Living: C & W Nightclubs: Riding High

With the Texas two-step, fancy fumadiddle and derringer-do

They have names like Charlie Horse, Chaps. Mr. McNasty's, Outlaws. Cody's, Dallas, Lone Star Cafe, San Antone Rose.'Silver Saddle, Gopher Gulch and Wild Wild West. The sound of their music is country, and the cut of their outfit is cowboy. Country-and-western nightclubs are riding high. In towns and cities from New Paltz, N.Y., to Carmichael, Calif., and North to South, there are now countless sagebrush saloons, corralling urban buckaroos with lively rustic dancing, good ole buddydom and a frontier atmosphere that may owe more to hype than history but is infectious nonetheless. Only a year ago, many of the new spots were disco clubs, whose stylized allure has faded fast in some locales. Now. decked out with steer horns, long bars, and waitresses in Stetsons and hot jeans, they have struck a bonanza.

They also strike close to the durable American dream of macho romance and derringer-do, the image of cowboy as hero and cowgirl as valiant pardner. Several hundred western-style watering holes feature bucking mechanical bulls on which patrons of both sexes risk serious damage to body and ego (see box). A spot called Outlaws, formerly a mud-wrestling disco outside Chicago, provides roisterers (for $2 a pair) with Harrington & Richardson .22-cal. western-style revolvers and nine blank rounds for mock shootouts. At some places, mostly for atmosphere, there are signs announcing NO GUNS, NO KNIVES. NO TIES. For down-the-hatch topers, Chicago's Rodeo offers a selection of booze that includes Redeye whisky, Rotgut Scotch, Panther gin and Snakebite vodka; Rodeo also claims to be the city's largest Budweiser outlet after Wrigley Field. Manhattan's Lone Star Cafe boasts the sizzlingest made-to-order chili east of the Pecos, but attracts a relatively cool clientele To be sure, says Maryann Smith, 34, the entertainment coordinator, "some people may have Stagecoach or High Noon in the back of then minds, but they don't throw it in your face. There is respect, good manners, even gallantry —and that goes with the Old West too, doesn't it?"