Where was this?
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Where was this?
I believe it was the only bar on Soi Twilight....at the time...so damn long ago....late 70's...
I think that the only bar in Soi Twilight in the 70's would be Twilight, if even it had had already moved there(of course it was the first in that soi).
I didn't go often(methinks she doth protest too much) but the things I remember do not include fish nets. Although I never knowingly went there, I wonder if the Sea Hag, in Silom, might have had fishnets to go with the sea theme(or the hags).
OK SEA HAG......anyway I recall fishnets all over the ceiling haha thanks...
The use of nets in the Sea Hag sounds logical, except that the Sea Hag closed in 1969, so it can’t be the same bar that you visited in the late 70’s. The timeline for the Sea Hag is given in the 11th post in this thread.
The Twilight Bar is the only boy bar recorded in Soi Twilight / Soi Pratuchai even as late as 1990. As per the map attached below, the 1991 edition of Spartacus still shows only Twilight on that Soi. Spartacus is hardly the first and last word on anything though, so any information to the contrary is certainly welcome. As far as I know,though, Chardonay was the second bar to open there and that was in the 90’s.
On the matter of where the original Twilight Bar was located at different points in time, the information on its early movements that we have pieced together from Midnite Hour, Bobby de Crozier of Bobby’s Arms, the Banana Bar guy and the post by the owner of the Sea Hag on ThaiVisa, is that it started-out on New Road as early as 1966, then moved to Soi Thaniya 2 around the start of the 70s where it occupied the location that became Barbiery later-on, or the shop right next door. It then moved to Soi Pratuchai in the early 1970s. So, if Blueskytoday visited in the late 70s, Twilight would already have been there and was almost certainly the only boy bar on that soi.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad the Impala
I think that the only bar in Soi Twilight in the 70s would be Twilight, if even it had had already moved there(of course it was the first in that soi).
I am attaching the Spartacus map from 1991 here , which I have shamelessly stolen from one of RonanTheBarbarian’s old posts.
Attachment 10746
I am also uploading a 1999 map of the Silom / Suriwongse area from Thai Guys magazine, just for contrast.
Attachment 10747
As for where the fishing nets were, or might have been, I will leave it to those of you who where there in the 70s to debate...
On a tangential note, BRAD, I am aware that you have been in Thailand for longer than almost anyone else on any of the fora, but when, exactly, did you first arrive?
I first came in 1971 for a long beach holiday in the unspoilt village of Pattaya. Rented a traditional wooden bungalow with a huge balcony that was on the beach, in the position where the Siam Bayshore swimming pool would later be found. I had a ball, although there were no gay bars there at that time. Great eight or nine piece band played at the Fantasy Club, which had a large terrace out over the sea. I was there most nights for the music and became friends with some of the band. Good times.
Moved to Thailand the following year and lived in Bangkok for most of the next eight years.
So are Tawan and Super-A the only surviving Gogo bars, in the location from the 1991 map ?
Plus from 1999 map, Screwboys ?
(Question based on map observations, since I didn't visit Thailand until about 15 years ago)
If I recall correctly, Super A was originally a larger bar on the ground floor on other side of that little soi. Screwboys also in its present location.
I remember when Pattaya was a respectable holiday destination and it was the mention of Hat Yai and Chiang Mai that used to lead to snickers and knowing smiles.
Brad, you really must write a history of Soi 4. You have contributed so many fascinating vignettes on here but what still missing is a narrative history of that Soi, and of Soi 2 for that matter. Someone who has actually experienced it from the earliest years needs to put into words how the air on that soi has changed over the decades and how it has evolved from the Soi Katoey of the early days to being the Soi Dining of today. Soi 4 has never been my playground, but its days are numbered, as it has also been bought over for re-development by the same group that bought Soi Twilight, and its history is worth recording. I can't think of anyone who could do a better job of it than you.
Tawan has been in the same place since that map was published, but had only moved to Soi Tantawan around that time. It was previously just off Suriwongse Road, a little bit further down towards the New Road end. In its old location, it started-out as more of a twink bar.
Screw Boy is now back in its original location, which is the location on the map. Bear in mind that it moved to Soi Twilight for a while though. It moved first to the back of the Soi, into the Five Star building and then towards the front of the Soi into the X-Boys site. So, while it is back in its original location now, it can't claim to have been its original location throughout. Before Screw Boy opened on Patpong II, the site was previously the Princess' Castle girlie bar, which was owned by the KIng's Group, which also owns Screw Boy.
The bar with the longest run at its original location would be the Golden Cock, which was in the same place from the time that it opened in the 80s until it moved across to Nature Boy in September 2020.
Why did the chicken finally cross the road? To save on the rent, I assume.
Ye gods -- I'd forgotten 'Soi Katoey' (in Amsterdam, the little street with many gay bars was known by the straights as 'rue de Vaseline').Quote:
Originally Posted by JayToff;274725it has evolved from the [I
A slight correction --- wherever did you get the idea that soi4 has been bought by a development company?
It is still owned by the same family that reside at the end of the soi and have owned it since the very beginning. I can hazard a guess about where you got that info from. Not true.
And Screw Boy's original location, before Patpong 2/Twilight etc., was in the square (I forget the name) just before soi Twilight.. When it moved to Patpong it had a semi circular bar surrounding the stage. 2 boys behind the bar (one the owner's son) guarding two bottles of spirits. Often the sound of music was drowned out by the sound of rats scurrying in the ceiling void. I think one of the original waiters/mamasans, Lek, is still at S.B. now.
Screw Boys has an interesting history, as well as the most indecorous name in Bangkok. I recall the circular bar but also a period before that when sex shows were produced in the centre of the bar. It was the first time I'd seen such a show.
Then it moved to Soi Twilight for a short period; the shows continued but the premises (ex-Chardonnay, perhaps?) were devoid of decoration apart from numerous balloons. It moved back to Patpong quickly suggesting that its stay in Twilight was temporary.
The "Screw Boys" name may be indecorous but the original choice was even worse...."Schoolboys". This is according to Michael Notcutt's (spelling?) guide to the gay scene- my estimable companion during my first few visits.
Does anyone remember Apollo, the gogo bar at the end of Soi 4? It was definitely there in 1981 and I am reasonably certain a couple of years - if not more - before then. It was located where Sphinx used to be but on the floor above. Quite a small bar but with great guys.
Again if I remember correctly, the manager opened a spa/sauna type place in a residential district named Grey's Athletic Club probably around 1983. It had a number of boys working there, mostly from the bars. It seemed more a place for rent boys to meet customers than a proper sauna. Volt off Asoke was the first sauna I can remember probably around 1985.
Sphinx was opened in 1991 if I recall correctly - it was founded by the same American (“William”) who founded Telephone Bar in the late 80s and then sold it to Richard St L in 1989. Once his non-compete clause in the sale agreement expired he opened Sphinx. It was once my favourite go-to restaurant but the only thing upstairs that I recall was some ghastly karaoke joint (ghastly in the sense that all karaoke is ghastly). The only gogo bar I recall was on the Telephone Bar side of the street, opposite (but upstairs) the current Jupiter. I never visited it, preferring to bar-hop in Soi Twilight where there was more choice once go-go took over from the host bars in Soi 2.
However a Google for “Apollo gogo Bangkok” will give you slightly more information. It predates me but Brad may have been.
Apollo was certainly dead long before Sphinx opened. I have checked on google. It throws up an excerpt from a book titled First Queer Voices from Thailand: Uncle Go's Advice Columns for Gays .. by Peter Jackson. The relevant section states this -
"In Thailand in the 1960s and 1970s, host bars were called "partner" bars and, as the name suggests, this type of venue provided dance and drinking partners to accompany male customers. Phan Thathorn then named a number of gay bars in Patpong – Tulip, Apollo, Tomboy, Siamese Cat, Twilight, Garden and Harry's – and described the scene at one unnamed gay bar where the male sex workers had numbers attached to their clothes in the same way that female sex workers in heterosexual brothels wore numbers for ease of identification by clients. He reported that these male sex-workers were more expensive than female sex-workers in Patpong, with an "off" price of between 100 and 500 baht for Thai customers and a much higher price of 500 to 1000 baht needing to be paid by Western customers for the privilege of taking a male sex-worker off the premises to spend the night."
I believe much of this is pure speculation. Most of the bars were not in Patpong, but that may merely have been stated to give an idea of location. Would bars that morphed into what we know as gogo bars have ever been just dancing bars where a Thai boy would dance clothed with a westerner? Surely these had to be go-go bars. Certainly Apollo and Twilight were. 1000 baht off fee for an overnight was also very much on the high side even by the mid-1980s. This Khun Phan often used the magazine Plaek to put forward his views. Its first edition was in 1975.
Trying to find out who Khun Phan Thathorn might have been, another google search throws up another section from the same book. His name was Pratchaya Phanathathorn. Although heterosexual he was an early advocate of gay rights and by 10975 was suggesting that Thailand should copy the west to develop "a sexual model for Thailand to follow."
There is also the suggestion that it was not Western gay residents and tourists who encouraged the development of Thailand's gay culture. He reckons it was much more Thai gay men returning from overseas. So Thailand's gay culture is not an implant but one seeded by better-off Thai gay men who had travelled outside the country.
This view is repeated in another article Reinventing Sexual Identities: Thai Gay Men's Pursuit of Social Acceptance. On page 20 it states -
"At least in Bangkok, the first generation of gay bars and night clubs along Silom Road were said to be frequented by young Thai western educated gay men who had had first hand experience of Western gay lifestyles abroad."
My earliest experiences are of Telephone Bar (independent money boys), Harry's & (New) Garden Bar (semi-independent host "bars"), both in Silom (Sois 4 & 2 respectively), and Barbeiry (gogo - Suriwong opposite Twilight). Those were the days before the Western do-gooders came along when if a boy was in a bar there was no question of any "age of consent" and the age of patrons or workers in bars certainly wasn't policed (although I saw only teenagers and above). I never thought to ask. In Harry's and Garden Bar I don't recall there was even an "off" fee after you'd bought the guy a drink. The first guy I ever "offed" (my first night in Bangkok) was from Barbeiry Bar - 500 baht and I don't recall whether there was an off fee but there probably was.
After that I focused my attention on Soi 2 for sex and Soi 4 for socialising with other ex-pats.
Socialising???? You???? Hahahaha ;);):D:D:rolleyes::rolleyes:
With other ex-pats????? You????. Hahahahaha :D:blush::love::love:
5555555555555 ????????????
Golden Cock has closed and moved to Natureboys??
I often saw the farang owner of NB in GC, accompanied by his wife and some guys. They'd come over to party and everyone from both bars knew each other.
The owner of GC apparently didn't bother whether or not he made a profit; it was more of a hobby for him. The guys told me that making money was not one of his concerns. Pretty obvious, I would have thought. Same same NB which it seemed rarely, if ever, turned a profit.
And no, I don't get it either!
I wonder if that soi is up for re-development?
When I wandered down that soi in December, I noticed the Nature Boys premises now has both the old Nature Boys sign and a new Golden Cock sign. So who knows what the name now is ?
Nature Boys Golden Cock ?
Golden Cock Nature Boys ?
The late great Barbiery Bar moved from its original location on Suriwong across from Soi Twilight to the third floor of a newish commercial building directly opposite Nature Boys. I guess it must have been around 2000. Sadly it became a very different type of bar. Whereas the original had been cosy, staffed mostly (but far from exclusively) by twinks with great waiters, the new one was too large a space with one small stage at one end rather than two in the middle. The boys, too, were older. I don't think it lasted more than 2 years before it finally died.
I remember going there late one rainy night near closing time (just before it shut its Surawong location) with a visiting former BA trolley dolly who remembered it in its glory days. We were the only two customers although there was one punter just leaving with a very happy guy in tow - a woman (the sort that bleed not the guys with a rich fantasy life). I think someone took over the location and renamed it but it didn’t last long.
Ten (fifteen?) years or so ago a new bar appeared diagonally opposite Natureboys. It had lots of sofas scattered about the bar.
The rather young guys working there appealed to a certain clientele but I found myself racing out the door.
The next time I visited Bangkok - a few months later - it had disappeared.
It's now a Chinese ktv bar. At least I think that's where it was.
In those days bars which were considered too risky for Soi Twilight tended to operate in Soi Golden Cock.
I think that was Night Boys. I had a good off from there in 2011 ? , but when I went back in 2012 ? it was gone and became a Chinese restaurant or KTV.
Years later, I found the boy in Screw Boys, but we couldn't re-enact the great first encounter, the second was only average.
Yes, thanks Christian. That's the one.
There were also two bars which only lasted a short time very close to where Super A is now. One might have been Night Boys but it definitely was under the old Super A. It had couches all facing in the direction of the door and boys willing to start dropping pants if you invited them to sit by you. One boy who said he was a student had a very large appendage.
The other was, I think, next door. I recall it was coloured yellow inside(?) As you entered, there was a little stage on the immediate right and a bar along the right wall. It also had rows of seats facing the stage, some of them couches but I never remember any dancing let alone shows. Very much a twink bar with a number of lady boys. Probably lasted little more than 6 months.
Nearer in time and moving closer to Twilight there was also a bar an the end of a little sub soi down one side of The Wall Street Tower. It was very much for twink lovers, had a large stage area with lots of boys and semi-closed banquettes. Very much touchy feely especially when drinks were offered. Even the waiters would get into the act. I never saw many customers but it seemed to stay open for about two years.
Then back in the mists of time I have not seen a mention here of Stockholm bar. I wonder if anyone has a Spartacus Guide going back around 1980 or before. This was probably the largest gay bar in terms of area with a big stage and seating in a sort of semi circle around it. But it was not near Soi Twilight. It was in a large Thai house near the park end of now up market Lang Suan. A tout took me there. It was raining the only time I was there and no other customers. There were only had about 12 boys and they were in street clothes. But there were rooms upstairs where I took two cute looking boys for a show. They really performed. Thinking back it was probably patronised mostly if not exclusively by Thais.
Lucky S was thereabouts and in the same garage sale style
I don't remember any bar down the side of the Wall Street Tower. Not that I knew about.
But the description of the interior sounds a bit like a go-go bar which operated in this soi some few years ago.
Regarding Stockholm bar, I went once many years ago. Memories are vague, but I was definitely taken there by a tout.
I formed the impression that this was their modus operandi.
When I arrived, I don't recall any other customers, but a group of girls were dancing.
When I expressed disinterest, the girls were quickly sent offstage, and a group of boys appeared in their place.
And yes, there were rooms upstairs, where two boys would 'make a show'. But no touching, at least in theory.
There was one in that Soi but in one of the buildings near where that great traditional Thai massage institution Marble House operated (diagonally opposite the Tower building) (and maybe still does - I used to be massaged twice a week there by the same old duck for years but haven’t been back since she retired which was before there was a boy bar in the Soi).
I am sure that must be the one. tt was on the ground floor of the last or penultimate building opposite Wall Street Tower. There was only a wall on the Wall Street Tower side. Many people used the soi for parking as you could park either against that wall or in two lines in the centre. The bar had an illuminated sign at its entry on Silom Road and occasionally guys handing out flyers about it.It lasted about 2 years. I wish I could recall the name!!
One of the waiters ended up later in Hotmale 2.
I remember going to a bar in a small soi on the opposite side of the street from Soi Twilight.
Looking at google maps, it may have been the Wall Street Tower Soi. The bar was right at the end.
There weren't any guys in the bar - you had to go to a room upstairs. For reasons you can probably guess, I made a very quick exit indeed.
I don't think the bar lasted very long.
I have fond memories of Golden Cock, though now some time ago. Twink guys, on sofas, whipped their cocks out on request. A farang at the bar, having a blow job! I took quite a few boys upstairs, and remember the handrail at the corner was always loose! Rooms pretty bare, but private shower. Last time I went there, 2019, almost dead, two boys only, getting on in years!
My visits to Golden Cock were always short. Walk in the door, see they have no one even close to my type and walk out within 20 seconds. Repeat at 2 year intervals.
In contrast, Nature Boys used to be much more interesting, back in the days when they had those little green aprons and nothing else. More recently, there has been very little to tempt me in.
That is definitely not the bar I attended on a few occasions. There was no upstairs as far as I knew. Just a big area with a large stage in the centre and lots of twinks and lady boys. I went there on a few Sundays with friends before we discovered Solid Bar and that became our more regular haunt. I cannot recall when Solid Bar opened but I think it was around 2008 or 2009. So it immediately predates that period. I am still trying to recall the name!!
I only visited the bar once and if I recall correctly, I was taken there by that ex-gogo boy who had a book written about him. He accosted me on the street outside the Kasikorn Bank near Soi Twilight. We crossed the road and after a very short walk ended up in the soi where the bar was.
That's why I think it might have been the Wall Street Tower Soi.
Christian, didn't you once mention it in a post?