Pyscho-Billy rock 'n' roll peppered with hillbilly bluegrass goes some way towards describing the genre-bending sounds of Th' Legendary Shack Shakers.

The quartet have been going for a couple of years, and have built up a reputation for their bansheeshrieking, vaudevillian live appearances. However, it's hard to believe that their leader - a slightly built mild-mannered Southern gent called Colonel JD Wilkes - is capable of performing the 'Shack Shaker Salute', which involves yanking out his pubic hair and throwing it into the audience. But JD sees himself first and foremost as a performance artist.

"I'm a bit of a drama queen," he quips. "You put music on and I'll start mincing about like a ninny. I have it in my veins. I can get totally bummed out if there is something on I don't like. The next minute I can be elated. I turn on a dime depending on what's playing."

The band's most recent album, Believe, is a footstomping mix of rural agri-dustrial rhythms, with snatches of Ukranian sounding folk.

"It's definitely the direction the band's going in," says the Colonel, "all carnival circus and freaky side show things. I love marching bands and Old World sounds. It's all good human music.

"Oompah is just like country music - the whole Texas polka comes from Polish immigrants. The Colonel is keen to stress that the band are not just another rockabilly tribute band buying into the whole flat-top identity. What makes him tick is the uncharted energy behind the music and the primitive response it evokes.

"I don't want to come across as some sort of precious rockabilly revivalist," he says. "That's the antithesis of rock 'n' roll. It should be ruthless and raw, and tap into something very human and primal in us all.

"I played for so long trying to do it by the book and it just didn't excite me. It was like being a good little student of the music but it was too much of cerebral pursuit - it wasn't base enough. What we do is definitely more visceral."

The erudite Colonel is a man who takes a pride in his Southern roots, and he wants to change the perceptions people have of beer swilling Southern trailer-trash.

"That isn't the land I grew up in," he rasps. "It's part of it, yeah. But ignorance is everywhere.

"I think it's important to focus on the mystical spiritual qualities of the land. It's pretty life affirming. Who cares how you get there as long as it's fun?"

And getting down and dirty seems to be the main motivation for Th' Shack-Shakers.

"People can sometimes be distracted by the gore, flop fluids and anger of our stage performances," the Colonel muses. "But I hope they get over themselves and get onto the floor to sweat out the angst of their work week.

"A proper function for a band is to provide a cathartic release for their audience. If they're standing stationary with their arms folded you haven't fulfilled your societal function of rock 'n'roll."

Starts 8pm, tickets cost £5. Call 01273 603974.