Unscene Berlin

What would you say if somebody told you that you had to like the same music as everybody else? Or wear the same clothes, or sleep with the same kind of people? You would think they were a mad throwback to the Quaker era, wouldn't you? Especially here in Berlin. In Berlin there is a dazzling variety of individual tastes on display at all times: in music, art, fashion, film, friends, lovers... you name it. And there seems to be a tacit agreement that all variations in taste are accepted automatically, especially around Christopher Street Day. And yet it seems that this same capacity for variety and individual taste is not applied to what goes on inside of people's heads. Expressing my political opinions to other people has led to me being labelled fanciful, confrontational, novel - basically, anything but normal. It seems that mainstream Berlin is not that different from the rest of the Western world on the inside. It can look however it wants and consume whatever it wants but...

The rain  pandemic god has blessed Berlin with a deluge  novel coronavirus this weekend  decade, but the crappy weather  lockdown situation does have its upside: it gives party animals like me an excuse to stay home and catch up on missing sleep, and relax with a good book. Or a movie. Or twelve! In this post, I've listed 12 films which will bring a little slice of club or party lifestyle straight into your living room... for better or for worse! I've listed them in order of preference. So, get your furry antelope slippers on and join me on the sofa for a virtual dance-athon. The party vibe doesn't have to evaporate just because your desire  legal right to go outside has!* 1. It's All Gone Pete Tong - 2004 The only reason this is number one instead of Trainspotting is that it is entirely about club culture, whereas Trainspotting merely crosses paths with it. It’s All Gone Pete Tong is hilarious, surreal and it satirizes Ibiza's club scene with lethal...

Much as I love the heat, it is Kryptonite to my chilly Northern blood. Since the beginning of this endless heatwave that we call 'summer', the nearest thing I've had to real sleep has been brief, feverish spells of near consciousness between 23.00 (when the last grey light disappears from the sky) and dawn. My salvation during this sleep-deprived period has been the abundance of outdoor parties available down Rummelsberg way. The reason why I have not been recording them is due to a simple refusal to sit inside, typing entries when I could be sitting - or dancing - on the Spree. Plus, my heat-exhausted brain just hasn't been up to the exertion of creating and editing sentences. Anyway, enough excuses. Please read on for a sample of what I have been getting up to over the past two weeks! Right: 'Avin it corporate style at Astra Kulturhaus, May 28. After searching aimlessly for an open-air on Saturday May 27th, a friend and I were somehow teleported into the...

I once read a column in a well-known Berlin magazine, in which the columnist attempted to review an illegal, underground venue. Though the article was well-written, the description of the venue was so vague and uninformative that I may as well have been reading an ancient Egyptian document without the aid of the Rosetta Stone. The article exemplified a dilemma that I face on a regular basis: namely, how do I report on the places I love best without giving too much away? To do so would be to expose them to the trend-hunters, thereby killing their edgy status. The conundrum of reviewing parties in Berlin is that the best ones must remain un-reviewed and unreported-on. They would be destroyed or, at the very least, seriously degraded, by the approval of self-appointed arbiters of taste (of which I am one). That's because reviews are written for people who wish to catalogue and cross-reference their pleasures in a clinical way. Meanwhile, the appeal of Berlin's best parties d...

Techno Deluge   At Sisyphos there is plenty to look at: fleshy drapes; giant glittering baubles; trellis towers; doll's heads; motion-sensitive light sprays in the halls.  Passing by crowds of people bedecked by all the above trappings in the outdoor yard, I head to the dark inside. The first room that I blunder into is saloon bar full of dancing lights, wafting ribbons, swaying bodies. Beneath the deco, I see the black ribs of a warehouse jutting in the dark like the backstage area of a theatrical set. Later, my friends and I search out a spot nearer to the techno that's booming down the hall from the Hammahalle.  We find a second room where our personal sphere is reduced to a crawl-space. The unyielding mass of people drawn towards its sweaty beat turn this cavern into a human labyrinth.  Normally that's the sort of vibe we go in for... but it feels off in here, somehow. It's oversubscribed, this word of mouth location. We're pushed back and forth thr...

 Deutsch I love art and I love parties and when you put the two things together, I'm in seventh heaven. Cassiopeia and Tacheles are well known examples of venues which combine clubbing with culture... and climbing too, if that's your cup of tea, but I find them a bit crowded and impersonal. That's why I am always on the lookout for places which attract the masses without feeling mass-produced. Last weekend I finally checked out Brunnen 70 and what I saw there put it at the top of the list. I went there with a friend on a Saturday night.  After passing the chilled security check, we were ushered into a small room, empty except for an old-fashioned settee against the far wall, and two door staff who were propping up a table with a shoe (labeled 'tips') on it. They smiled at us as a second steel door slid closed behind us, sealing the room shut. My friend and I were slightly freaked out. "Wow, okay... this is a small club..." I began to say, befo...

East of Ostkreuz and south of Frankfurter Allee lies a white-washed shanty-town of factories, cobblestone streets and rubble-strewn sidewalks. It's a blank spot on the map, sandwiched between Friedrichshain, Lichtenberg and Rummelsberg. Lately I’ve been trying to think of a new name to fill in that blank: Ostenberg? Frankenkreuz? The area might not have quite the same exotic catchet as Kreuzkolln (another trendy Berlin borderland) but it does have its own niche to pull in the crowds: after-hours clubs. Frankfurter Allee and Ostkreuz S-bahn stations mark the eastern boundaries of Friedrichshain. They are the last exits to clubland for partiers who simply cannot face going home yet... and if the solid afterhours scene in this area is anything to go by, there are more people who can't face it than there are who can. Salon Zur Wilden Renate (which I have already covered here ) ://about blank, KILI Lounge, K-Pax and a few more ad hoc venues are located a few minutes' ...