Gypsy Punks In Seattle

In all the annals of music, it's hard to imagine anymore specific a genre than "gypsy punk." But that's just the sort of cabaret-esque insanity that Gogol Bordello brings to their shows.

The band's story is as strange as their music and stage shows. Frontman Eugene Hutz is a Ukrainian refugee displaced as a child in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster. After bouncing through various European countries, he wound up in Vermont. As an adult, Hutz moved to New York City where, in 1996, he formed Gogol Bordello with other Eastern European immigrants. Though the band purportedly started out playing straight gypsy music, they quickly began mixing elements of punk into their music while also developing entire cabaret shows for their tours, which earned them a cult following.

Musically, "gypsy punk" could be described as Fiddler on the Roof as performed by The Clash. But on the band's last album, Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike, the band expanded to include diverse elements of world music like flamenco, making them an embodiment of the melting pot in which they formed. "Start Wearing Purple" sticks close to their older sound, featuring a sort of oompah beat backing up messing punk guitars and a hissing fiddle that makes it a song you could do the hat dance to. But on tunes like "Immigrant Punk," the band turns to a more hardcore punk sound as Hutz chants, "Despite the living up in USA/I'm still holding up in my old ways/I got friends, we gotta band/we still make sound you can't stand."

In fact, the album is also explicitly political, assailing the rapaciousness of globalism while reveling in its multicultural byproduct. "Underdog World Strike" and "Think Locally, Fuck Gobally" are the sort of anti-corporate, anti-authoritarian anthems that punk rock was built on, but musically, the band draws comparisons to The Decemberists for their musicality and instrumentation.

Gogol Bordello plays Neumos Wednesday, March 29. Tickets $12 advance, $14 at the door. All ages.