Gegen: An Alternative to the Alternatives
Gegen's been going strong for four years now, and guess what? Yours truly was the first blogger to write about them in English when they debuted at MIKZ club. There's not much left to say that hasn't already been said by me (or by Gegen - man, do they love to write!) so on the eve of tonight's party, Ass , I'm reposting this piece that I wrote for Alternative Berlin's blog in 2012. Enjoy! Alternative. What does the word even mean these days? In its origins, the word alternative was used to label anything that could not be easily categorized or was non-mainstream. Over time, those un-categorizable tendencies settled into categories of their own, becoming the subcultures that most of us are familiar with: goth, indie, punk, rave, hippy, hip hop and so on. Every alternative scene starts out nameless and ambiguous but eventually resigns itself to becoming just another label with unspoken rules and codes that everyone in it is expected to obey. Th