MADISON, Wis. -- Need drummer/singer Rachel Carns stood onstage Monday night at the University of Wisconsin's Union South and posed an interesting question. "Is anybody out there being oppressed?" she asked the audience.

"I'm being oppressed," she answered with a sly smile. "But that doesn't stop me from being in a rock 'n' roll band."

That attitude -- and the willingness to deliver a political and social message wrapped in intense music -- is earning the Need, the Olympia, Wash., electro-punk duo, a growing reputation around the country these days. They're also carving out a niche as a hard-hitting and playful live act with a more traditional and energetic punk-rock style that's different from the quirky, eerily mechanical sound of their self-titled Chainsaw Records debut.

In the studio, the band uses organ and electronic sounds, while onstage it gets across with just drums and electric guitar.

"We view the studio and the stage as separate entities," Carns said after opening for fellow post-punkers Sleater-Kinney on Monday at Union South. "The studio is like a big design project, where you're trying to fit all the pieces together. The stage is more about entertainment and the moment."

"Entertainment" isn't a word often associated with post-punk, riot-grrrl acts, but the Need -- Carns and guitarist Radio Sloan -- don't seem to take themselves as seriously as one might gather from listening to their music and lyrics. But a look at the band's page at the Chainsaw Records' website revealed a playful, mock circus-poster that offered explicit pointers for having satisfying lesbian sex, and the band's live act seems predicated more on having fun than on making heavy musical or political statements.

In 1995, Carns, 28, a preacher's daughter from Wisconsin, joined Sloan, 23, in the Washington-state group the Ce Be Barnes Band. Since then, they've recorded under the name the Need with a revolving roster of players, including former Sleater-Kinney drummer Toni Gogin, ex-Melvins bassist Joe Preston and DJ Zena. Preston and Zena worked with the duo on their latest single, "Vaselina" (RealAudio excerpt), a dark number that received a lock-step drum-and-guitar treatment at Monday night's concert.

"Radio and I are the core of the band, and we like to travel light," Carns said, referring to their two-person approach to live performance.

While the Need's recorded work is filled with strange synthesized sounds and a distinctive new-wave-in-hell intensity, the live act is marked by Carns' thunderous drumming (she uses mallets, not sticks, in a stand-up attack on her kit) and Sloan's distorted guitar.

On the unabashedly sexual "Rim Me Isabella" (RealAudio excerpt), Sloan even tossed in a few Led Zeppelin licks. "Radio's a whiz in that way. [Legendary blues-guitarist] John Mayall is her cousin," Carns said. "So it's kind-of in her blood."

The Need are openly gay-positive without being sloganeering, as witnessed by Carns asking how many in the crowd were gay. When the response wasn't unanimous, she smiled and said, "So, we've got a mixed group here tonight, huh?"

The band just completed a tour of California, and the Madison show was the second stop on a three-week run through the Midwest and East Coast. The tour opened in Chicago with a show co-starring the Butchies and Kelly Hogan for the Windy City's "Homocore" performance series. Monday's gig was sponsored by university women's and gay/lesbian/transsexual groups.

"It feels really good to do some pro-lady, pro-queer events," Carns said. "It's kind-of like playing to your family."

Speaking of family, Carns' parents and grandmother were in the audience Monday. Does she find it nerve-wracking to play songs with such provocative titles as "Rim Me Isabella" in front of them? "No, they've been incredibly supportive," she said. "I'm really lucky."

Carns' dad, who first saw his daughter play when her band Kicking Giant came to Madison three years ago, said he doesn't pretend to understand the Need's music. "But she's a great drummer," he added with obvious pride.

Not all of the Need's shows find them preaching to the choir, and that suits Carns just fine.

"It's a whole different show when there's that friction, and the crowd is surprised to find out they like you," she said. "We tend to win over any crowd that's there."

Carns said she knows the Need's overtly lesbian message is a big part of what brings people, especially young women, to their shows.

But she also realizes that no band can succeed on its message alone.

"I just think that musically we're a good band," she said. "We're not just gay women. We're gay-women musicians."