Happy hour in Hades comes around only once an eternity, so we have to make the most of it. The anticipation around Pit of Eternal Despair #45597 was building for what seemed like weeks-- maybe even months. It's hard to gauge time when you're having your flesh constantly seared off your body. But when the bells finally tolled, we slowly clawed ourselves out of the pit and made our way down to the lowest circle of hell, which was, of course, where the best bars were. For a little while, we were able to take a break from neverending torment for a brief taste of the pleasures we'd left behind so many eons ago.

The anticipation, along with the stench of sulfur, hung heavy in the air at Dante's, a tiny jazz club just off the main strip. I wrapped the charred limb that used to be my hand around a tall frosty El Diablo (tequila, creme de cassis, lime juice, and hydrochloric acid) and settled into a chair fashioned from sharp, poisonous spikes and rabid cats. The usual anguished screams that wracked the club were quickly reduced to low, numb groans as the stage's curtain pulled back to reveal the premiere musical combo of the underworld, Get Hustle.

Lurching headlong into their first number, Get Hustle vomited forth a fractious din unlike anything I could remember hearing before. The band attacked their instruments with abandon, and the instruments fought back. Every time the piano player slammed down on the keys, they bit off part of a finger, until his hands were no more than bloody stumps. The guitarist's instrument had metamorphosed into a boa constrictor, wrapping around his torso and slowly squeezing him to death. The drum kit had also come alive and now pummeled the drummer to a pulp. The singer seemed oblivious to the carnage behind her, moaning along like a macabre impersonation of a lounge singer that had lost her tongue and most of one side of her face. Which she had.

The noise Get Hustle created was intolerable and beautiful, chaotic and tight at the same time. After a few songs of painful flailing about, all of which was met with enthusiastic applause from the crowd, the band managed to subdue their instrumental revolt and settled down into a peculiarly unsettling, haunting, yet seductive mood. Murmurs of sound slowly swelled up and receded, making way for slinky tangos and jittery rug-cutters. The dance floor filled with bodies twitching off-tempo.

But almost as soon as it began, the evening was over. The band's final number, a surprisingly faithful rendition of Raymond Scott's "Mountain High, Valley Low" brought tears to the eyes of those who still had them, conjuring up nearly obliterated memories of a former earthly existence. The band took their bows, the bells tolled once again, and the crowd began to reluctantly dissipate, oozing back into the streets and down the long, long roads back to the pits. I was sad to see our relatively happy moment so fleeting, but the sound of Get Hustle reverberated in my mind for many years to come, providing a minor solace for those times when I'm tied to a rock, having demon vultures pick at my rotting genitalia while filth rains down on me.

-Nick Mirov