At 10 last Thursday at The Delancey, Paul Wallfisch was playing an upright piano and singing in French and English. Wallfisch, the frontman for Botanica, curates Small Beast, a Thursday night music salon that features downtown luminaries such as Little Annie and rock god and motivational speaker Andrew W.K. He’s got Malcolm Gladwell hair and was wearing a ruffled shirt that once belonged to his father. “He was a classical violist, and toured all over Europe,” Wallfisch explained. “It’s my official Small Beast shirt.” Like many in this Bohemian crowd, he’s drinking red wine. (“I believe it’s Syrah.”)  

He introduced the next act, Erik Sanko, who leads the band Skeleton Key, looks like an older Zach Condon and makes really creepy marionettes on the side. Sanko was wearing large, extremely high-waisted leather pants, like a blacksmith’s, held up by suspenders and was rocking a battered electric guitar that may have been blue once.   

Behind me a young man exclaimed over the texture of his friend’s striped dress. “It feels like a tablecloth!” After introducing myself, I was able to confirm that he was indeed correct. “Only $3,” his friend boasted. Behind them, I found writer/director/performance artist Uwe Mengel sitting at the bar. He was born in East Germany but escaped to the West in the trunk of a car. Nowadays, he divides his time between Berlin and New York. It was really that sort of crowd.

After a bit of searching, Wallfisch was able to locate Baby Dee, the gender-bending singer/songwriter, and install her at the piano. She was dressed in tasteful leopard print, and when her red hair fell over her face as she leaned over the keyboard, she resembled end-stage Amadeus. She sang about sluts, grizzly bears with a taste for Mormon undergarments and, as an encore, a song in praise of pisspots, crack whores, homosexual police officers and drunk drivers. In between, she was joined by the delightful Little Annie, who stands 5-foot-4 in 3-inch heels and was accompanied on bass by a very sleek-looking Mr. W.K. By the end of the set, having spanked the ivories, it’s clear that Baby Dee had broken the piano. A new one was promised for next week.

I caught up with Andrew W.K. after the set, as he drank a bit of cognac. “Keep eating a lot and enjoying food,” the Santos Party House poohbah and “Party Hard” maestro told me. “Try to structure your day around, at the very least, enjoying one good meal.” Amen, brother.