Unscene Berlin

Aside from the red Ganesh banner hanging over the decks, the bar in R19 is indistinguishable from the bar of any other after-hours club I've been to; think Sisyphos or Ritter Butzke at 1:00 p.m.  It's sultry, red-tinged and smoky.  The crumpled leather sofas and armchairs are full of grinning, blurry people swaying and resisting the call of gravity to assume a more horizontal position. A DJ is casually manipulating the atmosphere from an inconspicuous spot in the corner.  Tech-house beats slouch along at a sedate pace and drawling vocals are slowed to the speed of dark, cool treacle.  I am far too awake for this type of after-hours club but, luckily, R19 has an alternative variety on offer. A quickening pulse pulls me along the hall, away from the bar and into a second, bigger room.  Entering it feels like stepping into a hard trance all-dayer from the mid-nineties.  Everyone is on their feet in a fluro-washed darkness that's bubbling with spacey riffs...

There are two reasons why I haven't been blogging regularly about Berlin's party scene lately: one good, one bad.  The good reason is that I've been extremely busy plugging away at a book about the rise and fall (and rise again) of London's underground party scene.  I will be publishing that novel in E-book format this spring, with free excerpts and a special price for all Unscene Berlin readers.  Stay posted for updates! The 'bad' reason is that, to be honest, nothing much has changed in Berlin's party scene in a-g-e-s.  There are still tons of parties in Berlin every weekend, and they are still as cheap and liberal as ever, but the sound hasn't changed.  The DJ's haven't changed.  The venues and party names haven't really changed very much either.  Thrill-seeking novelty-junkies like myself are hard-pressed to find a fix in this town, these days.   I'm not saying there's anything wrong with a bit of consistency, but wh...

“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!”   Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas For the New Year's party listing, please scroll down. If you believe that the mid-winter holidays are about sharing, relaxing and hanging with friends and family, you may be feeling a bit like a Cindy Lou Who in a world full of Grinches right now.  Every other news broadcast seem to be tracking pre-Christmas sales like they're the pulse of an ailing patient, and the unseasonably warm streets have emptied of people, while the artificially-lit sweat shops of Ku'damm et al are full of shoppers grimly chomping up deals like pie-eating contestants about to explode.  Not caring about money and, well, stuff at this time of year almost feels like sacrilege, and wanting to share for sharing's sake feels a little bit naive.  But if you...

A few weeks back I got an email from a reader asking for recomendations of a "few nice bars with good techy house tunes with a bit minimalistic sounds".  I sent them to Farbfernseher .   It was only after doing that that I realized I haven't actually been to FF yet, despite hearing rave reviews about it over the past couple of years.  The club is centrally located on Skalitzer Strasse, Kreuzberg, and it is better known than the place that I usually try to write about on this blog.  (Maybe that's why I never went; not enough of a challenge?). In the interest of keeping readers up to speed on the state of Berlin clubland I grabbed a friend and went down to Kreuzberg to check this Colour TV (which is what Farbfernseher translates to) place out. It was a rainy Friday night when we arrived but we didn't have to wait in the line too  long.  The security did hum and haw a bit before letting us in, even though it was still early and we had guest list entry....