Death by Mustache

Grab onto Jesse Hughes’ stash.

The Eagles of Death Metal last night at the Record Bar was one hell of a satisfying show. That band knows how to take all the bad parts about being at a crowded rock show — the sweat, the claustrophobia, the smoke, the drunken idiots — and turn those into the best parts about being at a crowded rock show. Best, that is, except for the music and the stage presence of singer Jesse Hughes, he of the mighty ‘stache.

EODM’s music, actually, is all the ’70s FM hard rock you’ve ever heard combined with a few muddy, punky chugs of Queens of the Stone Age, the band fronted by the Eagles’ founder and permanent, non-touring drummer Josh Homme, on whom I would have a man crush if I didn’t think he’d hunt me down and kick my ass simply for thinking about him like that.

So, the strength isn’t in the music so much as Hughes’ testosterone-addled, single-minded desire to rock out for the ladies and pander to the crowd. He’s damn good at it, though, and he had the entire audience beliving that (a) Kansas City is his favorite place to play ever, and (b) he genuinely wants to have sex with every girl in the house. “Can I get one for the ladies?” he’d say, guiding the swell of cheers upward with one arm. “Oh, God, I love you so hard, Kansas City. Can I get one for rock and roll?” Woooooo! We ate it up. And there was authentic solidarity in the room, too. I even high fived a random dude who was standing in a chair next to his girlfriend, whom Jesse Hughes pointed and winked at repeatedly. I also got in about three months’ worth of fist pumping and devil-horn throwing.

Unfortunately, I missed the opening act, the Giraffes, because I thought they were playing at 10. Instead, that was when EODM went on, so I got nothing for you on that.

Now, I’m going to take a break and direct you to something very non-local. It’s a Web site I often visit to listen to stuff that hasn’t come out yet, as well as weird European electronic and hip-hop stuff that may not even see U.S. release. Kansas City, meet LUISTERPAAL. When you follow this link, click on the LUISTERPAAL tab. Then you’ll see four albums, plus two weird Dutch O-words. The top one scrolls up, the bottom one scrolls down, and you start off at the top of the list. Just scroll and click on albums to start ’em blasting through your PC speakers or headphones. This week, Primal Scream’s Riot City Blues and Midlake’s The Trials of Van Occupanther are my picks. The latter doesn’t come out until mid-July. I got an advance copy last week and have barely listened to anything else. There’s also the new Futureheads, which I’m listening to right now and enjoying. I’ve always been more of an album listener than radio person, so I dig this site a lot.

I wonder what that word means, anyway. I bet it’s something along the lines of, “You have a white collar job where you sit at a computer all day but work still sucks so listen to this.” Or maybe “warm milk.” Sprachen zie Dutch?