As the band churns a distortion-drenched swamp beat into a gumbo of Creedence Clearwater Revival spiced with downtown NYC–style guitar cacophony, rowdy audience members scream "The rake! The rake!" Apparently oblivious to audience demands, Eugene Chadbourne continues to launch his implosive "Born on a Bayou" guitar solo fully into outer space before reaching for the common garden tool.

To describe what Chadbourne, who performs under the moniker Dr. Chad, does with the rake would be unfair to those anticipating yet another surprising evening at the Stimul Festival's autumn concert series at Roxy NoD. Suffice it to say somewhere between his banjo renditions of hard-rock tunes, dazzling guitar style, musical use of rakes and plungers and his work with musical luminaries such as John Zorn, Carla Bley, Camper Van Beethoven and Mark Kramer, Chadbourne has become a legend on the avant-garde rock 'n' roll circuit.

Trying to define those exciting moments when styles "clash" often leaves critics and fans scrambling for words. "Just the idea of me singing a song by someone such as DMX or Jay-Z is enough for some people to say 'deconstruction,' " notes Chadbourne, using a term he says does not accurately describe his work. Instead, Chadbourne claims he finds other notions derived from 20th-century music far more useful.

One such inspiration is the use of "random or chance occurrences," which he rightfully attributes to the late John Cage. There is also the idea of "receiving music as a signal from elsewhere ... cosmic forces or [arguably] the heavens" that Chadbourne credits to contemporary German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.

It all may sound very esoteric. But hearing his banjo interpretation of Hendrix's "Purple Haze" will quickly dispel any doubt about the theoretical foundations of Chadbourne's work yielding fun results. And, as he notes, "Much of the music I play is, at least on the surface, familiar to many people." That stems from his extensive use of cover material, which he's combined with pioneering guitar work that's echoed through subsequent generations of grunge, slow-core and neo-psychedelic music.

This year, Chadbourne added to his 50-plus recordings with an independently released retrospective, Chadbourne Auction House. It's a collection of rarities "recorded between now and as far back as 1969," and includes a Dylan cover from his teenage years. Since 1991, Chadbourne has also worked occasionally with two veterans of Zappa's Mothers of Invention, Jimmy Carl Black and Don Preston. Speaking of his soon-to-be-released CD collaboration with Black, titled Hearing is Believing, Chadbourne says, "I think some of this record is very funny. And, for fans of the Beatles, it has some of the new set of covers I have come up with."

This will be Chadbourne's third appearance in Prague in 16 years. He has a loyal following here, due in part to his willingness to have Czech musicians join him for his performances. This time it will be Prague-born composer Martin Klapper, whose well-known penchant for amplified toys should make the evening pleasantly unpredictable.