Heard in Berlin

Heard in Berlin

13 July, 2009 | 8.01AM

• Written by: Terry Church
• Filed under: Music News: dj charts, heard in berlin

Give a man a record, and he’ll dance for minutes. Give a man turntable, and he’ll dance forever. Here in Techno City, you’re never more than a few feet away from a turntable.

From the moment my feet touched the crooked, cigarette strewn streets of Berlin, they have skipped more than they’ve dragged.

Within five hours of touch down, I was dancing at a youth centre at a party called Arm Und Sexy (which means ‘Poor And Sexy’, taken from a quote about Berlin by its mayor Klaus Wowereit). Gay guys with cloth bags tucked under their arms wriggled on tables, alongside young girls in spandex, and old men in beards.

With just a meagre laptop and three drunken DJs controlling the music, the 1000 or so people were treated to a soundtrack of badly programmed, purposefully untrendy 1980s pop, old skool hip hop, nu disco, slamming techno, and booty house.

Tensnake ‘Holding Back My Love’ came on, and people grooved like it was 1979. Already, people are calling this the Berlin summer anthem of 2009 (it was even heard in the mainroom of Berghain).

Lifelike, Cindy Lauper, M People - the poor and sexy DJs played it all, and it was mixed without a care in the world. It was the perfect anti-club, with a mountain of bicycles outside indicating that its attendees were proper Berliners.

A few hours later DJ T from Get Physical celebrated his 40th birthday party and album launch with a DJ set full of similar guilty pleasures at the garden of Panorama Bar.

House anthems ruled that Sunday with Mr. Fingers reminding us that no one owns house on ‘Can You Feel It’.

Marshall Jefferson then chimed in with ‘Move Your Body’, and Joe Smooth added his diatribe about the ‘Promised Land’. It was a good weekend for classic house fans.

A day or so along, techno writer Philip Sherburne spun underground techno at Club der Visionaire in Kreuzberg, a bar built over pontoons on a serene canal. Above, a thousand spiders clung onto cobwebs blowing in the wind, pouncing on unsuspecting flies attracted to the bar’s colourful night lights. Thanks to this disco, they feast every summer.

On Saturday underrated techno producer Isolee warmed up the Watergate main floor with a disjointed live set that included his recent haunting builder ‘A Nightingale’ (on Diynamic).

Berlin king Ricardo Villalobos then came on and demonstrated why he’s one of the best with a genre-smashing, beat juggling techno and house delight at Watergate. Despite only starting his set at 6.30am, the Berliners had more than enough energy to match his driving rhythms.

Ricardo then led the crammed dancefloor down a twisted path full of exotic surprises like a Pied Piper, starting off with Mirko Loko ‘Tahktok’, a children’s rhyme for the globalised techno generation.

Then he mixed in his remix of Depeche Mode ‘Sinner In Me’ with the monumentous rolling bassline of Paperclip ‘Throw’ (although it could have been Mindprint ‘Hand of God’, as I get those two confused).

He kept the two records in the mix for five minutes or longer, switching basslines and creating his own breakdowns, using only vinyl and an Allen & Heath Xone:92 mixer.

At about 8am Villalobos dropped the exceptional nine minute ‘Xtra’ edit of Basement Jaxx ‘Fly Life’ which destroyed the room.

And then Ricardo went back to back with Ata from Playhouse, who decided that Frankie Knuckles ‘Baby Wants To Ride’ would be a good one to freak out the crowd with its post-disco grooves laced by psychotic sex vocals.

Downstairs Zip from Perlon, Baby Ford, and Mark Broom dabbled in old house anthems and minimal trips, as the peaceful Spree reflected the logo of the Universal Music offices opposite.

Earlier in the day, boats large and small had sloshed up and down the river carrying techno pirates bent on musical trouble. Under the Flag of Berlin Beats + Boats, they subjected any land lover they passed with a torrent of appreciation. It felt good just to watch them.

Beyond the clubs and bars, river-side huts, and planned parties, there is a greater appreciation for music here than in any other city I’ve been to.

This dawned on me, as I walked down the street on Sunday trying to escape the night before. I passed a cafe that was the quintessential Berlin lounger, with street side tables and mismatched wooden chairs holding up customers full of smoke and beer. Outside, a guy played old disco records through a dusty turntable and tinny boombox.

He dropped Daniel Wang ‘Like Some Dreams I Can’t Stop Dreaming’, and two girls began dancing like they were back in their teenage bedroom, getting ready for the school prom.

People passed them by like it was just a normal Berlin sight, on a normal Berlin Sunday. It was.

I’ll be putting together a Heard In Berlin post and chart every two weeks, with some of the photos I capture from the city.

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