Encore

It's not always easy to look beyond a building's sordid past, whether it's because terribly violent things happened there, or because it banged, like, hundreds of dudes. Ignoring history and just going for it, the guys behind Encore.Headed up by veteran bar-starters from California and New York, Encore is a Red River rock lounge set up in the abandoned space that housed Spiro's, which closed earlier this year after a hail of nonfatal but still very serious gunfire was unleashed outside the club by a group of La Grange rappers -- the biggest thing to happen to L-G hip-hop since...ever. The sprawling space has been completely remodeled with woozy red lighting, temporarily crash-able leather couches, paintings of Hendrix, Morrison, and Marley, a lava lamp-like bar top that responds to touch, and one very unique room which only allows women, who're free to gab unmolested on zebra-print sofas -- probably about you, lurking just outside like a coiled cheetah. Meanwhile, the stage/dance floor and video lounge feature cascading LED fixtures by industry heavy Red Star Productions (typically seen at big-ticket rock shows), and a monstrous sound system built by Cerwin-Vega, relying on the stolen technology of Guile's Sonic Boom, and some guy named Cerwin.If cheap brews aren't enough of a draw (happy hour = $2 wells, $2 domestics), Encore will also feature touring rock acts, DJs playing live/rare/remixed rock cuts, and rotating resident VJs using their eye-washing LED system, whose psychedelic colors and patterns will distract during hopefully rare off-nights when the club is open wide to, like, hundreds of dudes.