Brass Monkey

If your New Year's Eve festivities were neither sufficiently lengthy nor debauched enough for your party-connoisseur tastes, maybe it's time to swing simian style with the third-annual Monkey Ball. The Monkey Krewe, a South Florida-based organization dedicated to bringing the inebriation of N'Awlins closer to home, offers this annual costume ball for dedicated revelers. And if it's the Crescent City they want, it's the Crescent City they get -- the Radiators, perhaps the most famed party band to hail from the Big Easy (how many nicknames does one city need?), provide entertainment for the fiesta. Although the soiree itself takes place on Saturday, January 11, at Respectable Street Cafe, it's preceded by a Radiators concert the day before at the same venue and a solo show by Radiators keyboardist Ed Volker at Ray's Downtown on Thursday. Tickets for the Volker show cost $12, while the Monkey Ball itself costs $40 for Friday, $50 for Saturday, $80 for both, or throw down $250 ($100 initiation fee plus $150 dues) and become a Monkey Krewe member, which gets you two tickets for Friday night and six for Saturday. The krewe expects upward of 400 costumed souls, so, as they say, "leave your own skin at home and come as something you're not." Ray's Downtown is located at 519 Clematis St., West Palm Beach, while Respectable Street Cafe is right across the street at 518 Clematis. Call 561-835-1577.