Preview: Damp, but Undampened: The Week In Parties

Friday the 13th is supposed to be one of those days when bizarre and inexplicable things happen.  But, if the day should fail to live up to your expectations, you could do worse than to drop in to Blitz #15: A Genderfucking New Experience at Horst.

Photos from past events and flyers (left) suggest a veritable bazaar of the bizarre awaits you there. And at only six euros in before midnight, it's perfect for bargain hunters, too.

Open air action seems to be picking up this weekend... come rain or shine. Griessmühle (right) and Neustockland will be putting on their regular summer events on Friday & Saturday, respectively.

We went to Griessmühle last Friday expecting to have an early night but, as the hours got later the stoned house music drank a Club Mate and livened up.  At 12:30 a.m. the dance-floor was packed, glittery girls & boys bouncing around to the beats. They'd clearly been planning on moving on to a more hip nightspot after Griessmuehle, but then they got sucked into the swirly musical vortex like we did. Maybe they're still there!

Saturday the 14th, the outdoor Familia Techno Nostra party will be rocking Karlshorst, in distant East Berlin.  They're definitely winners of the least-likely-places-to-rave award.  While nearby Sisyphos and other Rummelsburg clubs will be playing slow, chugging minimal music to a hipster crowd too cool to break a sweat, La Familia Techno Nostra will feature rousing beats by live drumming techno outfit The Drum Connection.  AND they'll also give you a free drink on entry, which is all we need to hear! Full disclosure, though: the tram journey involved in getting to the venue is a downside; so is the possibility of a prole massive taking over the dancefloor... but at least you can count on them having better taste in music than they do in fashion!
 

Saturday and Sunday, Symbionten are doing a cutely-named Open Hair party on Grenzallee in Neukölln on Sunday and they've listed the price as "Meow"(?).

On Sunday, Lichtpark (right) will have another legal open air party on Michaelskirchestrasse, next to Kater Holzig. We were there last Sunday and I didn't think that it was anything special. The beach was all good, and so was the sunshine, and the friendly dancers... but it seems criminal to charge five euros for those things when Lichtpark can't take credit for any of them. It was pretty obvious that our money wasn't going to the sound system (small & too quiet) or to the bar (understaffed and with a queue three people deep). Where is Kiki Blofeld when you need it? Apparently, it's now serving as Kater's back garden. 

Despite their tenuousness, spontaneous & illegal open airs remain the most reliable examples of Berlin's experimental spirit. After cycling away from the Lichtpark open air, in the middle of a lightning storm nonetheless, my friend and I dropped into an anonymous party in an abandoned lot by An Den Treptowers bridge. There we were greeted by the sight of a young lady who was, er, 'experimenting' with upright urination on the dance floor. Her stream mingled with all the other puddles on the pavement, which was strewn with broken glass and fringed with graffiti-sprayed walls. Dogs were running loose around the lot and nearly all the skin on display was etched with ink.

We felt too clean and devoid of tattoos right from the start, but it got more off-the-hinge from there.   Sadly the festivities were cut short by the arrival of the Polizei who made a clean sweep of the 500 metres of derelict, Mediaspree E.v.-owned riverside surrounding to the party site. Not even a pair of lovers that was canoodling on a public bench was given leave to stay.

It seemed like a small foretaste of the Berlin Mediaspree, backed by the Berlin Senate, are hoping to create, and what they expect the current party community to do in the near future.   

Speaking of which, the annual demo/street party against Mediaspree starts Saturday July 14th at 14:00. Be there!

All photos © A. Elliott