The best thing about the Chinese Laundry is its warm vibe. Like logs smouldering on an open fireplace behind a fluffy grizzly bear rug, it welcomes you from the frosty streets with open arms…well, with rooms actually.

My first port of call was the sandbar, where local lad Kato was laying down some fresh electro and a dash of hip hop which was the perfect soundtrack to knock back (not literally) some ice cold lager and walk around nodding my head like Doug and Steve Butabi at the Roxbury. Moriarty followed with a bum-friendly blend of mashup and the ‘oh so hot right now’ baile funk which was like a tractor beam for all the cocktail swilling fashionistas and people with expensive haircuts.

After walking around having increasingly friendly chats with random people (due to a slight bit of inebriation) I found myself in the laundry listening to Gus Da Hoodrat warming the place up nicely with some very cool tunes that had the room buzzing earlier than your clock radio. Then began the exodus to the cave…

“The cave is open,” people began whispering to each other, flocking to the room like it was some kind of rock-walled religious outpost. Matt Nugent was the sermon given the duty of warming up for the star of the evening. Matt really is a genre defying sonic chameleon, a nightclub slut of the highest calibre able to adapt his style to suit any room. Tonight he whored out some great tunes such as Marc Romboy & Stephan Bodzin – Callisto, Jon Gurd – Spit It Out and the awesome Danny Freakazoid remix of Superchumbo – Fallout. Short of massaging the guy’s shoulders, it made for the perfect warmup for Martinez.

I ducked back in to the laundry in time to catch Paddington Bear…. I mean Rackus, drop one of the tunes of the night, a massive bootleg of Cypress Hill Insane in the Brain which was so big that I heard the local council had cars in the surrounding areas towed away (USS Kitty Hawk reference #1). This was coupled with the sort of feverous scratching I haven’t seen since my friend came back from Thailand with crabs, Trent Rackus does know how to move bodies on a dancefloor.
Hook n Sling carried on from this with a stellar set that including his brilliant remix of Martjin Ten Helden along with a lot of other familiar remixes and stuff that I hadn’t heard before which had people ‘trainspotting’ all over the shop. I do think that this should become a native dancing style for Sydney, involving a jerking motion towards the DJ’s face and a mobile phone.

Back to the cave (like Batman would say, how cool do I feel right now), Martinez was pulverising the writing mass of punters with a fresh sounding seamless blend of tech house and I must say, that the man himself is as entertaining to watch as the lush audio he dishes out is to dance to. To utilise an oxymoron, it was cool as hell. Forgetting I was missing the ghetto pimp Steve Lind, I rushed upstairs to catch one of my favourite tunes at the moment Sinden – Beeper. Steve rocks like geology and always delivers just like Karl Malone… except blacker. And yeah, slip hop is the new hip house, you heard it first.

The end of the night would not be complete without two elements, Jeff Drake and Rowan Blades. Now Jeff Drake is one of my favourites, part ex-pat Canberran love and part drunken man love, this guy owns the Laundry and can really get away with anything just like Matthew Newton.

Loaded up with an arsenal rivalling a US Aircraft Carrier (USS Kitty Hawk reference #2), the Drake rocked out tunes such as Dan Le Sac v Scroobis Thau Shalt Not Kill (Kissy Sell Out Remix), Black Ghost Anyway You Choose (Fake Blood Remix), Jacknife Lee Making Me Money (Switch Remix) and the new Soulwax monster redo of Gravity’s Rainbow.

Almost fulfilled, I stumbled back into the rock room to find myself enveloped in a blanket of warm inviting progressive house. Rowan must have known that I wanted to hear spine tingling emotional music because that’s what he delivered. All class, all the time.

This was one of the best nights I’ve ever enjoyed had in Sydney, due to a number of reasons: great variety of solid tunes and acts, friendly patrons and security, and lots of reasonably priced alcohol. Everybody needs to do the Laundry sometime…