But before the Lawrence Convention and Visitors Bureau fires off a nasty-gram to Moss, it should know Moss doesn't have any memories -- fond or otherwise -- of his birthplace.

"I only lived there for a couple of years," said Moss. "My family moved to the West Coast, and we've been in Oregon since about 1976. I was 7 years old in 1976, so I consider myself a native of Oregon."

However, Kansas might want to restake its claim to Moss as he is part of a band getting wider and wider national exposure, including sitting in Monday night with Paul Schaffer and the CBS Orchestra on "The Late Show with David Letterman."

Two months ago, the Cherry Poppin' Daddies' album, "Zoot Suit Riot," started rocketing up the Billboard Top 200 chart as part of a neo-swing movement.

The Daddies, along with acts such as Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Squirrel Nut Zippers and Royal Crown Revue, have put a '90s spin on a form of jazz that started in 1935 when Benny Goodman's Orchestra caught the nation's ear.

Someone who is old enough to remember how to jitterbug and Lindy-Hop could easily listen to the Daddies perform and imagine it isn't the group's drummer, Tom Donahue, pounding out the driving beat, but rather it's Gene Krupa on the sticks.

And the lyrics by the band's founder, Steve Perry, have a wit not heard since Louis Jordan, but with a message as edgy as those screamed by the harshest of punk rockers.

"In terms of 'Zoot Suit Riot,' it's influenced by the '40s musically, but lyrically it's totally contemporary," said Moss. "I don't think there were really any lyricists in the '40s who were dealing with the kinds of stuff Steves deals with or in the way he does it. He's influenced by people like Elvis Costello and Ray Davies of The Kinks."

Perry has said he considers zoot-suiters -- those Latinos on the West Coast who wore long draped coats with high-waisted baggy trousers narrowing at the cuffs -- the punk rockers of their day.

And starting a swing band in 1989 in Eugene, Ore., in the Northwest during grunge's heyday was a very punk rock move.

When Moss was invited to join the band, he really didn't know much about swing.

"Before I joined the Daddies, my perception of swing was that it was something really square," Moss said. "It was something my parents and my grandparents listened to, but as a musician I was open to it. I was really into the blues, and the blues and swing are very closely related."

Moss said he did have to rethink his role as a guitarist as part of an eight-person group that features a trumpet player and two saxophonists.

"When I joined the band, I really had to learn to think about being a component of the rhythm section as opposed to an instrument that's out front," he said. "The horns are pretty much the lead instruments, and the bass, drums, guitar and keys sort of lock together as a unit to propel the whole thing."

Moss also became a Daddie before the band adopted its current look.

"At the time I joined the band, we'd get up on stage in whatever we'd be happening to wear," he said.

However, seeing other bands, such as Let's Go Bowling and The Mighty, Mighty Bosstones, dress up for their gigs influenced the Daddies.

"We realized when a band has a look, it sort of makes the whole presentation gel a little more," Moss said. "It comes across a lot more strongly than when people are wearing sneakers and shorts."

So what is the Daddies' on-stage look?

"We just went a couple steps further than the Bosstones because they tend to wear secondhand, plaid suits," he said. "We go for a little more of a '40s crossed with psychadelia kind of look."

The popularity of this mishmash of styles and eras made the Daddies a perfect choice as one of the headliners for this year's Vans Warped Tour, which a Los Angeles Times reviewer just described "as the foremost celebration of all things alternative."

The Warped Tour, which stops in Lawrence's Burcham Park on Sunday, features such punk stalwarts as NOFX, Rancid and Bad Religion, but then there's also the rockabilly of Reverend Horton Heat, the classic ska of the Specials and the harder-rocking sounds of the Deftones and Civ.

"I think the one thing all of these styles have in common -- swing, ska and punk rock -- is just the energy of it, and people seem to really be responding to the energy of our music," Moss said.

The response is so great to the Daddies that the group will remain with the Warped Tour when it goes to Europe, Australia, Japan and South America.

It's a familiar route.

It's the one taken when swing was new and the music of Benny Goodman, Harry James, Louis Prima, Louis Armstrong and others crossed the Atlantic and Pacific before Elvis Presley offered an alternative that also swept the globe.

Maybe Elvis, like those zoot-suiters, was the punk rocker of his day.

Copyright 1998 The Topeka Capital-Journal