Les Fossoyeurs

Long-haired veteran blues rocker Joey Skidmore wouldn’t be the first guy around town we’d expect to bring an outlandishly exotic band to Kansas City, but his amis Les Fossoyeurs, simply by virtue of the fact that its members are French and play rollicking ska, is about the most bizarre act to come through these parts short of Jacques Chirac hooking up with John Ashcroft to record a demo of “Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart” (with Ashcroft as Kiki Dee). The band’s name means gravediggers, a moniker chosen in rebellion against (or in celebration of — we’re not sure) the notion that rock and roll is dead. But the two albums that Skidmore gave us show that there’s nothing moribund about their sound. With a Pogues-like barroom brashness and a tight, low-brass-heavy horn section worthy of the Specials, Les Fossoyeurs could school any other white ska band working today. And there’s no need to dig up your old high school French textbooks to understand the lyrics, either — just remember the phrase la sexe, la drogue, le rock ‘n’ roll! Shout it, slam back a bottle of cheap merlot and hit the dance floor.