Issue of the Day: Can Either Dole or Buchanan Pogo?

It’s no surprise to find a contemporary rock band influenced by the Stooges. And, indeed, that applies to the Presidents of the United States of America.

But for them the reference isn’t Iggy and crew.

It’s Larry, Moe and Curly.

The trio of cutups’ show Thursday at the Hollywood American Legion Hall--the first of two nights there--was a wacky romp, a bunch of musical pranks and gags. The songs are not about alienation and despair, but about mewling kitties, canned peaches and Matchbox cars.

Bald and painfully thin singer-bassist-ringleader Chris Ballew was the antithesis of the brooding artist, all rubber face and long-limbed gestures, leading the largely young crowd in hand-claps and sing-alongs. Drummer Jason Finn ran into the audience, not to beat up a heckler, but to kiss a girl who said it was her birthday. And guitarist Dave Dederer is about as threatening as Woody Harrelson--in “Cheers,” not “Natural Born Killers.”

It was a concert with only one message: Have fun.

Is this any way for a band from Seattle, the very heart of rock darkness, to get ahead?

Yes, actually. It was plenty to make the trio the object of a big record company bidding war last year, and now has taken its debut album past the million sales mark and still climbing.

And that was exactly what made it seem not a mere novelty act Thursday, but actually a necessary addition to mid-’90s rock.

“They take the piss out of rock,” commented one veteran music industry insider who admitted that before the concert he was just slightly amused by the band’s ubiquitous radio and video hits, “Lump” and “Peaches.”

Even during the set it was easy to be cynical. The teenagers who made up a big part of the crowd seemed mostly into the exuberant silliness of it all, bouncing energetically throughout.

The band was certainly up for that, playing along like goofy camp counselors rather than rock stars. But there’s an intelligence to their humor, a nonchalant sense of craft in both the skewed, offbeat lyrics and quirky music--something like Primus, but without the showoff (and sometimes off-putting) displays of virtuosity.

But like the Ramones did for ‘70s dinosaur-rock, the Presidents pop the balloon of ‘90s self-absorption without mocking it. They neither parody Eddie Vedder nor preach to his fans to lighten up. They simply have fun.

The triumph of the evening, though, was not a musical one. About halfway through the set, a bemused Ballew held up a sexy black bra that had been tossed on stage from the audience. Hardly a rock hunk in the mold of, say, Bush’s Gavin Rossdale--the rock hunk-of-the-moment--Ballew held the offering up with a puzzled but clearly pleased look as he considered his prospects as an unlikely sex symbol.

Nyuk nyuk nyuk.