Unscene Berlin

I'm playing infinite-scroll roulette on my Twitter feed. I swipe, and watch the posts flip past at warp speed, blurring like the stars outside the windows of the SS Enterprise. Where will it come to a stop? * An ad for a food show * Coronavirus politics * Clever German psychobabble * People openly advocating drug use * Earth Day * Pets wearing clothes? It occurs to me that everything's changed but many people don't even realise it, because nothing's changed on Twitter. Or Facebook. Or Instagram. Or CNN, BBC, Reuters, etc.  All of the mass media templates are holding patterns for a mentality that's optimised for panic. Outrage. Fear. They hang on to those emotions rabidly, regardless of what actually happens in the real world. Caging our adaptability. "Nonapocalyptic reality is simply not hospitable to [disaster capitalism's] ambitions,” writes Naomi Klein in her book The Shock Doctrine. Our disaster-fuelled me...

When people arrive in this town - particularly when they take one of the alternative tours  that I organise - they usually ask me where the best parties are to be found in Berlin. As anyone who's lived in Berlin a while knows, it is a hard question to answer. That's because the best nights tend to be quite nomadic, which makes them hard to pin down to any single venue. Berlin's best  club  nights tend to be more like word of mouth 'name brands' that move around from place to place, never staying in one spot for long. There's a reason why there are so many floating (as in, on a boat) parties in this city, people, and it's got more to do with ease of transport than it does with any desire to be seen "yacht clubbing it"! Tal der Verwirrung is an excellent example of this: a trippy, downtempo party that plays slow, disco house and trance, it has moved around to at least three venues in the past five years, and probably more that I'm unawa...

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...

This is Berlin Where SoHo is so over NoHo is no more The hip and happening districts here are all in the MoFNo (Middle of Fucking Nowhere). The MoFNo isn't just limited to a static piece of land, though, with boundaries as concrete as a fence. No - the epicentre of cool is defined as being any place that everyone else isn't, and has never been: it is continuously dispersing even as people flock to it, like a tail pursued by its comet. In Palma de Majorca, the locals blame Germans who flee to their beaches for spoiling their coastline, now southerners fleeing to Berlin are blamed for spoiling the city, as well. Blamed for bringing the cold iron fist of law down in their wake, condemning the residents to eternal flightiness. Both complaints are expressions of the same illness: discomfort within one's cultural skin, a skin shaped by outsiders and authorities we can't see. In the Berliners' devotion to vagueness, I see the idea of having a c...

Last week, I stumbled upon Blo Ateliers, an art space that's been managing to keep " one of the most interesting and largest artist communities in eastern Berlin" hidden from me for the last four years, despite being right on my doorstep in Lichtenberg .   It doesn't feel like you're going to an art venue; the road's cracked and flooded and leads towards what seems like the deadest of ends.  There are signs telling you to stop, that the yard's for rail employees only, even as a handwritten sign promises that there's an free exhibition on. After a few seconds' hesitation, like the kind that I get before every new discovery made in Berlin ( is this a new find, or is it all in my mind? ) I went ahead in.  A courtyard opened up and around each crumbling building in the complex, the litter of half-finished sculptures, DIY gardens and pointed statements written in graffiti and kept carefully clear of encroaching trees ...

Unscene Berlin is currently penniless (thanks, Ibiza) but that didn't stop her having brunch and taking a cabaret (read: puppetshow) for free in Boxhagener Platz, Friedrichshain.  Read on to find out how... A breezy, polite hippy in a tidy ponytail came up to my friend and I in Boxhagener Platz, today.  Leaning over us and smiling, he said, "English or Deutsch?" "Depends what you're selling," I quipped. This is an ingrained reflex... I work in the Mitte, after all, which is home of Berlin's biggest 'Speak English?' begging community.  But the hippy dude recoiled like I'd tarnished his idealistic credentials, and cried, "We are selling nothing! I only wanted to invite you to have some free food, if you like."  Then he turned to my mate and explained, in German, that he is part of a group that collects brunch-buffet munchies (brunchies?) from the cafes and restaurants surrounding Boxhagener Platz, and hands them out for free...

The " Reclaim Kottbusser Tor " venue looks as good as SFB sounds Berlin's club scene may be gritty and psychedelic but it is also strangely predictable, and often awash in disco-y house sounds.  Searching for events that have an underground, experimental feeling to match their underground, experimental decor can be a lot like exploring a three-dimensional "Where's Waldo" p rint ( or maybe' you'd call it "Where's Weirdo" instead?).   When I went to my first Sounds for Berlin openair party over a year ago, I thought I'd found the kind of party crew I'd been looking for since my arrival in Berlin.  They were open-minded, openair, friendly and native to the city.  They had a high quality sound system and high-energy DJs who played an unpredictable but balanced mix of sounds: tech house, hard techno, chillout.  T here was even a bit of dark psytrance in there, somewhere.  So clearly they can walk the walk, do they talk the tal...

The RAW cafe is somewhere I only go when I'm in a special mood. It's an echoey space where every conversation that you start somehow ends up involving every person in the room. Despite its size, the RAW feels intimate because it is home to a tight-knit group of global individuals: musicians, artists and street life. You should only visit it if you're willing to go with the flow because the crowd will expect you to be a bit DIY, spontaneous and to open up. But hey, isn't that the reason why you go out in the first place? The space in Revaler Strasse (adjacent to RAW Tempel club) is utilitarian and minimal in the real sense of the word - not as a fashion statement.  So if you just want to people-watch or are looking for a specific style, you should to opt for one of the hundred or so million other nightspots in the area. There is a great open mic night on Thursdays though; the performances are so tight that it's more like watching a series of short gigs. ...