I don’t take advantage of the local music scene nearly enough around here, but last night I got lured out by a no-cover early-doors My Dear Disco gig at Live at PJs. This is a quick review: good.

The band’s “hey wow great crowd” stage banter sounded sincere, so maybe they don’t inspire the same heated dance implosion everywhere they go, but I can’t think why they wouldn’t. In retrospect, I guess the last time I saw people grooving that hard during the sound check was Tabla Beat Science tuning up at a world music festival in the California gold country foot hills. So yes, it may have been an especially willing crowd. But these guys deploy the basic palette of dance-pop with a really competent inventiveness, all fired up with genuine post-ironic hipster glee. And their special weapon (hold B button and move joystick right twice) is to reveal their second keyboardist as an all-of-sudden champion Irish bag-piper, playing an electrified kit. Good trick that. Taken altogether, I haven’t lost that much sweat on a dancefloor in a while.

Their studio material lacks a certain personality that comes from seeing them in-context, but it’s certainly catchy enough that if you’re into catchy, you might want to have a go. They do succeed in dragging some clever new skin to the old ceremony of electro-pop. They’ve got some files on their website and myspace.

On the down side, I think I screwed up my back.