In the entrance hall a pair of squirrels hunch over a pool table. They're stuffed of course. And in a glass case. Squirrels can't play pool you fools! Too short, for a start. They'd never be able to keep to the one foot on the ground rule.
Something resembling a wallaby with a stoop is followed by a moth-eaten Grisly bear and then the sweet smell of a hog roast wafts thickly by. We've missed the bare knuckle boxing and the magician but thankfully we've still got Menlo Park to come.
An evening in the company of these London-based troubadours and their riotous mix of Cajun, folk and country rhythms is anything but normal. More a travelling circus than a gig, it involves fire-eaters, puppetry and Philadelphia-raised frontman Chris Taylor leaping from the balcony, suspended by a harness on elastic. Cockroach racing, a flee circus, dropping chicken feathers onto the audience and apple bobbing are also part of the Menlo Park experience.
Hats off to anybody who attempts to make a gig more of an event. There's not that much in the way of showpersonship these days. OK sometimes it doesn't work Bowie's Glass Spider Tour anyone? U2's Zoo TV extravaganza was OK. My Life Story made a lavishly orchestrated, confetti-strewn effort and were dropped for their troubles. So, in these penny-pinching pop times it fair warms the cockles to see a band going out on a limb.
And while this bunch of strangely-behatted eccentrics make for a visual spectacle - part circus freaks, part wild west frontiersmen, the ladies dressed up like saloon dancers - it would be a shame if their music took a back seat.
For theirs is an energetic, intimate and darkly sleazy blend of viola, mandolin and accordion tinged folk and country. Nick Cave, The Pogues, Les Negresses Vertes, Tom Waits and the voodoo rhythms of Dr John all spring to mind when trying to take in the band's larger than life show.
This party to launch their debut, self-titled album was free to the public and must have cost a packet considering the army of musicians crammed onstage, all that free moonshine and all those hog roasts in a bap. Hopefully future fiscal concerns won't put paid to Menlo Park's highly glamourous vision. A rare and beautiful thing indeed these days.
And squirrels couldn't hold a cue anyway. Not unless they had their own made especially by craftsmen. And they don't come cheap you know.
