Eugene Hutz is a difficult man to pin down. He is rarely in the same country, let alone the same city, for more than a few weeks at a time, touring with his band Gogol Bordello across time-zones and cultures on four different continents for most of the year.

If there's a reason for the itinerancy of this vigorously mustachioed Ukrainian-born frontman, perhaps it is because his musical vision is inspired by the kind of music that exists in its own permanent artistic exile. He and his band travel far and wide, much like the Gypsy and Jewish communities whose striking melodies and rhythms serve as Hutz's guiding light, adopting local ideas and sounds, changing them, and -- through heavy and not necessarily kosher use -- making them their own.

Hutz calls it a "folkloric way of making music"; the result is a kind of visceral, aural embodiment of human diversity, poetry and desire. And it is turning heads.