I hate to be the one to have to break it to you so early in the week, but you'll thank me later--history proves you'll need adequate time to prepare, maybe to perform a few warm-up calisthenics. There will be no "standing around" with your hands in your pockets or wrapped about your favorite refreshing beverage this Wednesday when Chicks on Speed bring their stylish mix of music, art, and fashion to the Crocodile. Why? Because you'll look like a jackass, that's why, and besides that, standing around while three European women perform smartly for your entertainment is just plain rude.

So dancing will be in order for the evening, as will a DJ and electronic equipment and avant-garde clothing demonstrating deconstructionist style. The show will be multimedia (visuals and mini-disc players), replete with reinforced paper and leather scraps that stand in for fine fabrics and conventional fasteners. Though the Chicks may be dressed similarly, you can bet they'll be seasons ahead of the most fashionable of the fashionistas. So far ahead, in fact, that Chicks on Speed are about to become a French Fashion Sensation, as none other than famed prêt-à-porter designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac is raring to set loose their singular style on the Paris runways.

"For some reason, in Paris, people thought we were really influencing the Paris fashion scene," says Chicks on Speed's Alex Murray-Leslie. "We were just interviewed about that, which was really... funny? I guess it's something that we've put a lot of time into, because we make it part of the live show." The trend was born of necessity. "It kind of became important, but at first we just did it because we needed something to wear. For a while we used to go to H&M and buy an outfit, and then after the weekend we'd go back on Monday and get our money back. But when we couldn't find the kinds of clothes we wanted anymore, that's when we started to make stuff, and now we're working on a collaboration with [Castelbajac]. We just did a show at the Foundation Cartier, so it's actually going in that direction."

Though Chicks on Speed have been an underground commotion for some time in Europe, it took one Calvin Johnson to bring the bombshells to the United States. After Alex sent him a cassette, which Johnson loved enough to put on his label, K Records, the re-releases of the un-releases was issued in North America last year.

The industrious disc is a 33-track collection of reworked, and to repeat, deconstructed commentary on the band's own music and that of others. Delivered in baleful deadpan, Cracker's "Euro-Trash Girl" lends David Lowery's satirical lyrics the caustic banality his own delivery lacked. The B-52's "Give Me Back My Man" is given the same treatment, to devastating effect as compact layers of electronic noise and vocal manipulations break down a once lush composition and turn it into a symphony of spare statement. Delta 5's late-'70s post-punk classic "Mind Your Own Business" becomes a stinging, echo-laden exposé on empty-headed desire; the Normal's "Warm Leatherette" bounces with rubbery precision.

Chicks on Speed are not merely deft reworkers of other people's work, however. Their own songs are equally inventive and informed. On "Glamour Girl," the seedy razzle-dazzle of disco glitters like a mirror ball missing a few tiles: "Love her breasts and forget the rest" is the infectiously fun track's wry edict. The frenzied "Procrastinator" sounds like estrogen-charged early Beastie Boys.

"Kaltes Klares Wasser," another cover (originally recorded by German new wavers Malaria), is slickly syncopated and sexy, opening with a dry, offhand cough before the heat-laden multitracked vocals lazily explore the art of eating pussy and the motivations behind liposuction.

Given the lo-fi sparkle and Riot Grrrl edge, it's easy to see what attracted Johnson to Chicks on Speed, as their junky art-core has much in common with K's catalog (Says band member Kiki Moorse of Calvin, "He has an aura about him. I like the way he always says "ahhh... ahhh....") Just don't try to categorize what the women do as a band. "We don't say that we're in a band," Says Alex. "We're a group, and we work with ideas. I know that sounds banal."