STRFKR

Star Man

Josh Hodges has a confession: He doesn’t like to dance. Which is only notable because the music he makes with popular Portland band STRFKR is so damned danceable.

Tunes like “Never Ever,” off STRFKR’s terrific 2016 release Being No One Going Nowhere, feature some of the tastiest grooves and infectious hooks this side of Pharell Williams. It all has just enough urban cool and ’80s revivalism to keep it palatable for Portland — an enticing mix of contemporary electronic dance music mixed with more conventional verse-chorus-verse songwriting.

In fact, Hodges says he started STRFKR for people who like to go to shows and do more than get down. “There’s something to watch,” he tells me over the phone. STRFKR concerts also feature a light show composed of light panels that Hodges says are proprietary technology to the band. “It’s always evolving,” he says of the band’s stage show. 

STRFKR comes to Eugene behind a three-volume album series of odds and sods called Vault Vol. 1, 2 and 3, out now on Polyvinyl. Hodges says releasing these sketches of song ideas helped him move on to new material.

“I’m pretty disorganized,” he admits, adding that a lot of the musical fragments making it onto the Vault series had suffered in obscurity on an old computer.

“I should get these songs off here,” he recalls thinking of the material sequestered on a hard drive, “just in case this dies for good. It got to the point where I’m never going to finish these.”

Rather than letting them disappear forever, never to be heard, Hodges says he hoped a small community of fans would appreciate an all-access peek into his creative process. “It’s better that some form of it got out there in the world,” he says.

STRFKR returns to Eugene alongside Reptaliens 9 pm Tuesday, Jan. 23, at McDonald Theatre; $20, all-ages.