I do pay attention, honest! The drawing helps me concentrate… vielleicht.
Author: James
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Peaches Does Herself
Category: EntertainmentWe didn’t think we’d be able to post about “Peaches Does Herself”, as it was so amazing that Zoë couldn’t take her eyes off the stage long enough to focus her camera, and I was left with no words to describe what I’d witnessed. Luckily, our friends at Good Hard Working People saw the show last year and gave it a great write-up, republished below – which means we can get on with describing the wrongest moments of a performance that reached new levels of wrong. Scroll down for our panty droppin’ show stoppers…
…the fully staged, choreographed and art-directed show “Peaches Does Herself”, which celebrated the 10th anniversary of the first album (“Teaches by Peaches”) by Canadian-born, Berlin-based electronic music artist and DJ Peaches.
Peaches sings in the operating table (the green lights functioned as musical instruments played by performers)
The show tells a comprehensive story of a woman going through a sex change and looking for love – all through the use of various songs by Peaches and very effectively staged with great attention to detail, well-designed costumes and sets and choreographed and performed by talented dancers and actors with humor and sass. It became obvious that this was a production by gifted and hard-working people. Of course, I can’t ignore the fact that the themes of many songs and the show might be upsetting to some (although apparently not to Peaches’ parents who came on stage in the end and even hollered lyrics into the mic, which was such an endearing moment) – and that there is quite extensive nudity.
Watch an official behind-the-scenes video for “Peaches Does Herself”:
Here is a NSFW clip of a scene that features the nude and quite stunning Hermaphrodite (or transsexual) – who seemed to be both a perfect-looking man and a perfect-looking woman and a talented ballet dancer. The clip also features Peaches in her not-so perfect looking Hermaphrodite outfit and another gender-bending performer.
Show Stopper: The Wrongest Moments of “Peaches Does Herself”
The young guys sat next to us left in the intermission and didn’t come back, giving their tickets to a couple of girls less fazed by the onstage debauchery. What were they expecting? Anyone with a passing acquaintance with Peaches knows that she is a liberated bi woman with a singularly sexual focus, and merkins to match. Surely everyone’s heard “Fuck the Pain Away”?! But even I have to admit that prior knowledge of Peaches and her fellow performers doesn’t prepare you for seeing them act out her fantasies in the flesh. Here are the moments that made our jaws (and nearly our panties) drop:
Peaches, complete with huge fake tits and dick, serenading transexual Danni Daniels on a park bench. Twee staging and a pretty violin version of “I Feel Cream” set the scene for some cute chase-me chase-me antics with a six-foot-odd ballerina with a ballbag. Some friends were in White Trash last year when Peaches turned up with a stark-bollock-naked Danni in tow – that must have been even more surreal.
Fake tits and dick explosion. A heartbroken Peaches performs some offstage self-mutilation and returns with her post-op parts exploding into red confetti. A spectacular sight, but every man in the audience was fixated on the mangled gore of the scarily accurate chopped-up cock. *crosses legs*
Sandy Kane, the Naked Cowgirl. Like Times Square’s Naked Cowboy, only female, ancient, Jewish and X-rated. Somehow she managed to further filthify songs like “Mommy Complex” with plenty of swearing, dick jokes and old-lady-boob tricks. You can see an interview with a thankfully fully-clothed Sandy here, but you’ll have to take our word that watching her light matches in her nipples wasn’t half as bad as seeing her tuck the matchbox under her breast for later.
Psychotic stage invaders. I thought the crowd was a little restrained, until I realised that all the crazy was distilled into these two “characters”. The first time they rushed the stage, rubbing their crotches with manic faces that are still burned into my retinas, I thought they were part of the act. But the second time, when they were dragged out of the doors screaming “BULLSHIT!” it was clear that they were mental fans, and easily the most fucked up thing we saw all night.
Phew! After all that filth, I bet you could do with a video of a guy making stuff out of balloons. Enjoy!
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No publicity please!
We’ve just got back from being denied entry to C-Club, because they wouldn’t let us in with Zoë’s camera. At first, the bouncers didn’t seem sure about the venue’s policy, but one of them soon arrived at a rule he was happy to enforce: no large cameras, only small point-and-shoots. Of course, we were welcome to leave our grand’s-worth of gear here, he said, gesturing towards a plastic box at his feet right next to the door. He’d give us a number and everything – “it will be safe”.
What really bites is that we would have been allowed entry if we were on the press list. The only reason we weren’t was that I deliberately chose to buy tickets, to put money in the pockets of one of my favourite bands, Innerpartysystem (a fledgling group who, in this tough climate, have already been dropped by one major label). I would have posted Zoë’s photos here, and written a no-doubt glowing review (they’re amazing live) for BANG BANG BERLIN.
But it turns out the venue doesn’t want the publicity. I don’t know about headliners 3OH!3, but IPS are smart enough to know about the power of both fans (which has kept them alive) and good content. This is a band whose punning Never Be Content EP was launched with a video, below, all about the potential of media, marketing and advertising – albeit for harm. They know that the more words and images “out there” about them, the better.
So this must be the venue’s policy. But it doesn’t appear on their website, their tickets or even on notices at their doors. And they’re using is as a reason to turn people away, while tickets are left unsold at their box office. I understand why Berghain don’t allow cameras, because the lack of records of the superclub’s inside space actually adds to its legendary status (and leads to bonkers descriptions like this). But, Columbiahalle’s little sister venue is certainly not Berghain, nor are the clubs that are rumoured to be adopting similar policies. In fact, we don’t know what these places are like, because we aren’t going to them – and without any publicity, no-one else will.
So fuck you very much C-Club. Here’s hoping the city’s red tape chokes you off real soon.
Lucky for Berghain, it doesn’t need publicity – because photos like this (backstage) won’t help!
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Hudson’s Cakes
Category: Food & DrinkWe first heard out about Hudson’s from the lovely Foodie in Berlin, an expat expert in all things culinary, and recent featured contributor on Chorus + Echo. The fact that my first question was “how’s the coffee?” should give you an idea of how much I’ve been longing for a taste of home, but the idea of an authentic British tea shoppe has been appealing more and more. Especially since we moved around the corner from the place! We deliberately avoided the Royal Wedding Breakfast as even the telly showing the wind-down was enough to turn our stomachs, but the churning ended as soon as our cakes arrived. The grapefruit and lavender loaf was more subtle than we expected, and all the better for it, and the “hummingbird” – a pineapple and banana cake with coconut icing – was scrumptious. (For a less-rubbish analysis of their wares, skip over to Foodie.) As for the tea? Well, who cares… but the coffee is good!
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A certain magic in the air: Emika raves about Berlin
Category: MusicElectronic artist Emika cut her teeth on Bristol bass music, before moving to Berlin back in 2008. A Berghain fanatic-turned-collaborator, she recorded sounds around the club from which the resident DJs created tracks for in-house label Ostgut Ton’s Fünf compilation. She has lent her enigmatic vocals to local scenesters MyMy, Paul Frick and Tommy Four Seven, and released her own tracks on Ninja Tune – the dynamic and ethereal “Drop the Other” and “Double Edge”, and the meditative “Count Backwards”. This summer, she releases another EP before her hotly anticipated debut album, and plays a handful of select gigs. I caught up with her to find out how she fell in love with Berlin in the first place.
What has it meant to you, moving to Berlin?
Oh my god – everything.
It wasn’t a decision made for my career or my music to move here. I didn’t know about Berghain until maybe three months after moving here. I’d never really listened to techno – I was really into drum n’ bass, and dubstep and hip hop. I didn’t really know anything about Berlin, and that the music culture was so interesting.
So how come you ended up here?
This is kind of silly: I got a free flight when I upgraded my bank account!
And the first night I was here, I went to Watergate. As I was leaving, this guy started talking to me – and he is now one of my best friends. I totally fell in love with him – not in a romantic way – and he took me to flea markets, took me all around the city, let me stay with him, introduced me to his friends here.
So yeah, I fell in love with him, and his friends, and moved here to work as an au pair and a few months later I discovered, “WOW, there’s this thing called techno! I quite like techno!” From there I discovered Hard Wax, the record store, and very slowly educated myself – OK, there’s this scene in Detroit and this scene in Chicago… I didn’t know about any of this stuff before I moved here.
What’s so special about Berlin?
The feeling when I’m here, it’s much like the feeling when I first came to Berlin. When I get off the train at Warschauer Strasse, I still get the feeling of “Oh, I love it here!” I can’t explain it – I mean, when you look around you the place looks like a dump, there’s dog shit everywhere, and there’s graffiti everywhere and everyone’s broke and everyone looks drunk half the time… I don’t know what it is, there’s just a certain magic in the air here.
How did you end up collaborating with Berghain?
Well [resident and Ostgut Ton manager] Nick Höppner was DJing and I was trying to make a cigarette. I was really drunk and was trying to roll up on the decks, which swing – they’re not attached to the ground. I tried to get my jacket to get something, and I knocked the needle off the record and the music stopped. And I was like, “Oh my God.” It was the one and only time when I thought, “Yeah, I know the DJ and yeah, I’m going to go behind the decks and make a fag!” and I just killed the party. I was like, “Nooooooo!”
Anyway, in that moment, when the music stopped, I leaned against the wall and there was this strange echo. You could hear the people and it was like the whole building stopped resonating when the music stopped, and it was like “vwooom”. And I totally forgot that the music had stopped and I looked around at all the stuff that makes sound – the lights and the fog machine and the bar and the people and the floor and the ceiling, and the shutters in Panorama Bar on the outside. There’s so much stuff that makes sound phenomena on its own.
And that’s when it was just like “ping!” I was stood there dancing next to Nick Höppner, and I was thinking, “Oh my God, I can record a sound library and it can be amazing…” And then it just evolved from there. But there was this moment, when I realised, “Oh my god, Berghain got voted number one club in the world, and there’s this thing about, ‘it’s so hard to get into’…” And then I worried about how I would be perceived in the media, people thinking, “Oh here’s this girl, and she’s now over here doing something with Berghain.” And it wasn’t like that. It’s really about the sounds in that place – it’s not about me at all. It could have been anyone in there with a mic, recording that stuff, it just happened to be me.
And you recorded some vocals at Die Teufelsberg, right?
Oh, that was the scariest thing in my life.
First, I went there with my friend. There’s a listening station right at the top, which you can access – it’s pretty dangerous, lots of gaps in the stairs and stuff like that. And there’s this huge, huge door, which was shut, and I didn’t want to go in there. But my friend was like, “Come on lets do it!” and got this crowbar! By the time we got in it was totally dark outside, but we didn’t realise, and the door slammed behind us and we couldn’t get out. It was so terrifying!
Anyway, this listening tower is a perfect sphere shape – you can say “ah” and it’ll carry on for about 20 seconds, just all around you. Suddenly it’s like there’s a choir of people singing with you. And it’s so trippy! So we go back there a week later, and I take my laptop and microphones and stuff, and I recorded an hour’s worth of singing. I got home and listened to the recordings and it was just noise – like this strange “kkkst” noise, with like Russian radio.
I went back again, and had a different microphone set up that time, and that time recorded my voice fine. I have no idea, I don’t know how that stuff works… At the end of my video for Double Edge, I cut in some of the sound. So weird, so weird…
So that’s the magic in the air?
Yeah right!
You’ve been here for three years – do you feel like a Berliner now?
I feel like a Berlin fan. It could be a whole lifetime’s journey to really understand the history of Berlin, and the nature of the society and the people here, the energy here. I don’t think it’s every going to be something where I think, “Yep, that’s it – I’m a Berliner now!” But I definitely feel like I’ve made a home for myself here.
This article originally appeared on Bang Bang Berlin.
I really do the same thing man. I thought tha I was the only one, but I’m not the only one uhuuu. I live in Brasil. Yes we write with (S).