As Bambi, one of the strippers, watched a jazz and funk band perform for the all-nude female dancers at Bare Necessity yesterday afternoon, she declared good-naturedly, "It's a good alternative to brunch!"
When we walked into the lounge, Seizurely was playing "Shake Your Groove Thing" as a thick-bodied stripper lazily gyrated on the poles behind the bar. On the television, ESPN silently displayed some kind of sports action, and another stripper's shoes lit up as she sauntered through the dark room. It was noon.
The crowd trickled in slowly, regulars and friends of the group. Everyone seemed to divide their attention between performers. The band played for about two hours, kicking off Smoothest Sundays, what they hope will become a monthly event that includes boobs, butts, one buck beers, and, of course, a live band.
Seizurely has only been playing together for only about a month, performing half original material and half covers. They perform regular gigs at food truck meet ups down south. Drummer Deryl Spielman said, "we've been playing family lifestyle, and this is the first non-family," acknowledging that this, the strip club, was perhaps, symbolically, a different kind of family.
The oldest in the band, he's jammed with the P-Funk and played with Ravelstein and Before Trees. His younger bandmates though were the catalyst for this particular marriage of two great things - live music and naked ladies. One day, they just walked into the club, asked for the gig and got it. Their female band member refused to play with them in protest. The boys seemed happy enough onstage.
With this show, Seizurely was taking part in a long history of live acts playing at nudie bars. Even the Beatles performed at strip clubs in Hamburg before they were the wholesome and then psychedelic Beatles we think of today.
Out of the Anonymous' Henry Rajan remembers playing with Shuttle Lounge in 2006 at a Gum Wrappers in Broward, which he described as a "bikini bar-slash-strip club." During one gig, he ran into an old college friend who, as the legend goes, made more money getting naked with her master's degree than wearing pant suits.
Bambi was a trooper. Older than the rest of the girls, she gracefully slid down the stage, getting into the sound of the sax. The club asked them back for an encore next month, requesting they bring a singer and play rock and roll. Seizurely's not committed to any one style of music. "We'll play for the naked women however they want it," Spielman said.
You can catch Seizurely at Fox's on July 26 and Bare Necessities on August 7.
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