Forgotten instruments

Salon's Audiofile has a great piece on forgotten instruments like the Stroh violin (a violin with a metal horn attached to it for amplification) and the Birotron, which, man, just listen to this thing. Pretty badass, but good luck finding one--there are only four in the world.

Crazy instruments can lend some really interesting textures to straight-ahead stuff, like Mercury Rev's copious use of saw, or Ben Harper's use of the Weissenborn, which gets a mention in the Salon piece. Regine from The Arcade Fire was using some kind of strange instrument that you played by winding, kind of like an organ grinder. Maybe that's what it was. And they also made great use of horns like the bass clarinet, euphonium and flugelhorn, which has always been one of my favorite instrument names.

Or what about Don Cherry's pocket trumpet that he played on so many Ornette Coleman records from the '60s? Or the oud from John Coltrane's Village Vanguard shows from that same era? Sometimes all it takes is a subtle tonal shift to dramatically alter and enhance the setting of a song.

I'm sure there are some Minneapolis/St. Paul bands that play some pretty weird instruments, but I'm strapped to come up with them. Anyone?