Blow up (club)

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The previous Blow Up in 2019.

The Blow Up in Munich was Germany's first large-capacity disco and one of the most famous nightclubs in Europe. During its existence from 1967 to 1972, the nightclub was a favorite subject of magazines and daily newspapers because of its countless happenings, drug stories and psychedelic light projections. The British weekly newsreel Pathé News describes the club as “the hottest and most expensive happening center in West Germany. It's wild, it's crazy, it's trendy, it has everything. "

History and description

The club was built in 1967 by the Samy brothers in an earlier cinema from 1926 in the Schwabing district of Munich . The Iranian-born brothers Temur and Anusch Samy, who were the first concept and experience restaurateurs in Germany and were known as the "kings of the flower power era in Schwabing", founded a company empire consisting of several nightclubs, new types of bars (including the drugstore that still exists today ), Underground bars , a brewery , the Citta 2000 shopping center and an innovative taxi company . They were described by contemporary witnesses and business partners as trendsetters who created a new kind of gastronomy in Munich that changed the whole city.

The Blow Up , "the forerunner of Studio 54 , which opened a decade later in New York, " offered guests numerous levels and platforms on which the bands played and go-go girls danced, as well as a stepless gangway through which the party guests could access the various levels and from which they could watch the main dance floor, where the dancers were exposed to “flash fire ” from 250 stage lights and light projectors. One of the innovations was that the spotlights responded to the rhythm of the music, which marked the beginning of the synchronized light shows in discos. The Samy brothers invested 850,000 D-Marks in the club's installations alone .

The opening ceremony, about which the media reported widely, made the Blow Up a national sensation. About 5000 people crowded into the club, but when only 1600 admission tickets had been sold, the pressure of the crowd could no longer be withstood and the queue stormed into the building. Soon 3,500 guests had made it, a thousand more than officially allowed. In this general mess, “gentlemen in tuxedos” threw one of the registers over and took receipts with them, the glasses of a prominent PR consultant were knocked off the face, and a young man seized the microphone to express his sympathy for Rudi Dutschke and accuse the Federal Republic of Germany of exploitation. The iron railings on the platforms intended for dancing were torn down and expressions of sympathy for the Viet Cong were painted on the concrete walls with oil paints . These actions were partially tolerated because club operator Anusch Samy viewed the nightclub as an “action center”, which included the “creative participation of the public”; Things that have been trodden on should not be straightened up again and anything painted on the walls should not be removed. Richard Hurst's London beat band, DJ Dave Lee Travis from the British pirate broadcaster Radio Caroline and the Gerhard Wilson go-go girls from Paris performed at the premiere party . The psychedelic light projections and a wild “paint-in”, in which the participants threw pounds of paint on each other's bodies, were reported. Meanwhile, hundreds of guests who had parked their cars incorrectly in the vicinity of the club received parking tickets. This legendary first night ended with a tear gas attack that drove the crowd to rush through the emergency exits.

In the years that followed, the discotheque was repeatedly the subject of magazines and daily newspapers because of countless extraordinary happenings such as paint-ins or pool parties, at which guests danced to music in swimwear in a swimming pool set up on the dance floor , because of film screenings or "multimedia Discos ”, because of the numerous drug stories circulating around the nightclub , its psychedelic light projections and because of the internationally known artists who appeared in Blow Up . Performing artists included world stars such as Jimi Hendrix , who made his first live appearances here in Germany, Pink Floyd , Yes , Sammy Davis, Jr. , Bill Haley , Amon Düül , Julie Driscoll Tippetts and Brian Auger . The nightclub also hit the headlines because of other events, such as the visit of the writer Günter Grass , who gave a reading “between teetering go-go girls”, visits by Communards Fritz Teufel , Uschi Obermaier and Rainer Langhans , who later became the RAF terrorist Andreas Baader as well as other celebrities and film stars such as Uschi Glas , Peter Kraus , Gunter Sachs and Prince Johannes von Thurn und Taxis .

In 1970, on March 6th, club operator Anusch Samy died in a private plane crash shortly before Samaden Airport near St. Moritz. After his death, his brother Temur could not hold the party empire together, and "Munich's biggest beat sensation" had to close in 1972. A supermarket chain later planned to move into the building, which was prevented by a citizens' initiative. Finally, the city of Munich bought the building that has housed the Schauburg children's and youth theater since 1977 .

Quotes

"This is exactly how I imagined the opening."

- Club operator Anusch Samy on the opening ceremony, which ended in chaos.

“Anyone who was there to be kicked, pushed or pushed, with torn buttons on their jacket, tartar bread on their trousers, and otherwise easily confused by shock music, go-go girls and psychedelic image projectors, left the site of the inferno, it was their own fault , he just didn't have to go. "

- The gossip columnist Hunter on the opening night.

"Of course the two [Samy brothers] built something completely new, but they also destroyed Schwabing's old infrastructure."

- Ernst Knauf, operator of the Domicile jazz club .

literature

  • Mirko Hecktor, Moritz von Uslar, Patti Smith, Andreas Neumeister: Mjunik Disco - from 1949 until today. Blumenbar Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-936738-47-6 .

Web links

Commons : Blow Up (club)  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Mirko Hecktor, Moritz von Uslar, Patti Smith, Andreas Neumeister: Mjunik Disco - from 1949 to today . Blumenbar Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-936738-47-6 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Discos shape the wild era: The 70s in Munich: Loud, shrill, wicked. In: tz . April 26, 2016. Retrieved October 28, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b  (1967). Blow-Up Discotheque Aka Happening Center In Munich (1967)  (Pathé newsreel) [film]. British Pathé.
  4. ↑ a b c Joachim Goetz: Built utopias: 70s cult in Schwabing. In: Design Show. MCBW, March 2019, accessed October 28, 2019 .
  5. ↑ a b c Friedemann Beyer: The Samy Brothers - Kings of the Flower Power Era in Schwabing. (Radio broadcast) In: Bayerischer Rundfunk . August 2, 2018, accessed October 28, 2019 .
  6. ↑ a b c d e Flower Power in Teutonic. In: Der Spiegel . October 30, 1967, pp. 214-215 , accessed October 28, 2019 ( PDF version ).
  7. ↑ a b History of the building. In: Schauburg Archive. Retrieved October 30, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Anja Schauberger: 11 crazy clubs in Munich that made history. In: With pleasure. December 2017, accessed October 28, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Thomas Lorenz: Munich cult disco: Packed with blow-up fever. In: evening newspaper . September 15, 2017. Retrieved October 28, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Karl Forster: Munich in the 1970s: When the night was still sinful. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . October 31, 2015, accessed October 28, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Aviation Safety Network: Incident report 1970-03-06

Coordinates: 48 ° 9 ′ 26.9 ″  N , 11 ° 34 ′ 31.4 ″  E