Club Phoenix is a dumpy two-floor bar in Mount Vernon that's forgotten for most of the week, even by the crowd of older gay men that frequent it.

But on weekends, it's become known for hosting dance parties on its rickety, unvarnished upstairs floor.

Most Saturdays, a bunch of Maryland Institute College of Art students serve as DJs for the Dance Your [Butt] Off party. And this Friday, it will host, for the second time, Ice Age, a monthly party dedicated to obscure, atmospheric music that marries Goth rock and New Wave — something that might sound like a cut from the Cure's album "Seventeen Seconds."

It's DJed by, among others, Cullen Nawalkowsky — aka Cullen Stalin — and on Friday, also by Katrina Ford of the Baltimore band Celebration.

Nawalkowsky said the artists they'll play are largely unknown or have become cult figures only recently. The term that's used most often to describe their music is "coldwave," and was associated with underground bands like the Asylum Party and the Belgians Twilight Ritual. Minimal guitar sounds mixed with raw drums are a hallmark of the sub-sub-genre.

Nawalkowsky said the playlist will run the gamut from proper industrial to "dark" punk to almost-poppy New Wave. Dancing is not discouraged, but "people shouldn't expect to hear banging and thumping tunes," he said.

At the last party, in December, there was dancing, and lots of it. The normally desolate bar was crowded, no doubt drawn by the music and cheap booze: $2 Natty Bohs and $3 for rail liquors.

Nawalkowsky said there's also an appetite for a party that avoids the usual fare, even by indie standards.

"The last party had a great cross-section of people dissatisfied with what's currently on offer, stylistically, in Baltimore's dance-night scene," he said. "And hopefully, this party will grow as a magnet for the disaffected."

Ice Age begins at 10 p.m. Friday upstairs at Club Phoenix, 1 W. Biddle St. No cover before 11 p.m., $2 after.

—Erik Maza