#KARAOKE MOVES LIKE JAGGER FREE#
Feel free to relax, as everything else you love about the landmark 16th Street dive remains unchanged: the stained pressboard walls, ripped and tattered carpet (said to be as old as the bar itself), and the dented vending machines dispensing condoms with such brand names as "Temptation" or "Hugger" in the men's john.
Proprietor Mark Bolin, who also owns the equally iconic Do Drop Inn and Wanderin, sprung for new vinyl fixtures around the bar, ditched that old hot nuts dispenser (gasp), and had his staff remove the inch of dust covering all the liquor bottles. If things look a little, ahem, cleaner than usual inside the Royale, it's because some changes have been taking place over the past year. Hell, if nuclear war were ever to break out, we're sure Nu-Towne would somehow survive and continue to have the night, despite all the fallout. And the crowd that considers the place its home away from home is still largely male, including bears of every size and their admirers, leather daddies visiting during the twice-weekly beer busts, and dudes looking for some, um, companionship and $1.50 shot specials during the long-running "Cruise Night" on Fridays. Its proprietors reopened the place a year or so later after restoring the antique-heavy and memorabilia-laden décor of its signature kitschy digs to how things looked before, including the seven-foot plaster rooster statue (insert jokes here, if you must). We're talking recessions, the fickleness of LGBT crowds, and even a massive fire that completely wiped out its interior in 2010. This East Phoenix gay bar landmark and grand dame of the scene first opened near the equally historic Tovrea Castle in 1971 and has survived a lot of drama throughout its four-decade lifespan. Nu-Towne Saloon is sort of a scrappy place, and we're not saying that because of all the rough trade that stops by. on weekends, should another trip to Jenny's down the road seem blasé.
Best of all, the taquería next door also stays open until 3 a.m. Tsunami isn't the only one keeping things energetic at Charlie's, as its colorfully diverse nightly offerings also include DJ Mode dropping Top 40 and Latin on Thursdays, go-go boys on Sundays, and various down-home dance lessons and country nights throughout the week. And thus he also rocks the derrieres of lesbians, straights, drag queens, and gay vaqueros alongside them on the rustic dance floor and scattered throughout the sprawling estate, via the clubwide sound system. DJ Tsunami has a secret for getting things moving at places like Charlie's: "In an LGBT club," he tells us, "you target the males." And when largely young and decidedly fashionable gay guys mosey into the notorious cowboy-themed establishment during his late-night sets on Tuesdays and Saturdays, he rocks their bodies (and, thus, the party) with rhythmic pop, urban dance, and high-energy EDM.
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