Alex Lloyd on the club that has reclaimed Friday nights for York.

MY bugbear with going out in York at the weekend is the lack of musical choice. Most of clubs and bars play it safe, appealing to the lowest common denominator with a deathly dull soundtrack of cheesy chart and "party hits" (whose party exactly?).

Now there's nothing wrong with a bit of pop, as my much-mocked love for Girls Aloud will testify, but we all know variety is the spice of life and so I applaud Ikon & Diva for bringing LoveDough to the city.

It's three months since the hip hop and R 'n' B brand took over the club's main room on a Friday and the gamble is proving a huge success, attracting more than 1,000 clubbers each week.

Featuring strongly among the crowd are students, who are eschewing campus events for the novelty of discounted weekend entry and hearing big names such as Tim Westwood, Shortee Blitz and Rampage. Even resident B-Naughty is a rising star, inundated with international DJ bookings.

Added to that are the LoveDough extras, or what organiser James Jukes calls "the glitz and glamour" - the LoveDough girls handing out chocolates and strawberries, the LoveDough limos and the LoveDough dance troop.

"If you go to any credible night that has a good calibre of DJs, they tend to neglect the other aspects," he says.

"They think it is just about the music, but there is more to it than booking a couple of DJs. It is all about showbusiness."

Admittedly the night's emphasis is on the commercial side of the genre - and fans of underground hip hop won't be impressed - but as James points out, they are filling a niche. "If we are thinking of going into a city, we try and do our research," he says. "The main thing with York was there was no where to go on a Friday night."

Tonight, DJ Hanif brings The MTV Party back to LoveDough after a successful night back in November. It's not often you get such high profile names in York so grab them while you can.

LoveDough, Friday 21st, 10pm-2am, at Ikon & Diva, in Stirling Way, Clifton Moor, York, 01904 693999.

Entry, £5/£4 for club members/£3 with NUS.

www.lovedough.com

Updated: 15:46 Thursday, January 20, 2005