Inside the easeful Emerald Lounge you won't find any big-screen TVs for beer-gutted armchair athletes, or barmaids whose hopped-up attitudes are in direct proportion to their surgically augmented breasts. What you will find is a bohemian atmosphere straight out of 1966, a place where cheap booze is served up by genial drink-slingers in an ambiance of unaffected warmth. On any given night, a gnarly live rock band or DJ booms music that runs the gamut from hickabilly to glitter rock for an unusual mix of off-duty strippers, hot-rodders, professional drunks, working-class stiffs, and the usual cadre of artists, posers, writers and musicians.

With its dark, sapphire-hued interior, local artist motifs and juke, this dingy den is a glorious old-man bar to some and a killer rock 'n' roll club (where the shows are free!) to others. But no matter how it's perceived, Phoenix's sole bastion of the avant-garde can never be accused of taking itself too seriously.