Unscene Berlin

Even though I'm working right into the wee hours of Tag Der Arbeit (ironically), when I emerge into daylight, wreathed in smoke from the dance floor, I will do what every other Vitamin D deficient member of Berlin's nightlife community does: go to a free openair. I'm not sure why, or how, but every year since I first got here, the Berlin club community has had a sort of "opendoor openair" day. The entrance at [most] clubs is free... yes, even at the coolest and most expensive clubs. I think it's because they're all Social Marxist Degenerates (at least, according to the AfD  they are) with Hippy Utopian Leanings (at least, according to me they are). I Don't Know Why I Feel The Need To Use Caps For Those Sorts Of Phrases but it's really hard on the fingers so I'm just going to stop it, now. You will want to take advantage of this annual spirit of generosity by checking out as many never-seen-before Berlin venues as your dilated pupils ca...

Photo via Manic Panic Website You know it's full-on summertime in Berlin when every weekend is suddenly exploding at the seams with hotly-anticipated events.  Even if you're picky (like yours truly) you may feel the need to create a few clones of yourself in order to keep up with it all! But there's no need to get burned as you pursue the heat of the action : just read our shortlist to find the hottest places to go manic or fight the summertime panic in the coming weeks. Christopher Street Day (CSD - Saturday July 23rd   Why is it manic?  Well it's the largest gay pride march in Europe, and it's happening in one of its most liberal cities , so Berlin CSD is massive, mad and saucy fun. And this year's motto ('Thanks for Nothing' ) is sufficiently tough and timely to appeal to our surly alter egos, too. Tresor's 25th birthday party - Friday July 22 to Monday July 2 5  This will be a marathon of mania,...

"Time To Dance" paste-up by SOBR, Berlin. "We are not going to demand anything. We are not going to ask for anything. We are going to take. We are going to occupy." Reclaim the Streets manifesto ( Do Or Die ) Here in Berlin, it's always "Time to Dance"... even if you're just waiting at the tram stop at 8:00 a.m. on a Monday morning, and even if you're eyeing your bank account's minus-balance on a graffiti-covered cash machine screen at midnight.  After all, just because the party's ended doesn't mean your buzz has to. The season when it becomes most evident that the beat never stops in Berlin is in the summer, when a series of street parties and festivals acts the main stage, turning the swollen ranks of the clubbing network into mere after-party and pre-party stop-offs on the way back to the great urban outdoors.    And now that we've gotten past the most over-hyped outdoor parade of the year (not naming any names h...

Fusion?  Sold out.  Burning Man?  Too far out.  Glastonbury & Melt?  Rip-offs.  Boom Festival?  R.I.P. Even though the European festival circuit keeps expanding year on year, the inspiring and revolutionary events that started the trend seem to be a perpetually endangered species.  In this post, I suggest a few authentic underground festivals in Germany and Europe that are still outstripping their overhyped, overpriced competitors for both style and substance.  Follow this guide, and you may still be able to have fun in a field this summer with nothing but a backpack, some hard work and an open mind... Free teknival crackdown in Czech, 2006 Enter the search terms 'European underground music festival' into Google and you'll get nearly endless results.  So many festivals out there, all claiming to be authentic and eclectic; yet they all seem to blend into one, big generic blur.  They all last three to four days. They all fea...

I am in a hallway in a turn-of-the-century community centre with high ceilings; the patchy walls are decked with fairy lights, protest posters peel from the yellowing walls.   Every inch of the scuffed floors is filled with the shuffling feet of a rainbow crowd.  Dogs weave through a crowd of black and white Rastas, hippies with pastel dreads and randoms with out-grown, razor-cut hair do's. Fresh-faced white activists & weary black men cross paths and chat.   All around them, people are smiling & swaying in droves... People squeezing their way down the hall slow as they pass by a group of Africans propping up a bar, in the middle of the hall. Passers-by are dragged in by the exhibitionist banter.  The air is peppered with giddy outbursts of hilarity.  A nother exchange of stories and ideas ignites.  Hip hop and reggae throbs out of a spacious room, at one end of the hall.   At the other end, clean-shaven hardtek fans in militant gea...