Unscene Berlin

The first time that I went to Peristal Singum, the psychedelic labyrinth in Ostkreuz, I was just bringing a friend to check it out for the first time. He went in before me as human guinea pig to gauge its effect. Nearly an hour later he returned with a huge smile on his face. "I'm tripping!" he laughed. Moments later a petite blonde who had gone into the labyrinth around the same time as him came stumbling out of the labyrinth... in tears! Needless to say, I chickened out of the labyrinth experience on that occasion. But I did make a mental note to return later with my camera; photography is strongly encouraged by the staff in both venues.  (Not!) Fast-forward to a few weekends later, when I was cycling down Hauptstrasse in the early afternoon. When I got within 100 metres of Wilden Renate I could already feel the thrum of music and voices coming through its dilapidated, health-inspector friendly walls. I was in luck: The Fountain of Youth was open. FOY is ...

The RAW cafe is somewhere I only go when I'm in a special mood. It's an echoey space where every conversation that you start somehow ends up involving every person in the room. Despite its size, the RAW feels intimate because it is home to a tight-knit group of global individuals: musicians, artists and street life. You should only visit it if you're willing to go with the flow because the crowd will expect you to be a bit DIY, spontaneous and to open up. But hey, isn't that the reason why you go out in the first place? The space in Revaler Strasse (adjacent to RAW Tempel club) is utilitarian and minimal in the real sense of the word - not as a fashion statement.  So if you just want to people-watch or are looking for a specific style, you should to opt for one of the hundred or so million other nightspots in the area. There is a great open mic night on Thursdays though; the performances are so tight that it's more like watching a series of short gigs. ...

"Clubs like Berghain didn't invent the underground, they put walls around it. They tax people for doing something that should be free and regulate something that should be spontaneous."  So says the author of this piece, who is looking at the club from a vantage point that's well beneath the ground... If you're a veteran of the free party scene, you can probably remember going to many places like Berghain in the past.  But at Berghain, you'll pay at least twice as much in entry fees (not to mention drinks and water) as you would at a rave or a squat party.  Berghain also has security staff and fashion police - features that are utterly absent from the door at illegal parties.  Entry to Berghain is earned, rather than granted on a first-come-first-serve basis.  And that's before you've paid to get in. The most obvious fence is the one across the front door, guarded by bouncers.  Some people say it's a reasonable boundary to have, because it...

Red lights, red wine and a singer in a bowler had and a green sequined scarf. The scarf shimmered like dragon-skin as the singer draped over her face and belted out another middle-eastern gypsy tune. Her voice was a deep, rich vibrato that tied the tinkling, timorous backing instruments together like a snake-charmer's rope. This was Mr. Mostash’s last gig and I was lucky to see it. I was here courtesy of a bemused and slightly winded Hungarian tourist - I'll call him 'Pete'. Pete had sat next to me earlier that night at Cassiopeia, during a screening of Berlin Calling. Once the end credits rolled we shared a bottle of red and asked the usual questions: why are you in Berlin? how long are you staying? what do you like about the city? I liked his answer to this last question the best. “I feel like I renew faster in this city,” he said. Just like that, he managed to capture in words the feeling that I had been struggling to describe for the past two weeks. It's no...

Published August 17th 2010 Couchsurfing. During the first few weeks that I stayed in Berlin, I was a guest of the city's couchsurfing community. You may not realize it, but Berlin has a lot of places to couchsurf. In fact, it may well have one of the biggest couchsurfing scenes in the world. The way that couchsurfing works is that you create a profile on the couchsurfing.com website, register your address/ID and then begin collecting references from other people on the site whom you have stayed with or hosted. That way, others can decide whether they want to stay with or host you. Participation in the site is entirely free and voluntary, and it operates on a trust system. It is also quite safe for single female travelers to use, as I have found from first-hand experience. As always, one must take basic safety precautions: check references, stay with verified users and above all, listen to your gut instincts - but the couchsurfing project has a very good track record, thanks ...