The Outhouse

So the Outhouse was sort of insane. It is perfect. As a reincarnation of a formidable old punk/​hardcore venue goes, just… Perfect. It’s probably built on top of a hellmouth. I used to go there a LOT in the late 80s and 90s for punk/​hardcore shows back when it was all about trashcan fires in the parking lot and mayhem inside. I got a broken nose there once when someone who was hanging from a ceiling beam above the mosh pit fell on my face. I heard so many insane stories about the Outhouse as a strip club that it didn’t seem impossible that it might not get broken again, maybe back in the other direction to straighten it? Going was on my Kansas bucket list, but I couldn’t get anyone to go with me until last night.
My date and I survived and nothing dread happened, even though — my hand to heaven — it was an awful lot like rolling in to a much, much lower budgeted version of the Titty Twister from «Dusk til Dawn» — no lie. My super nerdy date and I were basically Harvey Keitel in glasses x2. It was a ton of fun. Less neon, more diverse. Bikers, cholos, bangers, rednecks, frat boys, and one table of East Indian semester abroad students who were at their first strip club ever, I’m pretty sure — they were *beside themselves* — all were coexisting peacefully under the watchful gaze of gentle giants (the MC/​bouncer has such a sweet personality — great big beardy guy who looks like he could handle anything from a zombie outbreak to making a pancake breakfast — the door guy was also a sweetie) — and under the extraordinarily excessive ministrations of the dancers — shady ladies with sharp eyes, soft curves, masked but still perceptibly dangerous expressions, and no apparent legal limits as to services rendered (in plain view) — not sure what kind of pricing the dances go for, but considering that they’re about ten times more *everything* than any lap dance I’ve ever seen in a club anywhere, I would assume that their attentions scale depending on the amount of cash offered for the privilege. That said, one guy tried to wedge a dollar bill in a very petite dancer’s butt by handling both cheeks and her face went from sweet/​huge toothy smile to looking like a tiny but highly lethal trained killer in half a second flat. He very wisely jumped about two feet back and apologized profusely.
This is a strip club far, far away from town/​police/​civilization and the dancers are welcoming and the lapdances are basically extremely handsy/​mouthy simulated sex (from what I saw — lapdances are on the open floor) but they’re also clearly tough chicks. I didn’t see anyone get «sacrificed» (legendary activity out there) but it’s not hard to imagine that happening — voluntarily or involuntarily, if some guy gives someone bad touch.
The only true menace to our wellbeing was a highly aggro 55+ year old Asian stripper with Crystal Gayle hair and implants the size and shape of footballs. However, I had read the club reviews on another website, and was prepared. I warned my date about her when I saw that she was working, and when she lept on us, we were braced — we crossed our legs and clutched each other like howler monkeys while pointing at the nearest stripper who was NOT HER. Thus we avoided the fate intended for us. According to reviews, she will straight jump on top of you, do things that will put you in therapy for a year, and then demand $ 20, and if she gets on you, you gotta pay, or face the dark side of the big bear bouncers for stiffing a dancer. But my research saved the day! She was genuinely terrifying. She was the only dancer who went with a country/​rock set and lurched around furiously, like she wished she was stomping on puppies.
At one point a bouncer opened a back door right next to the stage to let in some fresh air, and suddenly the stripper who was dancing — slowly and eyes closed, so slowly that it was almost like she existed in a different frame of time, leaning on the pole, a tiny secret smile on her face — was dancing in a pool of colored light, with the bleak backdrop of a starry black night and a snowy cornfield in Kansas behind her. That was one hell of an image. Unforgettable.
There are so few places to go in Lawrence that aren’t pretentious or infested with provincial hipsters and their annoying bored/​jaded/​dull attitudes, this club was a slice of real life and real people who aren’t full of shit. Hugely refreshing.
I enjoyed our night out. It’s BYOB, and one thing I didn’t read on the reviews but is most definitely worth knowing is that regulars bring a quality bottle for the dancers, and drinks for themselves. We saw Patron, Grey Goose, etc. — top shelf bottles. People who had one of those on their table received the company of dancers between sets, and I really wished I’d known that because some of those girls looked like a hell of a lot of fun to talk to — kind of wild and free and ferocious and joyful.

This place was a blast! The girls where hot, and I’m very happy it’s a «juice bar». The building is a little small for the amount of customers they have on a Friday night, so it takes a little longer for the girls to get around to you. Lap dances are 20 and the vip is 30, after you buy a 10 dollar bracelet. This is a byob club so there’s no pressure to buy liquor from the house. You can bring any booze you want, and it’s cheaper to buy it at a liquor store and bring it anyway. Lap dances are topless and you can touch, but are out on the open floor. Vip dances are full nude, also a touch dance and is in the vip room but it seems to be always full, so expect to stand in line. There are two stages, the main stage is a low stage with one pole and no surrounding chairs, the second stage is in a back corner and kinda easy to forget about. The best girl there in my opinion was Ryan. The door man only gives out two dollar bills, and if your not a member the door fee is 20. This club is now one of my favorites.

This place is a dive bar in all it’s glory! Went on a Wednesday night– had to check it out with it being BYOB & I’m from Ca… That’s unheard of. Maybe 10 guys total & something like 8 or so dancers (nice ratio) I was expecting grumpy «I’m not making what I’m shaking» attitude– not here. Everyone was totally cool, happy & not hounding you for dances. This is not Gold Club Centerfolds in SF but I will say I was pleasantly surprised (did a quick check for bullet holes & teeth) If you’re in the area And looking for an interesting time & story to bring home I would highly suggest checking the place out if the dive bar strip club is your scene. Also there is a membership thing you have to register for & some clubs there is a waiting list for this but not here– Enjoy, you only live once & who wants to die knowing they’ve never been to a strip club located in a cornfield

Well I want to start off by saying I thought this would be the trashiest strip club ever. To my surprise it was actually pretty nice. It was a lot smaller than most but still pretty nice. The fact that it’s BYOB is freaking awesome, all they ask is that you call ahead before bringing a keg lol. The price isn’t bad it’s $ 10 for 7 days basically. To tell the truth I did not see a single unattractive dancer. I had gone there thinking it was going to be the worst place ever but, that wasn’t the case at all. If your looking for a chill environment to throw down a couple beers with friends and watch strangers get naked, this is the place to go. Literally it’s BYOB and that goes for any alcohol in any container, dice this place is also 18 and up and maybe one of your friends isn’t quite 21 they don’t care at all haha. Also go ahead and bring your own food if you would like in, and places also deliver while you are there. All in all, a great night.

I dance part-​time and have worked at MANY clubs in different states, and this is my opinion
REGARDLESS of what SOME people may think of the Outhouse, you have to appreciate a club that allows smoking, since the world has gone crazy and outlawed smoking in several states, KS being one of them. I’m sorry, but I feel like I’m at Church every time I go out to a BAR and have to go outside to smoke… like I’m not at the bar already. Can we say, «totally ruined the bar scene for me?» GEESH! Must be a Miami thing that still let’s you have a little freedom. God please don’t let them ruin my vacation spot lol! Wait a minute, if they do, it’s still 70 degrees in the winter so no one will freeze to death whenever they want a cigarette. Goodness! Just punishing us like it’s a joint or somethin! And BYOB instead of pricey watered down drinks plus a tip for the bartender or waitress! LOVE IT! Oh yeah, if there’s a song you want played, just ask a dancer to play it for you when she goes on stage, just don’t forget to tip because she probably already had a set picked out or someone else may have already requested her to dance to their fave.
And the dancers get to choose however many or few days they want to work.

i LOVED this place, and am still horrified that it came to such an end. We should have blown it up or burned it down or something…

One star or five stars? This place at one time was a requisite venue for any punk rock band to play. It is now a BYOB strip club.
Through the 80’s/90’s any and every punk rock act from around the nation would play here.
Bobby Steele getting his face kicked in by a skinhead.
GG Allin threatening to commit suicide on stage at his next appearance and subsequently not even showing up at all.
Urine soaked floor, walls, everything.
A few bands that used to play here (I think Cutler composed this list originally):
2 Car Family, 2 Mile Death Plunge, 7 Seconds, Abuse, Acid Raygun, Action Man, Agnostic Front, Alice Donut, All, Altered Media, Angst, Apostle Death, Aversion, Battery Idiot, Be in Black, Big Chief, Beernuts, Big Toe, Bikini Kill, Biohazard, Blue Meanies, Born Against, Boy Dirt Car, Boys Life, Brick Layer Cake, Broken Inglish, Circle Jerks, Coffin Break, The Cum Puppies, The Crucifucks, Dashboard Budda, Dazzling Killmen, D.O.A, The Descendents, The Detonators, The Digits, D.C. Beggars, Doggy Style, Donnie and the Outhouse All Stars, D.R.I, Drowing Incident, Duh-​Ta-​Duh-​Ta-​Duh, EMF, Eubekenia Campaign, The Exploding Rodents, Fear, The Feindz, Flour, Forced Behavior, The Fry Guys, G.B.H, Green Day, Germ Box, The Grenade Victims, The Hayseeds, Hellen Keller’s World, Helmet, The Iquanas, Immaculate Reception, Jawbox, The Jesus Lizard, Joe Worker, Judge Nothing, KGB, Kill Dozer, Kill Whitey, King Trash, The Klusterfux, Left Insane, Legion of Doom, Let’s Go Bowling, Lonesome Houndogs, The Lovely Dead, The Meat Puppets, The Melvins, Merely Twisted, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Mind Over 4, Molly McGuire, Mooncalf, Mopar Funeral, The Mortal Micronotz, Mu 330, Mudhead, Mutt Finnicky, Murphy’s Law, Naked Raygun, Near Death Experience, No Means No, Non Prophet Organization, Nosferatu, Octoclod, The Pedal Jets, Piston Grind, Platonic Bondage, Prong, Psychosis, Rabid Fetus, The Radicts, Ritual Device, Roach Factory, Rollins Band, Rot Gut, Season 2 Risk, Second Chance, The Selecter, The Sex Criminals, Short Notice, Shup Bish, Side Show, Sick of it all, Sin City Disciples, Skankin Pickle, Skeletal Ambitions, Skin Yard, Skog, The Skatenigs, Slackjaw, Slam Suzanne, Sleeze Tax, The Spinebenders, SNFU, The Swinging Dicks, Troubled Youth, Trouser Trout, Type O Negative, U.K. Subs, Ultraman, The Undead, Vae Victus, Vampire Rock, Victims Family, The Wayback Machine, Weirdo’s, Which Doctors, White Zombie, Wrecking Crew.
Yeah, I just posted that entire list in case anyone ever wanted to know just how awesome this place was.

First of all, I want to mention that this isn’t just a «nightlife» spot – it’s a NUDE CLUB, and although it used to be a kickass punk venue, it’s now what I would consider «adult entertainment», and I think it needs to be classified as such, so people are not confused and don’t go looking for the cool ass place it used to be; i.e. I don’t think it’s worth the drive for anyone to go way out into the middle of nowhere looking for a punk venue and instead coming across a huge pile of pussy.
As for the place it now is – The Outhouse NUDE incarnation sucks. There is no better way to put it. The place is literally falling apart; the bathrooms don’t work, the chairs barely hold a 80lb. girl, and the «VIP» area is nothing but barely covered «couches» held together by duct tape and bodily fluids. At the beginning of the change over, the place was dingy, divey but still good, in the way that divey places can be. Now, the whole place reeks of disrepair and despiration, mainly due to the management and the loads of girls who work there who desparately need that 20 dollar dance to buy their next 8-​ball. I don’t mean to imply that all dancers are drug addicts – trust me, I’m a dancer too so I don’t want to perpetuate any unneccessary stereotypes, but I’ve also worked at this club and the majority of women who choose to dance here have serious drug problems or are just completely batshit insane.
There are some great girls who dance their asses off and are very talented (Abby comes to mind), but those are definately the minority. On Fridays and Saturdays, there are some better looking women, but for the most part, the girls there are a little on the rough and ragged end of the spectrum. This is the club you go to when you’ve been fired everywhere else, because (and this came straight from mangement) «we are not allowed to fire anyone». Apparently Jeff, the owner, wants to set up some sort of haven for all the fucked up strippers of KC. I guess he’s doing a good job.
As for the crowds: generally, it’s a ghost town Sunday-​Weds. If you choose to go on one of these nights, be prepared to be accosted as SOON as you get through the door by a whole bunch of desparate girls wanting all your beer. On an average weekday, there are about 20 girls and 2 guys all night. Strangely enough, it gets SUPER busy Friday and Saturday and moderately busy on Thursday, their unoffical «hip hop night». And when I say SUPER busy, I mean standing room only. Come early if you want, but don’t fear for lack of girls – they have over 40 working on weekends, even though each girl has to pay upwards to 100 dollars to the club just to be allowed to work on those nights; consequently, the hustle and the push for dances on weekends gets CRAZY. Expect to be hassled NON STOP once you get in. If you like talking to a girl before getting a dance – this place is NOT for you.
Which brings me to my next point: MANAGEMENT SUCKS. The bouncers are all strung out on crystal meth and coke and are unneccesarily rude and obnoxious. On top of this, they do not enforce any rules, so if you go back to VIP expect to be sitting next to someone who’s getting head from another girl. It happens all the time. They also, as mentioned above, RIP their girls off and make them pay enormous house fees (stage rental costs) just to work here, which creates a huge drive in all the girls to get DANCES DANCES DANCES. Also, they arbirtarily make some girls pay more than others simply based on how much the owner likes them. It’s a complete rip off – on both the girls and the customer’s end and the changing work rules daily make it pretty difficult to remain employed here if you are at all intelligent and willing to weigh the benefits with the negatives.
Dances here can be topless and full contact out on the floor for 20 bucks or nude and full contact in VIP for 30 bucks, plus the one time cost of 10 dollars for entrance into the VIP area. There is nothing else for sale: no mixers, no juice, no alcohol, although this is a BYOB joint, so you can bring your own. Cover is 15 dollars per person and girls get in free with the price of a guy. There is a vending machine in the club that SOMETIMES works, that sells cigarettes, candy, and pop. Parking is pleantiful as this place is literally in the middle of fucking nowhere. It’s relatively easy to find though – just take 15^th street off of Mass for about 5 miles, but watch out for cops after you leave; they like to wait just outside the club and pull people over who are on their way home.
It’s open very late – til 4am on weekends, 2am on weekdays. Honestly though, unless you want to get ripped off by some crackhead and yelled at by a methed out bouncer, save your cash and head over to Paradise Saloon instead. Much more mellow, much better run, and the girls there don’t have nearly the issues or the coked out look the girls at the Outhouse have. You won’t get to see vag, but in the end, aren’t some things better left to the imagination?

Unfortunately, this place transformed from an underground 80’s punk venue to a nude picnic. Located on the edge of town, the outhouse oddly allows you to bring your own booze and observe gals who remove clothing for revenue.
The Outhouse seems to be good for bringing a cooler of canoe beer with your lowest friends and staring blankly at girls who want you to give them your paycheck. I guess go if you lack social skills, enjoy watered down beer, or never liked punk music. A true Lawrence tragedy.

This was a kick ass place to go and see a wild show out in the middle of no where in Lawrence, KS. Where a skinhead could show off and punk kids felt at home. My friend got her calf sliced open by a skinhead type guy pogoing around the room w/​razor blades tucked into his Docs. She didn’t even know til the way home.
The mosh pit here got REALLY intense and many were hurt… but all in good fun.
I remember going there one and this guy I was with was warming his hands on the HUGE ASS bonfire that a bunch of folks got started. He neglected to remove his fake leather gloves which caught on fire while he was talking… man, such good times!!!
Here’s a lineup of some of the bands that played there w/​Ultraman (quoted from Ultraman’s Myspace…)
Ultraman Outhouse shows:
July 87 Das Damen
Oct 87 Redd Kross
Dec 87 Slapshot
April 88 After Life (Joe’s Life Sentence)
June 88 Adolescents
Oct 88 GI
Dec 88 NYE
April 89 Gwar
June 89 Fugazi
Aug 89 Feeling Weak tour
Sept 89 UK Subs
Dec 89 NYE w/​DI
June 90 Naked Raygun
Oct 90 Rollins Band
Dec 90 AF
Dec 90 NYE
April 91 ???
July 91 Stabb
Aug 91 7 Seconds
Remember some of these bands? Feeling old yet???

I 2^nd the wildest place ever. or at least I’ve been in a while… perma-​smile from the sheer awe of not believing my eyes. Bathroom covered, and I mean covered in puke the entire night, using a cooler filled with whiskey and beer for seat, and some other unmentionable things happening behind a bead curtain.
I remember the punk club, also covered in puke, generator operated, and holes in the walls.

I swear I have never been here…
But if I had, I think it would be close to the wildest place on earth.
Seriously, welcome to Porkies

A basement above ground in the middle of nowhere that was vital to the midwest punk scene in the mid/​late ‘80s — early ‘90s turned BYOB nudie bar.
Perfect, methinks.