Musicians know that an f-hole is the f-shaped cut-out found on the body of violins and arched-top guitars. Non-musicians, like me, well...

"I don't know what you're thinking. Oh God, your dirty mind," Patrick Alexandre says sarcastically, knowing full-well that Patrick Alexandre & the F-Holes is one doozy of a dirty double entendre.

"It's ironic because the music is pretty open to most people. We've played children's festivals and we've played New Year's Eve at the Toad. We can pull it off."

They definitely can. Patrick Alexandre & the F-Holes play an extremely eclectic mix, a crowd-pleasing combination of bluegrass, country, jazz and blues, with plenty of good ol' rock 'n' roll to boot. The band, which also features Eric Lemoine, Evan Friesen, Blake Thomson and James McKee, has been together for over three years now and is definitely one of the more multi-instrumental bands in Winnipeg.

"In the first two sets, I play upright bass and sing, and Eric, who is the right-hand man in the band, plays banjo, pedal steel, resonator guitar and lap steel," Alexandre says. "Blake plays electric guitar for the most part and a little bit of saxophone, James is the trumpet player, and Evan plays drums. Come the third set, I switch over to mandolin and harmonica, and Eric switches over to electric bass, so we do funkier and rocking stuff then, just to get the party going a little bit harder."

Alexandre doesn't just switch instruments during the show for the hell of it. It's pretty damn difficult getting the funk out of a stand-up bass while also concentrating on singing. It can be very painful, too.

"On Canada Day (in Osborne Village) we were doing six sets and on the fifth set my fingers couldn't hack it," Alexandre says. "I was starting to bleed on my right hand, so I had to switch prematurely to the mandolin."

If you want to see Alexandre bleeding for bluegrass, he and the F-Holes will be on the Fringe Festival's free stage in Old Market Square on July 27 at 6:30 p.m. The band also has gigs coming up at the King's Head on Aug. 8 and at the Shine Thru Rain Festival, which takes place Aug. 22 to 24 at the Pine Tree Campground in Prawda, Man.

You can listen to the band at www.myspace.com/patrickalexandre.