clubs - edited by david sandhu - london blow up
"Rod Stewart, now he had style," declares the drunken boy in the toilets, while his mate carefully applies thick black eyeliner to glam up his baby blues. Bathroom culture aside, Blow Up (Saturdays at The Laurel Tree, Bayham Street, NW1) offers two floors of jammed shockadelic madness; fusing rare groove, easy listening and indie to create some serious party mayhem. Upstairs, a bunch of sharp mods and cute modettes groove to a DJ mixing Consider Yourself from Oliver into The Small Faces and Blur, chasing a cockney bloodline through the decades. In the basement, a bongo and maracas frenzy ensues as DJs James and Martin Karminsky drop dangerous funk from John Barry, blax-ploitation soundtracks and Barbarella tunes. As avant-garde as a London pub could possibly get. Blow Up attracts glam students, pristine mods and ska fanatics with cheap hooch and an atmosphere of innocent party energy.