Berghain

[Faust]

You are arguing about techno.

i don't know why, but it made me lol.

[MASUGNEN]

Ugh, what a stupid pointless fucking argument. MASUGNEN, if you've never been to Berghain, why are you talking? Perhaps you'd like to give your opinion about some books you haven't read, or some films you've haven't seen, too?

Yes, or discuss WW2, which I did not experience.

Berghain has come to me, struck me, disappointed me.

[droogist]

Yes, or discuss WW2, which I did not experience.

By your logic, after watching a WWII reenactment you'd feel that you had.

[theaddict]

Mate I have listened to techno aka alectronic music for 15 years now taken that I am 30. I have never been an expert in naming tracks or djs but I definitely know what good music is. I don't know where you are coming from but mos of what I know about the skandinavian night life culture is that it is exactly as you described it. Preppy good looking people and so forth. I don't want to diminish the electronic music scene in malmö cause I haven't been there. But just taken the fact of how small the city is I know that probably the scene can be too big.
In Berlin I have the feeling that even in a kindergarten they are playing electronic music, and believe me it's the opposite of preppy styles. It's mostly so fucked up that I refuse going to parties bc am over the whole fucked up rave thing I used to do when I was 18. I used to dye my hair blond wear airwalks with red fatlaces and so forth. You don't know me, but I tell you that in that age I used to be a real raver going to parties afterhours forbthe whole weekend doing a lot of stupid stuff. And I have been to so many parties and raves that I long stopped counting. Don't prejudge bc I am a lawyer now, i was and I still am rock n roll.

And for the fact that you don't like the djs who were playing in malmö, are those berghain or panorama bar djs??? To explain this to you: there are two floors in the club berghain. The main floor is called berghain itself. The secod floor is calle panorama bar. The first floor delivers hard fucked up techno and the floor is filled mainly with topless bearded gays, the panorama bar has softer music sometimes with vocals and more melody and is mixes with heterosexual and homosexuals(hope I express myself correct).
So I don't k ow the dj names, maybe they play mainly on the panorama bar floor then it could be a bit softer, yes.
But still, the main problem is that people want to transfer the vibe of a club outside of it. It's just a marketing thing for those who are doing the party in malmö. They book this berghain djs bc of the name of the club, bring them to your town and then want people to go there bc try think it is a party like in the berghain.
But HOW should that work out in reality???it's NOT possible, it's not the same crowd, it's not the same location. Sometimes even in one city, if a party changes location somehow the vibe gets lost and the party is bad.
My friend you are fast in judging, and I would cut you a slack if hundreds of Berliners would have been taken to malmö in a fucked up location. But you name it yourself: preppy people all around...what makes you think that this is bound to the berghain?
If you can explain that to me I will be convinced...

I see hundreds of swedes, Danish, Spanish and so forth people wandering to the berghain, no wonder they tried to make money out of this...and no wonder if they failed...but you should know better...

[MASUGNEN]

Okay, discussion has lost momentum, if it ever had.

Droogist is apparently into puberty epistemology. And Theaddict writes in a manner to which I cannot respond. Some DJs mentioned are Panoramic, most are Berghainian.

What I'm trying to say is that techno's spirit has faded, particularly as the scene in recent years has grown and hyped. (Soon it will blow like a baloon and Droogist will forget ever listening to techno.) To me, Berghain symbolizes this degeneration of what once was a powerful force of tribal community. This was the global energy of techno – and if Berghain isn't capable of the spiritual transfusion to Malmö, then it does not provide proper techno.

Richie Hawtin understood the hedonistic detriment of techno when Cybersonik played a gig in Holland in 1992. Then the public was seminazi militaristic. Now der Berghain attracts soulless, champagne fountained party people in ass tight black dresses and cocaine up their plastic operated noses. Neither that is techno – and a responsible Berghain should not lend its residents to those mileus, as they have done over and over again just in Malmö.

The problem is Berghain hype. The Berghain name, once perhaps in spirit, is intoxicated by pop culture. Fame dethrones. I'm not into big (Berlin) scenes, I search the small (Malmö) ones, where it's still possible to dance and trust people. Richie Hawtin developed the Plastikman concept for those afterhour sets, with thirty people in a small, smoke-filled room with a deliricly slow strobe.

Der Berghain – the name/concept – has become homologic to Comme des Garçons x H&M.

Do be down
to the underground!

[theaddict]

I don't get that point with my writing manner, sorry...

Ok now I got your point and I agree partially. Yes techno is not what it used to be and the whole movement has changed since marketing managers have found it for their purposes. You can have this debate at every corner in this fucking techno city. People conplaining about the whole scene getting mixed up due to the hype.

Still I am tired of it. When I was younger I was as eager about going to clubs which are not commercial and have the right vibe. Locations in nowhere filled with crackheads and "real" techno lovers that's what I was looking for. But with time I got less "demanding". Been there, done it. Seen it. Time to move on. It's doesn't have to be the absolute pure underground party anymore, also due to the fact that it is not the same anymore. But talking to younger people I see myself in them bc they think that the break of dawn has just begun...
I still think that berghain is a good club and I don't see the people you describe in there. It's one the few clubs in the world where a group of hot blonde girls possibley get turned down at the door. There are so many people getting turned down waiting for an hour it's always surprising. You should check it out and make up your own picture masugnen. You can still go back to the 30 people strobo parties in an abandoned house after that. Me myself I am happy that I don't go to such events anymore...
everyone as he likes...

[BUMMER]

Techno

Geez, I let everyone know I saw a decent Berghain-related dj play in NY, on a bare, year-old thread and all hell breaks loose.
First of all: Mike, it's a discussion about music. Which is just as important on this forum as a discussion about fashion, film, art or architecture. I'm sure your comment was just for fun, but still..
The reason it is funny, Faust, is because unfortunately Mike's comment conjures images of big pants, day glo, pacifier sucking idiots gyrating more to their drugs than to the music that's playing. Not many people in the U.S. actually find and listen to good techno. Which is sad, really. The word 'techno' should conjure up images of relatively unsung geniuses pouring their hearts into making pure, brilliant, uncompromising music made primarily to inspire individuals within their community as opposed to gaining popular acceptance/fame.
And finally Masugnen: I wish I had time to comment on every point made in your shotgun-blast of a post, but I don't. I will say the most important thing is that your passion for the underground shows that your heart is in the right place. Maybe you should promote your own events ( I imagine you do) and focus on that more than hyper-criticizing a club with some notoriety and a sometimes questionable fan base. It would have made a huge difference if you said: "Bergain djs play shit-tired, pandering, populist electroclash bullshit and their crowd just laps it up like the second coming of christ!!" But you didn't. Your main problem is that some culture-less idiots in the crowd are too high on E to know the difference between good music and so-so music. That is their fault, not the dj's fault! I know how much an over/under enthusiastic crowd can dampen a dj event as well as effect what the dj plays, but it's not only the dj's fault and definitely shouldn't inspire you to outright condemn Berghain wholesale.
A personal experience to illustrate my point:
My most recent experience with Marcel Dettman was much less interesting than my first. The first time I saw him dj, every single person in the room was focused on the music and he proceeded to play the deepest, most forward-thinking set of techno i've heard in NY in ages. But for his most recent set, which was heavily promoted in local free papers and magazines, he was very obviously struggling to connect with the crowd which was peppered with clueless, generic ''club-goers''. It was obvs. that they had no connection with the music and only came because they heard a guy from a big club in Germany was playing. These awful techno-tourists stood out like sore thumbs standing in small groups, clogging the dancefloor, pecking their touch-screens with their drug-addled fingers. Sadly, Dettman started to play a bit randomly in an effort to get the crowd back. It was a bit of a useless struggle: It was impossible to please both the idiots and the diehards at the same time. It was one of those sets that had small bursts of brilliance that were then watered down, then another burst of brilliance, like a rollercoaster. (In a bad way.) I know what he's capable of, so I know not to condemn him for one so-so set. I will def. check out his set again when he comes back to NY. My only consolation/hope is that this crowd will probably not bother coming back to the next event advertised as "Berghain-related". Even if the hype doesn't die down by the next event, i'm sure the hype won't last long for the idiots with questionable motives. They'll just move onto the next thing someone tells them to like. Besides, I figure the best revenge against those who threaten to ruin things I care about is to enjoy them no matter what.

[droogist]

Droogist is apparently into puberty epistemology.

I call it maintaining a little intellectual integrity. You've whipped yourself into a quasi-religious anti-Berghain fervor based on your experience of some residents' guest sets, having come to the conclusion that the Berghain experience must be X. When confronted by assertions to the contrary by people who've actually been there and who attest that it's actually not like X at all, and is actually more like Y, your response is to ignore them (or to say "I don't know and I don't care"). I don't think I'm the one acting immature here.

(Soon it will blow like a baloon and Droogist will forget ever listening to techno.)

This I don't understand.

[theaddict]

Bummer, I think mike was just making fun bc he never plays techno music...


I think everything has been said. I just wonder how old you are masugnen. You have this strong and restricted view of younger peeps (including me 12 years ago) who are so energetic and enthusiastic about the music that their view on the world is quite narrow and they tend to handle things very narrow minded. As I said thats not only negative, it can be a driving force within a movement and I used to be like that. Maybe you are older too but still trapped in this feeling, I dunno, would be interesting to know though.



One thing though, I still laugh about your comment that it seems that I haven't been to a proper rave or underground thing yet, I dunno where that image came from...thinking about this topic and digginng in my memory brought back pictures in my mind of old Tresor club in Berlin when potsdamer platz was a vast area of fields and sites under construction. The basement was exactly as you described, heavy strobo light, the dj behind a construction fence and people sittig in corners like chicken waiting to get slaugthered...hahahaha
no thank you, been there, done that...;)

ledger named it again: go and see the crowd yourself...and the shudder thing at 7. After that we can talk. For me that moment alone makes this club still one of the best if not the best club in the world...and again, I have been to a lot of clubs in my life...

[kanne]

I've from this learned that the modern Berlin/Berghain techno sound, at best, is house. Crowd – well dressed, posh and poppy – stands still, perhaps wobble to release some scent from prepped hair, scream at all these techno pop stars from famous Berghain.

[...]

Of course, Malmö is, by international standard, a very small city. But it has the spirit Berghain lacks.

I would have never expected to see a discussion like this on here.
Berghain may have become worse same as bar25 (R.I.P) which became a hipster paradise over the years but I've had good times in both of them.
You're comparing a city to a club... It's not fair to judge Berlin techno based on these two locations just because they get so much attention outside of Berlin. In the summertime there are almost everyday several free open air parties and that's just one example why Berlin definitely doesn't lack the 'underground' you're speaking of.
I won't get into the whole 'tourist-problem' (there are otheRR places to do that )but there's a reason why so many people come here just to party...

[Fuuma]

Hey I (also) like to see good looking, well dressed people when I go out. I guess that makes me a monstrous asshole according to this forum.

I'll be in Berlin in dec and I hope theaddict is around, we'll go to Berghain together and enjoy mediocre techno cause the good old days were so much more fun (I was there and I'm not sure I'd say that but hey...)

[theaddict]

You monster M! Didn't announce yourself yet mate! Come, but better bring a friend since I am writing my bar exam end of February and have to cancel all partying till then...

[Faust]

You monster M! Didn't announce yourself yet mate! Come, but better bring a friend since I am writing my bar exam end of February and have to cancel all partying till then...

Well, with Fuuma, you will pass any kind of a bar exam with flying colors.

[Fuuma]

You monster M! Didn't announce yourself yet mate! Come, but better bring a friend since I am writing my bar exam end of February and have to cancel all partying till then...

I'll let you know the dates and where I'm at, people will, of course, be with me.

[Shucks]

Never been to Berghain, since everybody in Scandinavia keeps recommending it, which is a bit offputting in itself. I have no opinion on the place itself. However, I've been to several small fantastic parties each time I visit Berlin, very much similar in atmosphere to what I remember from my salad days in the early 90s. But UR fans have always been a very militant bunch and techno isn't necessarily about embracing change, I guess. I mean, the origins are partly in a pretty bleak vision of the future.