Last Night's Top 5 Dance Floor Moments

Thanks to a cosmic convergence (well, mostly Devra) the Wife and I were able to steal away last night, catch some live music and close down our local dive bar (and yes, that is our actual local dive bar representing the breed on Wikipedia).

Strangely, until last night I'd never set foot in the Merrimaker. I've lived most of my life within walking distance and passed its disreputable entrance countless times, by foot, bike or car without ever breaching the threshold.

The occasion was a performance by Uncle Timmy's current rock band The Booker Tease, who construct upon the ancient windblown granite foundation of Memphis funk and soul a spiraling, squalling temple of rock. Uncle Timmy on bass, Keith on guitar, Arnold on keys, Miles on drums.
Dancable as hell, but inviting of the avant garde, often within the confines of a single tune.

The roof of the evening rested on pillars of dance, here are my favorites in no particular order.

• The two diminutive gals who arrived early in the first set, wheeled their bikes across the dance floor into a corner then sprang into action, gyrating like dervishes and dragging loose bits of crowd along with them.
• Later, they were mesmerized by Arnold's ivory tickling and hovered over his keyboard, still dancing, before peeling off and giving Keith a high-five at the end of the tune.
• The quite drunk couple doing a slow-dance grind in the middle of the abandoned dancefloor to the tumultuous finale of Hang 'em High, a massively distorted wall of noise driven by Uncle Timmy's tortured bass solo, more Bill Laswell than Muscle Shoals. Delightfully surreal.
• one of the Dancing Queens getting a little too close to the action and un-plugging Keith's effects rig from the amp. You can tell he's an old pro because it was plugged back in and shuffled away from the danger zone almost before anyone noticed the guitar had dropped out.
• During a stirring cover of the Clash's Spanish Bombs a couple shimmied up against the wall by the bathroom door and, uh, well...."dry humping" may be too mild a descriptor.

I got up and shuffled around a bit myself, had one of the weirdest purported "gin and tonics" of my life (my guess: someone missed the 'tonic' button on the bar wand and I got Sprite, or Sierra Mist or something) and at some point as I sat recovering, was mosh-pitted by no fewer than three separate Décolletages.

This morning was rougher than usual, but the Wife bought me some time by putting on Toy Story 3 so I was able to 'sleep in' until 9. Now I'm feeling fit and sassy, and ready for a rumored July 1st show at the same venue.