I remember the first time I was exposed to the music of Shel Silverstein. This sort of raucous, barrelhouse rock coming from the beloved children's poet of my youth - it was eye-opening, to say the least. It was this crazy secret that my dad must have been giddy from hiding, for all these years, long after he brought home Where the Sidewalk Ends. He must have been near bursting with the prospect of one day pulling out his vinyl copy of Freakin' at the Freakers Ball.

Up until that point, my idea of funny music was a worn-out copy of Silly Songs, filled with insanity-driving renditions of "Fish Heads" and "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!" It wasn't until I heard Silverstein's music that I realized that songs could be funny, but they could also make a point and actually sound great. Shel Silverstein didn't make "comedy rock," that most loathed of subgenres; he made subversive rock ‘n' roll, music that incorporated funny bits of lyrics with compositions that actually felt like songs that could be played over the radio.

This is all a very roundabout way to bring up a band that is very far from a comedy rock band. The Gypsters is a band that, whether or not they intended it, reminded me of bands like Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show and the Fugs, even though they stylistically don't quite connect. Like the aforementioned bands, the Gypsters are serious about making music, but their songs sometimes lend themselves to trenchant observations about life and what it means to make music for a living. Let's take their song "$250 Fine" for an example; after a cacophony of punk and horn bursts, a voice comes in: "$250 fine (that's the noise ordinance). $250 fine (violation)." Then another prolonged squall.

"We all come from different places, musically, as far as influences go," says drummer Paddy Moran. "There's always been a pretty constant acceptance toward, really, any genre. ... We've been getting a little more complex in our songwriting. ... Really, our style has been consistently erratic, throughout the last few years. Because we've got some people in the band that end up writing more emotional rock songs, and punk kind of comes out of there, and we've got some ska influences, there. So, it really comes down to four people who like all kinds of music being interested and really down to play whatever."

What the Gypsters bring to the table is a sense of adventure. Like the Sonics, they have a dedicated horn player to bring their drunken rave-ups to life, but they frequently find themselves exploring areas of music beyond the Buzzcocks and the Fugs.

"Live, we have a lot more energy," says Moran. "There's a lot more emotion being brought, whether you're excited or nervous or whatever it is. ... It really gets back to the beauty of being an open-minded group and being cool with playing whatever job."

The Gypsters are not a band devoted to being funny. I swear. They make punk music that incorporates a dizzying variety of influences, and it's only in listening to the album that you miss the heart-punch of their energetic live set. As such, you have time to draft down this little bit of lyric from the song "Spiders": "Get these mother---ing spiders off me! They're nesting in my hair, they're nesting in the clothes I wear! Woe is me!"

If that isn't ticklish to you, don't worry. The Gypsters deliver horn-fueled rock with as much gusto as they deliver on the clever lyrics of proto-punk. I dare you to listen to Freakin' at the Freakers Ball before revisiting Where the Sidewalk Ends.

THE GYPSTERS, w/ Noise Toys, 10 p.m., Tuesday, June 17, Le Voyeur, 404 E. Fourth Ave., Olympia, cover tba, 360.943.5710