Unscene Berlin

This weekend I'll be revisiting Tacheles to perform a raindance for its continued survival. Of course, there were parties like that last weekend too, immediately after the courts handed down their verdict that the art squat's most recent eviction was illegal. But the line up at this Saturday's Industrial Berlin party is right up my dark, dingy, glass-strewn, beer-spattered alley. With Tacheles' latest, illegal closure barely a week old, it seems like a good time to be reliving the acid-industrial parties that helped to put squats like this on the map. On a less-tangibly-political tangent is the Beats against Corruption party at Mein Haus Am See this Wednesday . This 'benefit party' will be in aid of Transparency International . What is Transparency International, you ask? The answer to that question is not as transparent as you might think, ironically enough. After a little bit of digging around online, all I can say for sure about Transparency Intl. ...

Right now Berlin's party-hardy dissidents have their focus trained on the slow and painful, piece by piece dissection of Tacheles. So I guess it's almost understandable that they have forgotten all about other art squats in town that are facing exactly the same fate: Landsberger 54, for instance. This late 19th century Friedrichshain brewery has served as a haven for disaffected, uncommercial but friendly artists since 1990. It was officially closed down a few months ago to make way for yet another apartment complex. The artists evacuated, leaving a stunning array of mural and graffiti art stranded upon the building's inner walls when they did. But the place still has a pulse and it can sometimes be heard when you're passing by it late at night: faint and fast like the heartbeat of a shock victim. Klick club (formerly the Villa) may be dark, derelict and reclusive but that is exactly what makes this haunting venue a perfect recreation of Berlin's squat scen...

My friend Katja and I were some of the first people to arrive at Kater Holzig for the reading of " Berlin, Techno und die Wende ", an 'oral' history book about Berlin's rave scene. Katja was kicking herself when she saw how empty the venue was on our arrival. "I am such an ossi ," she cried. "I was so worried there would be lots and lots of people here and I hate being crowded - but it's dead! I'm so sorry." Her fastidiousness had paid off for us though because, by quarter past nine, people were standing from one end of the room to the other. Meanwhile, we were sittin' pretty in some of the second-best seats in the house: just behind the row of sofas at front that had been reserved for the really honoured guests (I thought of our row as being the L.I.P. - Less Important Person - section). After teaching Katja the time-honoured English tradition of blagging cheap drinks we settled back into our seats with a couple of under-pri...

Is there really a 'war' between the sexes? Depends how you define war. If you define 'war' as an armed conflict between two groups of people who already have lands, rights and freedoms of their own, then there isn't any war between the sexes. In a 'war' both sides usually have access to weapons and defence training of some kind. Both sides are usually fighting to defend resources or rights that they have been granted by laws or traditions that they defined themselves. The struggle for gender equality is not like this at all: it has been led by women whom, until recently, could not even enter the military; who started off with no rights, freedoms, lands, laws or even elected leaders of their own. And how many 'wars' have you heard of where the victors simply want to work WITH their opponents and earn equal pay, or live with them in peace? The 'war' between the sexes is not really a war. If anything, it's a popular revolution; a mode...