Unscene Berlin

I've been getting plenty of requests for New Year's Eve tips for Berlin and have been reluctant to provide any suggestions for two simple reasons: 1) I won't be around and 2) frankly, cheap underground parties are as rare as hen's teeth at New Year's Eve.  December 31st is probably the only time of year when the average Easyjet setter is actually better off staying home, as party prices rise enough to offset any of those great deals that they fly across Europe in the hope of finding.  It's a day when buses, tents, backyards and probably even large cardboard boxes sitting unattended in alleys will suddenly be converted, with the aid of a disco ball and a bouncer, into 'venues' charging for entry. New Year's Eve (Silvester as it's known in Germany) is all about finding a place that offers the best quality of experience for the relatively high price.  The Burning Man New Year's Eve party at Urban Spree seems to cover a lot of bases.  Altho...

This weekend I'll be revisiting Tacheles to perform a raindance for its continued survival. Of course, there were parties like that last weekend too, immediately after the courts handed down their verdict that the art squat's most recent eviction was illegal. But the line up at this Saturday's Industrial Berlin party is right up my dark, dingy, glass-strewn, beer-spattered alley. With Tacheles' latest, illegal closure barely a week old, it seems like a good time to be reliving the acid-industrial parties that helped to put squats like this on the map. On a less-tangibly-political tangent is the Beats against Corruption party at Mein Haus Am See this Wednesday . This 'benefit party' will be in aid of Transparency International . What is Transparency International, you ask? The answer to that question is not as transparent as you might think, ironically enough. After a little bit of digging around online, all I can say for sure about Transparency Intl. ...

The lakeside beach was striped with bars of light. Sculptures that had been erected earlier leaned sideways in the sand, like mystical relics of a cybernetic race of fairies. Projections played across the waterside trees. Stray lasers refracted off of the water's surface in glimmering eddies. The people sprawled on the hilly shoreline basked in the light-show’s midnight sun as louche young things twisted in a sandy dance pit below. Spliffs were passed around. People asked each other, “Where are you from?” and “What do you do?” and "Hey, do you wanna threesome?" while trying to retrace the steps they'd taken to arrive at this unified state… or maybe I should say, unified 'nation'. And then trace new paths to an even deeper union, it seemed.  The light show and the people were the two greatest things about Nation of Gondwana. Several images stick in mind: the guy lying next to the fire who managed to sleep on blissfully as a burning stick fell onto hi...