"Der Klang der Familie: Berlin, Techno and the Fall of the Wall" [0] is a good book on the origins of the Berlin Techno scene. It's based on interviews and discussions by the people originally setting up the whole thing, making it a pretty breezy read that you don't necessarily have to go through chronologically.
No city can really replicate the absurd situation Berlin was in after the second world war. The absolute oppressive atmosphere, with one day the whole city getting flipped upside down. Anyone being able to take over a building on the East side and throw a party there. When before you could end up in a cell overnight for playing a boombox too loud on the street. The original location for Tresor (club) was the literal translation of the German word: A big old safe in a bank. That you had to climb down a ladder to get to.
An unexpected connection of cities is between Berlin and Detroit: Underground Resistance (a group of Detroit born Techno producers) among many others playing gigs in Tresor going back to the early nineties.
According to many people, including record shop owners I’ve talked to, Berlin’s scene is actually not so underground and not so cool anymore as a result of tourism and immigration. Rich people nowadays buy property in Potsdam, and the scene is moving towards Leipzig.
In a more general sense the old rave cities are making way, and have been making way, to other cities. A movement spanning more than 20 years now, thanks to very active promoter teams, leads to Lyon, Prague, Zagreb, Thessaloniki and even Sofia.
How exactly does the city and federal Government square this with their plan to build a huge (unwanted) freeway through the city and bulldoze multiple clubs and music venues?
The museum-ification of Europe continues unabated. I can't get into the mind of the people who thought that this award was a good idea, much less anyone who'd feel happy about receiving it (it's usually not the 'real' locals anyway, but people who are close enough to feel some connection but far enough to not be exposed to the reality; or people with financial interests).
The museum treatment is the end for any artform, IMHO; it's petrification. Did rock'n'roll grow and move and thrive after its Hall of Fame opened? I suppose there was grunge.
It freezes the artform in a certain state (and by who and how is that state chosen?) and defines it that way for eternity. That's death - growth and change are ended; like the dearly departed it's defined by memories of it, not who it will be today or tomorrow; it's no longer doing something new that will surprise you or make you uncomfortable; it's sometimes reenacted by people who try to represent it, who miss the point of art - to express something of your own.
Disclaimer: I live in Berlin currently but I've never been a techno person.
From what I hear from people who are, the clubs have become basically tourist traps that are unaffordable to locals and some have even been priced out of their original locations so not sure if this decision will help much.
They got much more expensive after the pandemic, in 2019 an expensive entrance was 18-20€, after it seems that some clubs are up to the 20-30€.
I remember in 2015 paying 10-15€, even Berghain would be around 15-18€ and that was expensive already.
The techno scene is still pretty good music-wise if you check the line-up and avoid the new fad of celebrity DJs from the past 8-10ish years. I'm very fond of my early techno days where you could barely see the DJ from the dancefloor, they would be spinning in the shadows and the focus was dancing (this in the early 2000s so not an OG at all to the scene from the 90s, and not in Berlin).
I moved in Berlin in 2016, which isn't too long ago but the prices were much cheaper (for some places that means sub-10 vs over 20 euros now, for Berghain it means half the price back then), and even then locals were the minority. Foreigners self-select by coming especially for the scene, while the % of locals here who care for it isn't that much higher than the % of locals born in other cities.
I think night clubs are always mostly tourist traps in most cities in the world. In Berlin, like other places, there are a few cream-of-the-crop that attract the locals.
Interestingly, as an expat/immigrant I've met all my local Berlin friends clubbing, and most of my friends here are German. My colleagues who don't go clubbing seem to be in little bubbles of other expats.
This is happening everywhere and with everything. IMHO its a result of the inflated "elite class", that is people who are well off enough to spend their days with consumption only or they were overpaid.
As a result, these people go everywhere and do consumption and outcompete everyone who is not like them. Then everything gets adjusted to their pleasure and they consume all the resources(being housing, food, entertainment etc).
Also, the supply and demand are not able to stabilize because the money moves around the globe freely but working people can't. So when a cryptobro from Russia moves to Portugal he can consume all the Portuguese resources but he can't bring fellow Russians to work and re-supply. Why wouldn't Portuguese just work harder and make buck by increasing the supply to meet the demand? Well because the cryptobro demands luxury housing, luxury food, massages, cars and cocaine but the Portuguese in the location they moved in are maybe painters, taxi drivers, chemical engineers or doctors and they can't simply start doing this new stuff.
The folks are angry with working class immigrants but most of their troubles are actually due to a-few-millionaires who are not rich enough to do substantial long-term investment but are rich enough to consume like there's no tomorrow.
We need an acknowledgment of the past, the origins, which may no longer be present. Detroit starting in the ‘80s and into the 90s would be the prime example. I wrote a short essay about the latter :
In the US it seems there's still a decent appetite to connect to the history of the genre. Carl Craig, Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins, Jeff Mills, etc. still tour regularly. In NYC, DJ Assault is currently holding a residency at Market Hotel. Nowadays has been running a series of "Foundations Nights" where they book a group of DJs representing the lineage of a particular style, which have been great. The Dweller festival has also been running for a few years which is a wonderful initiative (the name paying homage to Drexciya).
I agree that it's worth considering why Berlin has been chosen without acknowledgement to its roots (no shade to Berlin, I love that city and much of the music it has produced).
I enjoyed reading you essay. Coincidentally, U Street Music Hall was one of the venues that shaped my teenage years and served as my gateway into the electronic music scene.
This is great, though it's hard to ignore that there's a bit of techno-industrial-complex going on there. Still, there's a proper industry for electronic music, nice people, good clubs, good music, good record stores and that sense of freedom that comes with long opening hours - not just in the clubs.
One of my favourite things about Berlin is just sitting in a bar with friends till you're done for the night, no pressure to move on - often this can drag till 4 in the morning, but it doesn't feel laboured.
Not enough mention of LGBT, especially gay male, scenes, which are the foundation of German techno. Until very recently, Berghain was a gay club that plays techno, not a techno club that supports gay people. Many Berlin clubs are still gay orgies, including the ocassional basement show in Berghain, but more famously kitkat club.
I agree the scene is "dying" though, simply because Berlin is very different than it was 20 or 30 years ago. Robert Henke (Monolake) talks about this: after the wall collapsed, the factories in east Berlin were abandoned, and west Berlin were happily giving permission and even some money to any student who wanted to open an "artistic space" in one of the old factories. So it was easy, you had a very industrial space, you brought some speakers and some beer along, and suddenly you had a club.
This is basically a very rare cultural moment: large amounts of unused industrial space being given away to anyone who wants to party. Berlin is, of course, nothing like this now.
Hardwax.com still has the great picks, I definitely recommend looking there if you want great Berlin techno (and ambient, electro, etc.) that doesn't sound like the stale genre "Berlin techno"
Any Australians here who were there for Melbourne’s ‘dirty electro’ scene through the 00s-10s?
I feel very privileged to have lived my 30s through that time. Public Office in West Melbourne. The Lounge! Oh my god the Lounge on Swanston. E55 at the bottom end of Elizabeth. And let’s never forget Revolver, not that it needs forgetting as it’s still going.
Everyone in that scene was there for the music. We all danced, we all enjoyed each other, we went home together, we bonded over ciggies on the balcony, we stayed up all night, we shared everything. It was epic.
I’m 47 now. I have no mid-life crisis, and I put it down to living in Melbourne through my 30s. A spectacular little bubble in human history. x
and later made it to Berlin to being working tech crew for Wim Wenders Wings of Desire when the scene with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds was shot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPf6SWcENWo
Two decades seems excessive, I was there for the shortest no-wave ever(?) The Immaculate Consumptive in the time of Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel.
Melbourne's always seemed to have several layers of music scene on the go at any one time, for better or worse many of the acts travel onwards and outwards, some returning to base camp.
Not Australian but I wanted to say thanks for all the vids of the melbourne shuffle that came out around that period. Very entertaining for an american teenager
[+] [-] helloplanets|2 years ago|reply
No city can really replicate the absurd situation Berlin was in after the second world war. The absolute oppressive atmosphere, with one day the whole city getting flipped upside down. Anyone being able to take over a building on the East side and throw a party there. When before you could end up in a cell overnight for playing a boombox too loud on the street. The original location for Tresor (club) was the literal translation of the German word: A big old safe in a bank. That you had to climb down a ladder to get to.
An unexpected connection of cities is between Berlin and Detroit: Underground Resistance (a group of Detroit born Techno producers) among many others playing gigs in Tresor going back to the early nineties.
[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Klang-Familie-Felix-Denk/dp/373860429...
[+] [-] hackandthink|2 years ago|reply
The ladder was into the cellar of the Fischbüro location somewhere in Kreuzberg 36. (these guys started Tresor later)
(Eimer (Bucket) was a really bad location several years later, you wouldn't have been able to get out of the basement if ...)
[+] [-] aow83u45oaw8u|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] empath-nirvana|2 years ago|reply
I think you mean the cold war.
[+] [-] scns|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] larodi|2 years ago|reply
In a more general sense the old rave cities are making way, and have been making way, to other cities. A movement spanning more than 20 years now, thanks to very active promoter teams, leads to Lyon, Prague, Zagreb, Thessaloniki and even Sofia.
[+] [-] jamil7|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] t_mann|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wolverine876|2 years ago|reply
The museum treatment is the end for any artform, IMHO; it's petrification. Did rock'n'roll grow and move and thrive after its Hall of Fame opened? I suppose there was grunge.
It freezes the artform in a certain state (and by who and how is that state chosen?) and defines it that way for eternity. That's death - growth and change are ended; like the dearly departed it's defined by memories of it, not who it will be today or tomorrow; it's no longer doing something new that will surprise you or make you uncomfortable; it's sometimes reenacted by people who try to represent it, who miss the point of art - to express something of your own.
[+] [-] ChrisArchitect|2 years ago|reply
Demoscene
https://www.unesco.de/en/culture-and-nature/intangible-cultu...
[+] [-] mahmoudhossam|2 years ago|reply
From what I hear from people who are, the clubs have become basically tourist traps that are unaffordable to locals and some have even been priced out of their original locations so not sure if this decision will help much.
[+] [-] walthamstow|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] piva00|2 years ago|reply
I remember in 2015 paying 10-15€, even Berghain would be around 15-18€ and that was expensive already.
The techno scene is still pretty good music-wise if you check the line-up and avoid the new fad of celebrity DJs from the past 8-10ish years. I'm very fond of my early techno days where you could barely see the DJ from the dancefloor, they would be spinning in the shadows and the focus was dancing (this in the early 2000s so not an OG at all to the scene from the 90s, and not in Berlin).
[+] [-] Tenoke|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aqme28|2 years ago|reply
Interestingly, as an expat/immigrant I've met all my local Berlin friends clubbing, and most of my friends here are German. My colleagues who don't go clubbing seem to be in little bubbles of other expats.
[+] [-] mrtksn|2 years ago|reply
As a result, these people go everywhere and do consumption and outcompete everyone who is not like them. Then everything gets adjusted to their pleasure and they consume all the resources(being housing, food, entertainment etc).
Also, the supply and demand are not able to stabilize because the money moves around the globe freely but working people can't. So when a cryptobro from Russia moves to Portugal he can consume all the Portuguese resources but he can't bring fellow Russians to work and re-supply. Why wouldn't Portuguese just work harder and make buck by increasing the supply to meet the demand? Well because the cryptobro demands luxury housing, luxury food, massages, cars and cocaine but the Portuguese in the location they moved in are maybe painters, taxi drivers, chemical engineers or doctors and they can't simply start doing this new stuff.
The folks are angry with working class immigrants but most of their troubles are actually due to a-few-millionaires who are not rich enough to do substantial long-term investment but are rich enough to consume like there's no tomorrow.
[+] [-] technotarek|2 years ago|reply
https://technotarek.com/shows/richie-hawtin
[+] [-] _bohm|2 years ago|reply
I agree that it's worth considering why Berlin has been chosen without acknowledgement to its roots (no shade to Berlin, I love that city and much of the music it has produced).
I enjoyed reading you essay. Coincidentally, U Street Music Hall was one of the venues that shaped my teenage years and served as my gateway into the electronic music scene.
[+] [-] te_chris|2 years ago|reply
One of my favourite things about Berlin is just sitting in a bar with friends till you're done for the night, no pressure to move on - often this can drag till 4 in the morning, but it doesn't feel laboured.
[+] [-] bowsamic|2 years ago|reply
I agree the scene is "dying" though, simply because Berlin is very different than it was 20 or 30 years ago. Robert Henke (Monolake) talks about this: after the wall collapsed, the factories in east Berlin were abandoned, and west Berlin were happily giving permission and even some money to any student who wanted to open an "artistic space" in one of the old factories. So it was easy, you had a very industrial space, you brought some speakers and some beer along, and suddenly you had a club.
This is basically a very rare cultural moment: large amounts of unused industrial space being given away to anyone who wants to party. Berlin is, of course, nothing like this now.
[+] [-] treprinum|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yakshaving_jgt|2 years ago|reply
When the russians hit Odessa with missiles today, only 14 people died.
Thanks UNESCO!
[+] [-] morkalork|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bowsamic|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] afro88|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dopamean|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nemo44x|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HKH2|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dopamean|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] samatman|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] LAC-Tech|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rightbyte|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LAC-Tech|2 years ago|reply
If I zoom out further into EDM in general, I think of Paul van Dyk, but that's literally it.
My knowledge is dated, but it does fall in the realm of "post cold war", so I'm wondering why I can't think of more if this scene was so important.
[+] [-] ChrisArchitect|2 years ago|reply
https://www.unesco.de/kultur-und-natur/immaterielles-kulture...
[+] [-] world2vec|2 years ago|reply
What are your most favourite underrated techno clubs in Berlin? I've been to the big ones already, keen to explore the fringe places.
[+] [-] huseyinkeles|2 years ago|reply
And it's very close to the famous Mustafa's Gemuse Kebab, so you can try that afterwards.
[+] [-] input_sh|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WitCanStain|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] te_chris|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] low_tech_love|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jen729w|2 years ago|reply
I feel very privileged to have lived my 30s through that time. Public Office in West Melbourne. The Lounge! Oh my god the Lounge on Swanston. E55 at the bottom end of Elizabeth. And let’s never forget Revolver, not that it needs forgetting as it’s still going.
Everyone in that scene was there for the music. We all danced, we all enjoyed each other, we went home together, we bonded over ciggies on the balcony, we stayed up all night, we shared everything. It was epic.
I’m 47 now. I have no mid-life crisis, and I put it down to living in Melbourne through my 30s. A spectacular little bubble in human history. x
[+] [-] defrost|2 years ago|reply
However .. I was there for https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yyUO93JpEw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Band_scene
and later made it to Berlin to being working tech crew for Wim Wenders Wings of Desire when the scene with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds was shot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPf6SWcENWo
Two decades seems excessive, I was there for the shortest no-wave ever(?) The Immaculate Consumptive in the time of Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel.
Melbourne's always seemed to have several layers of music scene on the go at any one time, for better or worse many of the acts travel onwards and outwards, some returning to base camp.
[+] [-] pastor_bob|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _kb|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] samstave|2 years ago|reply
This is wonderful.