New Orleans has long fostered an underground scene unlike any other. Our tendency to prefer life a little quirkier is one of the reasons people migrate to the Crescent City. Not many other places offer great live music by talented musicians accompanied by a cabaret show and a bingo game.

Still, the rest of the world just sees Bourbon Street. While the national spotlight with Treme may change that, for now the only way for an outsider to find this strange (not seedy) underbelly of New Orleans culture is New Orleans: The Underground Guide. Billed as the guide for “tourists who don’t want New Orleans marketed to them,” it is in fact the beginning of the marketing of this sub-culture.

The guide is written for the most part by Michael Patrick Welch, with some snippets by other local authors, musicians and rappers (Andrei Codrescu, Geoff Douville, Renard Bridgewater a.k.a. Slangston Hughes to name a few). It is also, for the most part, poorly organized and edited. In their defense, though, that is exactly how the scene they are trying to describe is: poorly organized and edited.

The guide describes a section of New Orleans society that is at one point into electronica and then hardcore bounce rap, brushing off “tourist” places and then stumbling into Chris Owens’ Club, but the concept is clear: enjoy your daiquiri but don’t forget about the funky up-and-coming St. Claude Arts District.

The intentions are good—teach people about the alternatives to Bourbon Street and the Quarter—but it’s downtown-centric to a fault, finding bohemian fun almost exclusively in the Quarter, Treme, Faubourg Marigny and Bywater.

That aside, this guide draws attention to some of the coolest underground scenes in the city: speakeasy parties with Quintron and Miss Pussycat, the naked swim parties at Country Club and bounce jams by transsexual Katey Red. They also include some of the more popular scenes like burlesque shows, the plethora of festivals (food and music) and the Big Easy Rollergirls.

Interviews pepper the guide with the likes of rapper Juvenile, Ponderosa Stomp creator “Dr. Ike” Padnos and New Orleans Musicians’ Hurricane Relief Fund Coordinator Jordan Hirsch about their favorite places to go and their time living here. There is also a great section that rips gutterpunks and the new “fauxbeauxs” a new one.

Essentially, New Orleans: The Underground Guide is a crash course in New Orleans culture. More guides are to come, according to the author; hopefully they will form a cohesive set, because honestly, it will probably take an Encyclopedia Brittanica-length set to describe all New Orleans has to offer.