Unscene Berlin

Read it  Auf Deusche At a club last weekend, I was talking to a Goa fan about some of the stuff we'd lost and found at parties in the past. "One night in the Berghain, I actually lost my shoes," he said. "Yes. One of them fell off on the dancefloor & I could not find it again so I took the other one off. Then that shoe also became lost." You may well ask how someone could lose his shoes on the dancefloor but really, what kind of person finds shoes on the dancefloor and then keeps them? The Goa fan continued: "I was walking the whole night with no shoes in this club and nothing bad happened to me. Then, in the morning, one of the staff from the Berghain saw me and said, 'You cannot be here without shoes.' And he threw me out." Wow. So Berghain really refuses to roll out the red carpet for anyone, even a shoeless Joe who might cut his feet without it! Losing shoes is surprisingly common occurence, though; my friend Katja also l...

Barney, that womanizing character on the TV series 'How I Met Your Mother', has this thing he calls a Perfect Week. For the uninitiated, a Perfect Week for Barney is a week when he manages to sleep with a different woman of his choosing, every night of the week. The female-friendly, Berlin equivalent of a Perfect Week has got to be the Perfect Sunday. The Perfect Sunday entails lounging casually in a park, cafe or beach in the sun until your energy levels rise naturally, at which point you drift unhurriedly, and apparently effortlessly, into the most happening parties/gigs in town. If maximum pleasure plus minimum fuss is your goal then you can have a Perfect Sunday on any sunny weekend in Berlin. Our Sunday started off with some cooling drinks in a park near to Arena club. Thanks to the recent wet weather, the grass was still soft and cool yet the earth was baked dry by the sun (no wet bums). Eventually, a group of club kids on a come-down came and sat down near us. Even t...

My friend Anna and I were tired when we arrived at Wedding Present last Saturday. I was only there to see an old housemate who was doing projections for Pequeno Club   and Anna only came with me because I'd told her it was going to be a chilled night.  Oops. It's safe to say that the chaotic, dance-fuelled scenes that ensued were a wake-up call for both of us.  And an unexpected one, because the online flyer from Pequeno Club had only listed a short line-up for a one-room party.  What they neglected to mention was that there would be about a dozen other rooms open at the manic indoor festival. Anna and I were apparently the only two people there who hadn't been anticipating this night for, like, ever.   Older techno-heads had come out of retirement  and younger partiers from trendy spots all over the city all converged on the club along with the usual hipsters, hippies, minimalists and tourists.  Their collective y...

Just before I went on staycation to Berlin I signed up to a mailing list for a London 'invite only' party called Bodyhammer. Never got the chance to check it out but two and a half years later, I'm still getting regular emails & tracing the trajectory of the club's growth. Maybe unduly, I feel like that I know what these guys are all about: old skool light shows, special guest appearances, secret locations and a funkier, trashier 303 vibe than you'd find in the trendy East end clubs. Their latest email caught my eye with its announcement that their upcoming June Bank Holiday party will take place in Hackney Wick, an area that features largely in some of my fondest squat party memories. If it's not already gentrified then it is should still be clearing the smokey haze from more than a decade of illegal rave action from its eyes. I'd like to see it again and since I can't make it to the party myself, I'd strongly suggest anybody who's in...

Golden Gate A few weekends ago, I got a tweet that said Berghain was no longer one of DJ Magazine's top ten Best Clubs in the World . Needless to say, my reaction was a far cry from OMFG, no way. I mean, we are talking about Berghain: a club that deliberately courts an international audience, yet turns zillions of tourists (and locals) away each year just because it doesn't like their 'mood'. Makes it kinda hard for techno pilgrims to decide whether the venue deserves to be in the top ten or not. (Note: I personally enjoy Berghain and even find many of its staff very sweet.  But anyone who spends a lot of time there has to admit that the security's behaviour is frequently indefensible). Local Berghain fans also seem laissez faire about the club's decline in the polls, and why should they be surprised?   Why believe what the readers of an English dance mag say about a place they see all the time? Back when I could afford to buy DJ magazine, it s...