Flesh for Lulu Relishes All-Age Crowd in Show at Irvine’s Bren Center

Which audience offers a band the edgiest, most dangerous and challenging setting in which to play: a rock club crowd of hip adults or an all-ages auditorium crowd of trendy young adults and teens? For England’s Flesh for Lulu, it is definitely the latter.

“The difference between a nightclub crowd and an all-ages show is phenomenal,” lead Lulu Nick Marsh said from a San Francisco. “It’s such a buzz. Playing for all ages is incredible. All these kids getting in. For years we’ve had fans that couldn’t get into our shows.

“The nightclub crowds have this attitude, like ‘C’mon, be amusing, be a minor threat.’ You can’t be a threat without a threatening audience. It’s almost dangerous when there’s all these kids going wild.”

In three previous U.S. tours, the band had little opportunity to play for all-ages gatherings. So the quintet is thoroughly enjoying being the opening act for Gene Loves Jezebel in such sites as UC Irvine’s Bren Events Center, which it plays Friday, and the Universal Amphitheatre, where it will be Saturday.

But Marsh snorts at the notion that Flesh for Lulu, once associated with London’s short-lived trash ‘n’ horror Batcave scene, is trawling for Duran Duran’s teeny-pop castoffs.

“Anybody who thinks that is definitely misinformed,” the singer-guitarist said. “We’re not teeny-bop. We’re Flesh for Lulu.”

Fair enough. But just what is this band with the somewhat surreal name, the origin of which Marsh said he has forgotten? The group (which also includes guitarist Rocco Barker, bassist Kevin Mills, drummer James Mitchell and keyboardist-guitarist Derek Greening) has incorporated myriad styles: Some songs lean toward mid-’60s R&B; others, like current KROQ-fave “Siamese Twist,” gallumph along like an old Gary Glitter or David Bowie rhythm track. The feeling is basically loud, crude and rude rock ‘n’ roll fun.

It is exactly what you would expect from a musician who, when asked to describe some of his influences, stated “Marvin Gaye is God. So is Joey Ramone, and he’s still alive.”

Perhaps directly tied to that attitude is the Flesh for Lulu’s greater acceptance in party-time America, rather than back home across the Atlantic.

One of its more notable U.S. fans is teen-film director John Hughes, who used the song “I Go Crazy” in his film “Some Kind of Wonderful.” (The song is featured on the band’s new album, “Long Live the New Flesh.”) The band even had the dubious pleasure of playing for a gaggle of jaded people from the Hollywood scene at the film’s post-premiere party last year at the Palace.

“It was a great honor to play,” Marsh quipped wryly. “The only problem was they wouldn’t let us into the premiere. We haven’t had much dealing with motion pictures, but we do plan to take Paramount over, lock, stock and barrel. We’re also trying to convince John Hughes to give us a full-length movie. Can’t you see us as the new Monkees?”

Not exactly. The group has had its share of small controversies: The cover for its ’85 EP, “Blue Sisters Swing,” which featured two nuns kissing, was banned in several countries. The group’s current single, “Siamese Twist,” an alternative rock-club rave-up about Siamese twins, is also likely to raise a few eyebrows.

What inspired this bit of danse macabre ?

“I feel like a freak sometimes,” Marsh said. “I have an extra head, it’s detachable. I’m an extraterrestrial. I come from the planet Lulu.

“Actually,” he continued, “there’s a line in the song about an Annabella Grey--I was reading this book about these vaudeville stars, Anna and Bella, who were Siamese twins. They lived to a ripe old age, both of them were separately married and they bore 40 children altogether. So this was a tribute to them. The message is kind of like, hey you with the one leg out there, get up and dance. You can do it. It’s respectably twisted.”

With this skewed edge applied to the group’s adept songwriting talents, you would think that Flesh for Lulu would have made a bigger dent in its British homeland. But the normally convivial Marsh noticeably tenses up at the mention of the English press.

“We’re not slagged off in the press, but we just put out our third album, and we’re barely acknowledged,” he said in frustration. “I think they’re looking for some kind of fashion angle, and we’re not fitting in with the current trend. We’re not some hip-house psychedelic grebo. We don’t have a manifesto, we don’t have a fashion statement, and the English press is not interested in music.

“We have a loyal following in London, and they don’t even read that stuff. They don’t need it and we don’t need it. We’re still here. If we had depended on it for half a day, we’d been finished already.”

FLESH FOR LULU

Tonight, 8 p.m.

Bren Events Center, UC Irvine on bill with Gene Loves Jezebel and Lions & Ghosts

$14.50 to $17.50

Information: (714) 856-5000