überlin

Summer’s arrived! In the form of UhOh‘s tribute to The Beach Boys, “Ride On”. The Berlin-Munich-Neverland(?) electro band’s new single weaves Wilson brothers-style close harmonies into a blend of chillwave and dreampop that is at once nostalgic and ever so NOW. Its accompanying cool breeze of a video, filmed on location at Big Sur, will make you long to be on a Northern California beach, running into the white stuff with board in hand. Surf’s up!

“Ride On” by UhOh is out now. The Beach Boys play the O2 World Berlin on 3rd August 2012.

Mr. Sexpat is a twentysomething English expat living, and occasionally loving, in Berlin. Join us as we follow him into the seamy underbelly of the city’s single scene.

Fearing another German summer spent unloved, in a romantic and naked sense, I recently took advice from that fountain of knowledge Glee and decided to try to be something I’m not: conscientious.

Berlin is notorious for its citizens’ strong political views and rightly so! Having been put through more history stress than Dr. Sam Beckett, they can be a baffling bunch to those raised in more indifferent political climes. Plus chicks dig dudes who are into “issues”! I have targeted a number of the city’s fringe groups as part of a hard-hitting exposé, in the name of journalism and sexual gratification.

Please be aware, what follows is disturbing, desperate and 83% true.

Politics
At first I feared this subject might be the most difficult to blag, but what at first seemed like a daunting task was in fact a total doss!

Politics cover such a wide range of bewildering subjects that I worried the activist-fitties might smell my fear, even over their dreadlocks. Fortunately I was born without fear – or common sense – so I waded crotch-deep into the political arena throwing opinions around like used tissues in my bedroom. Off I went, beer in hand, following all the young protesters down to Potsdamer Platz…

“CSD Berlin 2010. Schwule gegen Westerwelle.” by ЯAFIK ♋ BERLIN under Creative Commons licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

After some quick Google-translating I managed to work out that everyone there was unhappy with how some people are being treated somewhere else… So we stood around for awhile, drank some beers and shouted at the Polizei (who we really don’t like). I soon realise all the Frauleins already have exactly what keeps me awake most nights, caked in sweat: boyfriends.

I’m not sure if we did ever save those poor people in wherever but I’m sure Captain Planet heard everyone loud and clear. But I must admit the dreadlocks are a problem for me, ethically speaking.

Veganism
No.

Feminism
At first this was the one group I was most eager to tackle as it seemingly involves little to no effort. After a quick peruse of Wikipedia I realised that just saying you’re a feminist is not enough.

Now before your undergarments start playing Twister let me supply just a few examples of why I should be crowed Ultra Mega King of The Feminists. (Please note I have made the following into a simple list for our female readers…)

• Today I opened a door for a lady.
• I think Joss Whedon writes women really well.
• I have never, ever punched a girl. Except during Street Fighter.
• Once I dated a German girl.
• I firmly believe that the women’s section of H&M is far superior to the men’s.
• I listen to Sleater-Kinney.

Unfortunately my new palace of equal opportunity fell to rubble as soon as I realised it was no longer forward-thinking or even mildly attractive to treat women as equals. Turns out, everyone is doing this already. Bastards.

“Slut Walk 2011053” by JamesReaPhotos under Creative Commons licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0)

So what have learned this time, dear readers? Again, shite all. Perhaps you will take some comfort from my recent experiences/traumas and not pretend to be something you’re not just to get laid. Personally I’m all for gentrifying the streets of Berlin until a normal, dull woman pops out from under the ground naked and covered in gentrificate.

Until next time my fellow Sexpatriots, keep on gentrificating.

One of the few downsides of living in Berlin is a lack of mid-range, refined restaurants. There are great street food vendors and homely, local-owned eateries, and, at the other end of the scale, Michelin-starred “dining experiences”, but not much in-between. That’s why we were delighted to hear that PANTRY had opened at Friedrichstrasse, on the site of the short-lived second location of Chipps.

PANTRY specialises in “Iberian-Pacific” cuisine, a fusion of the chefs’ training in Melbourne’s Thai restaurants and love of the Mediterranean. For us, that meant starters of an expertly-spiced hot and sour beef salad with rocket, wild herbs, pomegranate and orange couscous, and grilled Pulpo Fuego with corn crackers, chili and caramelised crispy pork. I then suppressed my envy as Zoë tucked into a succulent entrecôte served with sweet potato pommes and PANTRY’s “Double Impact” blend of Bernaise sauce and BBQ paste… but when I sunk my teeth into my perfectly-crisped free range chicken with liquorice Spargel all my jealousy melted away.

My only criticism is that PANTRY’s crème brûlée-like “Californication” (!) take on key lime pie strayed a little too far from the American pud I love so much. Never mind – as the menu changes monthly, we look forward to seeing what other sweet treats emerge from their open kitchen. Overall, PANTRY is a sleek but welcoming restaurant which turns out some of the most distinctive, well-flavoured dishes we’ve tasted in Berlin; an exciting addition to the city’s cuisine scene.

PANTRY
Freidrichstrasse 120
10117 Berlin-Mitte
pantry-berlin.com

EDIT: Did you know that What I Know About Germans is now a book? Check it out here!

Wow, what a week! Our post “What I Know About Germans” went viral, bringing us more visitors in four days than we’ve ever had in the history of überlin, as well as media attention and tribute posts! The writer, Liv from A Big Life, was just as surprised by the response, especially the controversy surrounding her suggestion that “Germans are bizarrely wary of drinking tap water”! (For more on “Tapwatergate”, read her update to the original post.) But we know that we’ve only scratched the surface of our adopted countrymen’s weird and wonderful character traits, and we need your help to fill in the blanks!

Being thorough Germans (see point #11), some readers noticed that our listed ended at 78, and started making suggestions for a top 100 things to know about Germans. We want to nail points 79 – 100, and we would like you to provide the inspiration.

The suggestions we’ve had so far include:

• “German men love their cars and dogs more than their wives”
• “Maybe add eating cereal with orange juice instead of milk too”
• “cheesecake and orange tans”

Think you know better? Give us your ideas in the comments below, on our Facebook page, or by tweeting using the hashtag #wikag. You have until the end of next Tuesday (19th June), when we’ll write up the rest of our list. Thanks in advance for your awesome ideas!

So…  What do YOU know about Germans?

Wandering bass activist Filastine is playing at RAUM in Neukölln this Saturday, and we have 2 pairs of tickets to give away! The Barcelona-based artist’s nomadic lifestyle, and incorporation of disparate global sonics into a unique bottom-heavy blend, reminds me a little of Amon Tobin, but I’ll let you make your own mind up. Here’s the video to “Colony Collapse”:

Filastine

is on tour with his singer Nova from Indonesia, mashing out some ethnic global beats to dirty basslines, looped percussion hooks, a synched audio-visual show for which he built his own software, Indonesion gamelan sounds, balkan trumpets, and field recordings. He has toured with Bassnectar and opened for Diplo, played all festivals from SXSW to Sonar, CTM and Fusion, passed possibly through all squats in the whole world, playing from Tunis to Damaskus, brought a bike-sound-swarm to the Climate Summit in Copenhagen, supported the Spanish uprising and was formerly known for leading the 20-piece-marching-band The Infernal Noise Brigade.

Sounds awesome right? Just leave us a comment below, and you and a friend could be going to this special audio-visual show for free. You have until 6pm Berlin time on Friday (15th June), when we’ll pick two winners at random, and notify them by email that they +1 are on the guestlist.

Good luck!

Facebook Event details

[EDIT: I’ve disabled autoplay on the videos as it was *super* annoying. To experience Berlin Calling: Symphony of a Great City, click the two play buttons above in quick succession. Enjoy!]

I’ve always loved mashups, and recently Zoë and I taken to blending Berlin content. We started by turning Fuckparade icon Techno Viking into a 1920s silent movie, and now I’ve mashed together two famous visions of Berlin past and present – Berlin: Symphony of a Great City and the soundtrack to Paul Kalkbrenner’s Berlin Calling.

I’ve had my eyes on Walter Ruttmann’s “city symphony” for some time, harbouring vague plans to replace its lost score with sounds recorded in modern-day Berlin. In the meantime, Kalkbrenner will do nicely (although I’m still pleased with my shortlist of possible soundtracks, local dub techno pioneer Monolake, Mogwai and Boys Noize at last year’s Berlin Festival, and Jimi Hendrix’s 1970 performance at Deutschlandhalle). I was able to knock together these video mashups with the help of the neat tool YouTube Doubler, and our Tweep 12pt9 who introduced us to it. Danke schön!

Think you have a better soundtrack for Symphony of a Great City? Got any ideas for other Berlin video mashups? Drop us a link in the comments below and we’ll check them out!

Anastasia Levy takes us on a tour of the abandoned Soviet camps of Jüterbog. All words and images her own.

Take a bunch of French and English expats, tell them about some abandoned Soviet camps an hour outside of Berlin, and you can get them to wake up at 7am on a Sunday morning for the first time in their lives. Of course the English one is hungover, but eh, what did you expect?

Despite getting lost in the Berlin suburbs after just five minutes on the road, we’re soon on our way to Jüterbog, a sweet abandoned town in Brandenburg. So sweet that, before the DDR settled hundreds of thousands of Soviets there, Hitler had a “gruß Postkarte” (greetings card) made to commemorate his 1938 visit.

Built in the nineteenth century as an artillery centre, Jüterbog was occupied by the military until 1990, when the “groups of Soviet forces in Germany” left the reunified country. OK, enough with the history lesson, all of which has been badly Google Translated from the Internet. We didn’t know much about the place before going, and we obviously didn’t learn much more when we were there – but the remains speak for themselves.

The now abandoned site is quite huge, and surrounded by wire fences and boards saying “Betreten verboten – Lebensgefahr”. Fortunately none of us could understand German, and the wire’s really easy to get through, because what’s inside is definitely worth the risk. Beware careful though – we got kicked out by local guards after two hours of exploring, when we tried to enter what seemed to be the best-kept building. That won’t deter us from going back, and making another trip through history. But next time we won’t get up so early!