[BEEP POP] When he takes on the pseudonym Starfucker, local songwriter (and Sexton Blake frontman) Josh Hodges decorates the stage with more instruments than he can actually use. You wait for the rest of the band to walk onstage, pick up the nearby bass and guitar, and start rocking out. But that never happens.

Instead—as he did at last Friday’s well-attended Towne Lounge performance with Typhoon and Dramady—Hodges seats himself at a pony-sized drum set and mans his mess of instruments alone. As per usual, Hodges began his Towne Lounge set by craning his neck to sing a few quiet opening lines over strummed guitar. He then reached to twist an amplifier knob that filled the room with squealing feedback. Just when the near-deafening distortion had worn out its welcome in the hearts and ringing ears of audience members, Hodges flipped a switch on his sampler and counted to four with his drumsticks.

The ensuing one-two punch of Hodges’ looping beep-pop soundscapes with blistering, breakbeat-style live drumming (he thrashes his low-riding set as if it had done him some serious wrong) is a powerful combination. And while it seems strange for an indie-rock musician like Hodges to put drums front and center, Starfucker is dance music—booty-shaking, pop-based dance music—the most important element of which is the beat.

The same Towne Lounge patrons that had plugged their ears during Starfucker’s noisy introduction began nodding in unison upon hearing the catchy beats-and-bright-synths compositions, with a couple dudes improvising dance moves. Starfucker will do that to you: Amid a sea of noise, it will carjack your ass, announcing, “Bitch, we are going for a ride.”

But Hodges’ greatest success on Friday was just being heard. Though blessed with a pure-sounding, high-range set of pipes, his vocals are also on the breathy side, often getting lost in the mix during Starfucker (and Sexton Blake) shows. Hodges, who says he was “sick of people complaining about the vocals,” solved the problem by including an extra vocal track with the sampled portion of his songs. He alternated between harmonizing and singing along with this ghost voice, both of which are preferable to not hearing nerdy-sweet lines like “German love I will give it to you” and “She won’t have a thing to do with me” during the video-game bonus level of “German Love.”

Don’t let the “dance music” tag scare you. Everything that’s great about Sexton Blake—the clean-cut melodies, the pop-mantra lyrics and Hodges’ own timid charm—is here as well. It just moves to the beat of a bigger drum.

Starfucker plays Friday, April 20, with Hurah Hurah and Hey Lover at the Green House. 9 pm. Free. All ages.