überlin

Tag: Berghain

  • Berlintercourse: The ins and outs of dating in Berlin

    by

    Guest Blogger
    Category:

    Dating in Berlin can be weird. I’d been warned before I moved here: “In Berlin findet man mehr Sex als Liebe”; “Everyone is single in Berlin”, etc. But I still had hopes that I would work it out – I even decided to make a challenge out of it. I mean, how could a young, fairly attractive and relatively intelligent girl like me stay single in a city full of hot, interesting and like-minded people? Unfortunately, it didn’t take me long to realise that things weren’t going to go as smoothly as I had expected.

    I turned to my smartphone as soon as I arrived in Berlin, to make sure I wouldn’t lose too much time out of the game. I figured Tinder would be my best bet, as I didn’t have enough acquaintances or work colleagues to allow me to meet boys through friends. Little did I know that I was entering a world made almost exclusively of dates serving as both first and last encounter, plenty of shattered hopes and – here comes the silver lining – pretty awesome sex. It’s been over six months now and I still haven’t won the game. I have, however, learned some of the rules. And here’s tip number 1: don’t get indignant if you hear that the Berlin dating scene is insane. Just thank whoever was kind enough to warn you.

    If you haven’t been greeted by a guy opening his apartment door with his balls hanging out, and a cock ring dangling between them, then how can you be sure that you’ve really lived?

    Before you ask, yes, that did happen to me. But I’ll save that story for another time! Anyway, I’ve learned a lot over the past few months. I’ve gone from almost falling in love upon first meeting a guy to having blind sex dates with people I met through OkCupid and knew nothing about. Not necessarily because of Berlin, but because I had just got out of a four year relationship which had repressed what I would describe as mild nymphomaniac tendencies. And what’s wrong with that? I always make the guys wear condoms, I haven’t got pregnant yet and I’ve experienced my fair share of crazy stories.

    My dating spree has introduced me to the good, the bad and the ugly of the Berlin dating scene. And no man that I’ve encountered has behaved in a way that could be described as remotely normal. I blamed online dating for this, until I stopped using dating apps for a month. To my horror, I realised that the men I met in the standard, pre-21st century fashion ended up behaving in an even more absurd way.

    To give you an idea – I got dumped by this one guy I wasn’t even dating, by receiving a Whatsapp message at 7am on a Monday, as I lay in bed with a boy I’d met at Berghain.

    We’d been to KitKatClub the Saturday before, and, after telling me we were absolutely going home together and convincing me to leave some of my clothes at his place, he got off his face on ecstasy and suddenly decided he wanted nothing more to do with me. In the meantime, he had actually introduced me as his girlfriend and asked what our rules were for the evening. We agreed that kissing strangers was fine, and that we would ask first if we wanted to actually sleep with anyone else. I guess it took him 24 hours to decide that the sensible thing to do would be to break up with me and dare to include the words “let’s stay friends” in his message – because why not, right?

    Anyway, I’m looking forward to sharing all these fabulous encounters in even more excruciating detail. Stay tuned for a journey in the life of a desperately single Berliner trying to figure out the in and outs of this sex-obsessed city, one or two insane boys at a time.

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  • Berlin Stag Dos and Don’ts

    by

    James Glazebrook
    Category:

    You may know them as stag dos, bucks nights or bachelor parties. We know them as a scourge on Berlin. Every time we fly back from the UK, we share an easyjet with at least one group of “lads” in t-shirts with a crudely drawn cock and balls on the front and a nickname (“TIGHTARSE”) on the back. As with most tourists, true Berliners like ourselves 😉 would prefer they stay away altogether. But if you are planning to invade our city to drown yourselves in beer and regret, please make sure to follow our Berlin Stag Dos and Don’ts.

    DO stay out of our way

    Rumour has it that the city is considering plans for an easystagvillage somewhere in Brandenburg, accessible by that international airport we might one day have. Of course, this is Berlin, so we expect those 100 acres of brothels and beer flumes to be completed some time in the 22nd Century. Until then, please restrict your movements to between Kreuzberg’s Schlesisches Strasse and the RAW complex in Friedrichshain. Oh, and get the fuck out of the bike lane, Arschloch!

    DON’T try too hard

    Forget the mankinis and matching slogan shirts in lurid colours. Here’s what you need to wear to stand out in Berlin: not black. In fact, you could be dressed in head-to-toe monochrome and we’d still be able to spot you a mile off, with your banter, your shit-eating grins and your sloppy drinking habits.

    DO pace yourself

    In Germany, beer is cheaper than water, and it’s a perfectly acceptable breakfast drink. Your only hope of making it to the queue for a club that you probably won’t get into is to pace yourself. Take our word for it: drinking a shandy (Radler) doesn’t make you “queer” – at least, no more than the enforced nudity and piss-drinking you’ll engage in after Beer 15.

    DON’T book go-karting

    Your taxi rides to and from the airport should provide plenty of high octane thrills and near misses. And, depending on the value you place on human life, they’ll work out cheaper too.

    DO try to get into clubs

    Go on, give us a laugh. The queue for Berghain is a big one, so we need some entertainment to pass the time. You lot will do, practising your shitty German and getting off with each other to appear acceptably gay. Who knows – maybe splitting up will work, and the bouncer won’t connect the 11 pink polo shirts dotted throughout the line? As long as you’re going to spend your nights stood outside of our clubs, we’ll be happy to see you try. Go on my son!

    DON’T go to a strip club

    The old excuse about your fiancée being the last woman you’ll ever see naked just doesn’t fly in this age of ubiquitous porn and Nicki Minaj videos. Besides, there’s precious little point in seeking out a strip club in a country whose mainstream media is smothered in naked breasts. If you want to see some tits, just turn on your hotel TV.

    DO experiment

    If this is your last night of freedom, why not go really wild? If, by some miracle, you make it into Berghain, you’ll be surrounded by gay guys in various stages of undress, who’ll be happy to show you more than that painting of an arsehole. Think of it like prison – whatever you get up to won’t leave these concrete walls, and it certainly doesn’t make you homosexual.

    DON’T

    Just don’t. The beer is cheap here, but this isn’t a piss-up paradise like Prague. The clubs are amazing, but that’s mainly because they don’t let people like you in. And Berliners won’t even attempt to conceal their contempt for you and everything you represent. If you’re looking for somewhere to remind yourself how shallow and depressing your single life has been, we can recommend our hometown, Newcastle upon Tyne. The locals will welcome you, speak (something close to) your language, and can’t wait to join in as you spill vomit, blood and no small amount of piss all over its streets. Enjoy!

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  • Preview: Social Media Week Berlin 2012

    by

    James Glazebrook
    Category:

    I’m excited about Social Media Week Berlin (24th – 28th September), for three good reasons: 1) social media is both my job and my private life – and the reason I can’t always tell the difference between the two; 2) this year’s schedule is full of even more awesome than last year’s (read my highlights here); 3) oh, and I was part of the Advisory Board responsible for putting it all together (see my biog and moody photo here). Here are my personal picks of what is shaping up to be a very special week here in Berlin. All events are free, and open to the public (although you do need to register), so I’ll see you down there!

    MONDAY 24th SEPTEMBER

    Social Media Week Official Opening Party @ Fluxbau (event info)
    A no-brainer this one, with free drinks (the Nokia-sponsored Social Bar will give away beer, wine or long drinks, depending on which of three hashtags is most popular at the time), views of the Spree and a performance by an Italian band touring all the European Social Media Weeks: Gardens of Alibis woooooo. Friday’s closing party should be something special too – silent disco, anyone?

    TUESDAY 25th SEPTEMBER

    Network Awesome @ Naherholung Sternchen (event info)
    No more information on this yet, but if it’s half as awesome as Network Awesome’s cleverly curated YouTube videos, it should be Fucking Awesome. Par example, here’s a collection of their head-bangingest, mind-fuckingest heavy metal videos:

    Yellow – The Movie Screening @ Naherholung Sternchen (event info)
    The cast and crew of this neo-Gallo horror shot right here in Berlin will explain how crowdfunding made it happen, before screening the gruesome short film itself. The movie’s been shown at Film 4 Fright Fest in London and other festivals, and is already picking up rave reviews. I’ll be down the front, hiding behind my box of popcorn.

    Yellow movie poster

    WEDNESDAY 26th SEPTEMBER

    Collaborative Consumption @ Naherholung Sternchen (event info)
    People from companies such as Gidsy and Wimdu put their heads together to address the important business of using technology and human ingenuity to develop new ways of sharing, lending and exchanging time, skills and resources.

    Beer Tasting @ Naherholung Sternchen (event info)
    Need I say more?

    I Wanna Dance with Somebody… in Chicago! @ Naherholung Sternchen (event info)
    Berlin’s own Paulo Reachi (Tresor) goes up against a Chicago DJ as their sets are simultaneously broadcast in both cities. To get you warmed up, here’s a playlist from Reachi’s Airdrop Records, including the likes of Soul Clap.

    THURSDAY 27th SEPTEMBER

    Berlapthlon – The Berlin based Heptathlon @ Naherholung Sternchen (event info)
    I’ll be taking a break from the day’s hardcore gaming/business content for the appallingly-named, but fun-sounding Berlapthlon. Don’t know if I’ll be taking part in what sounds like a silly sporting event to rival the Slowlympics, but I’ll certainly be there to witness the following activities:

    1) Chess (10 minutes)
    2) Table tennis
    3) Find and eat a vegan currywurst
    4) Swim in a lake
    5) Bottle opening
    6) Bottle collection
    7) Get into Berghain

    FRIDAY 28th SEPTEMBER

    Tod und Social Media / Talking Death @ Design Akademie Berlin (event info / event info)
    Both are in German, but I might test my language skills at the closing, and potentially most interesting, sessions of Social Media Week 2012. The first is a talk by Jörg Eisfeld-Reschke of ikosom.de, who is then joined by a journalist, founder and an academic for a discussion about what happens to us – on Facebook – after we die. After all that Deutsch and death, I’m going to need a drink!

    For the full Berlin schedule, go to SocialMediaWeek.org. If you were curious about what’s happening ALL OVER THE WORLD on Social Media Week, check out these curated guides:

    Social Impact
    Food
    Mobile
    Fashion
    Sports
    Photography
    Gaming
    Crowdsourcing
    Jobs & Job Seeking
    D-I-Y and Arts
    Global Curator Don Tapscott’s Guide
    SMW Founders Ultimate Guide

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  • Sorry Sunday Times, Berlin’s clubs aren’t “satanic”

    by

    James Glazebrook
    Category:

    A week before our last visit to Berghain, Zoë’s parents read something that gave them cause for concern. According to a hysterical article in The Sunday Times, the UK’s most popular weekly newspaper, inside the (in)famous Berlin club the “smell of sex is overpowering”. I’ve never smelt anything like that inside the club, but I did get a whiff of something when I opened the copy of the Times my in-laws mailed to us. Bullshit.

    Berlin's "return to decadence" by The Sunday Times

    I can’t link to the article, because the News International dinosaurs have hidden it behind a paywall – which is either unfortunate or lucky for you, depending on how much you like to be angered by sensationalism and lies. (As you’re about to find out, I love it.) You can however, see the “trailer” for the article (click through on the image above), and read a pretty decisive dismantling of it over on skruff.com. Quoted there, former Bar 25 resident DJ Beaner is the voice of reason:

    it’s just the basic London journalism. You know, it’s using vague second hand non-facts to prove a story that you set out to write already… That kind of stuff [writer Christopher Goodwin] described does exist in a few places in Berlin though I honestly think Berlin was wilder and more hedonistic a few years back.

    The point is not that sex and drugs aren’t common features of certain Berlin nightspots, just that they aren’t everywhere, in every club – as Goodwin suggests. His assertion that “the Berlin scene is driven by such blatant sexual licentiousness and ubiquitous drug-taking that it would make the denizens of the decadent Weimar clubs of 1920s Berlin blush in their velvet coffins”, is based 75% on a visit to the KitKatKlub, and 20% on a trip to Berghain. If you go to a fetish club, you are going to see sex, and if you go to a gay club, you are going to see gay stuff.

    To “report” such goings-on so pornographically (“a model-beautiful blonde woman in her early twenties is being taken from behind by an athletic young guy as she orally gratifies another man while stimulating a third with her hand”) and to imply that they take place in every Berlin club is far more irresponsible than any of the participants’ actions. Labelling an article “not suitable for children” is the worst kind of tabloid journalism, as is the use of homophobic and demonising language (“minces”, “as satanic as the club he owns”) and the outrageous, downright racist suggestion that “many fear [Berlin] will degenerate into a crisis as serious as that which gave rise to Nazism.”

    Count yourself lucky you can’t read this shit. But be prepared for questions from concerned relatives back home who have been conned into believing that everyone in Berlin is fucking and drugging themselves silly, out in the open. Just be straight with them: drug-taking is more open here, but probably no more prevalent than clubs in London or anywhere else; the sex is consensual and takes place in designated fetish clubs (which also exist everywhere); and you’ve seen far fewer casualties of substance abuse or violence here than anywhere else you’ve ever lived. Stick that in your bigoted, fear-mongering pipe and smoke it, Sunday Times.

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  • A certain magic in the air: Emika raves about Berlin

    by

    James
    Category:

    Electronic 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.

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