relativity."

In Somerville, the audience will become part of the show, says Stewart. At one point, Polygraph Lounge will use a car alarm for a dance-along called ''The Rehabilitation of an Urban Earsore." They'll also lead the audience, now armed with nose flutes, through a schnoz symphony.

''They will get a tutorial," says Stewart. ''Or as we like to call it, a tootorial."

Geoff Edgers can be reached at gedgers@globe.com.

Polygraph Lounge performs tonight at 8 at the Somerville Theatre. Tickets: $25. 617-876-4275 or www.CRASHarts.org

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