C.R. Avery has scored arguably the best possible venue to debut his musical, Some Birds Walk for the Hell of It. Every Saturday in January, the local poet, rapper, and quasi Broadway star is taking over Joe’s Cafe on Commercial Drive.

“One of the last joints standing,” as Avery put it in a call to the Straight, name-checking Nick’s Spaghetti House as another nearby citadel of old Vancouver. “I like the angle that it used to be the fuckin’ spot. That’s where k.d. lang played pool every day. You talk to that ’80s scene; everyone hung at Joe’s,” he said.

“I took this crazy gamble to do this in an old-school joint. If you do the Fox Theatre, or some hip joint, no one’s going to go, ‘Oh, you have nuns stripping; you have this beatbox-harmonica with Sinéad O’Connor ripping up a picture of the pope’—no one’s gonna give a shit, but I’m doing it at fuckin’ Joe’s! You gotta see it, it’s beautiful.”

The show, based partly on Avery’s recently published book of poems, is nominally concerned with gentrification, with stripping nuns obviously being one of the more conventional indicators that your neighbourhood is about to be ravaged by developers. More importantly, Some Birds, which also features burlesque divas Melody Mangler and Violet Femme, sounds like a whole bunch of ever-so-slightly-naughty fun.

“Everything’s a song and dance,” promised Avery. “Every number is a big show tune. We took Ain’t Misbehavin’ and gave it a shot of heroin so it’s even more dirty. Me, I’m going to dance rehearsals every day so I’m in the chicken coop with Melody Mangler and I’m lovin’ it because I’m getting in shape, but then I’m taking the girls and we sit around the piano for two hours working on harmonies. We’re pushing all three of us to be triple threats. The range of these girls is unbelievable. Anything I throw at them. It’s amazing.”

Some Birds is billed on the poster as a “rock show”, but that doesn’t sound accurate. “No,” said Avery, “call it ‘fisting mediocrity with awesomeness’.”