Kinky Blowfeld

Saw this across the spree while eating dinner at the Bar 25 restaurant. Dirty Kikiblofeld.

Bar 25 Attire

This is what I wore to Bar 25 on my 25th birthday. Trashy!

More Warehouse More of the Time

Turned 25 and haven't had the chance to update. Two new spaces to add to my "things I am digging about Berlin" list:

1) PnB

Pulled an all nighter here a couple weeks ago for a 24 hour rave / art exhibition. Well, there was supposedly an art exhibition somewhere but I didn't see one. All I saw was some pretty video edits of topless 70s films spliced with grainy footage of dramatic "urban decay." Rockin' the decks upstairs was the incredible DJ Donna Summers, a friend of a friend who I'd met before but hadn't seen play live. Before he went on he asked me about this, "Have you heard me? I'm awesome," is what he told me. And let me tell you, kiddies: DJ Donner Summers is awesome. Two thumbs up for the rave happy rendition of Smells Like Teen Spirit. The downstairs floor was dedicated to experimental glitches and noise of the kind that I'm not usually too interested in. Additiv said he liked the underground feel of it. I laughed when a couple folks we met said they'd seen a flyer for the party at the hostel. Ah, so is the nature of the beast. Tourism will eat this city alive until all the city is full of tourists, taking photos of each other in front of Tacheles.

2) Raum 18

Went here this weekend for the Sameheads 3rd Birthday Bash. There was a 7 foot tall (albeit non-edible) cake blocking the doorway, 2 dance floors of bootie shaking beats, and hoards of sweaty, musky young Leute dancing around in their most avant garde Zweite Hande chugging Becks. Quite impressed by [Trap] who I'd seen flyers for everywhere but had never actually heard of. Wanted to see Clark but could not keep my eyes open past 5 a.m. Was charmed by the slaughterhouse feel to the place. Spent some time appreciating the human sized paper doll hanging from the ceiling of the smoking room while snuggly settling into a vintage dentist's chair. Also: managed to successfully complete a Frankenstein's head puzzle I was handed upon entry just before heading home. Here it is. Marvel at my talent:

Moderat @ Maria Bass Berlin Festival Day 1

What happens when you mix Modeselektor's heavy ape-like bootie beats with Apparat's light and bubbly glitches? Absolute love. Moderat is the name of the collaboration between two seemingly dissimilar Berlin-based electronic artists who somehow manage to tow the line perfectly between pretty and down and dirty. The result is a sound that is truly unique, at times hard to follow, and in its best moments jaw droppingly hot.



Anyone watching the crowd at Maria am Ostbahnhof on opening day of the BASS Berlin Festival could see this clearly as soon as Moderat took the stage. At moments, the audience was bumping and grinding along to the tracks that carried overtones of Modeselektor's deep bass and grinding beats. And in another moment Apparat's floaty, melodic sounds would leave the crowd standing there, staring up at the stage as if they were in the presence of a symphonic orchestra. An odd combination, but one that works as a result of its unexpectedness. This is the sort of collaboration that challenges conventional expectations, breaking down the boarders between genres of electronic music and creating an overall appreciation of sound.



Neither artist is unique to using collaboration as a vessel for pursuing the rare, untapped waters of electronic music. Moderat is one of Apparat's many collaborations with popular artists who share his interest in producing strange and beautiful sounds. His first was with techno all-star Ellen Allien best known for her albums Stadtkind and Berlinette. Most recently together they produced the aptly named Orchestra of Bubbles, an airy, emotional collection which debuted Apparat's vocal "talents." The album is far more indie than bootie, which is no surprise as Apparat's focus has never been on producing dance music, although Ellen Alien's, at least occasionally, has. But for all that it is an absolute pleasure to listen to while lying naked on the bathroom floor.



It's hard to think of a major artist deserving of their attention whom Modeselektor hasn't collaborated with yet. So far they've combined oscillations with Thom Yorke, Puppetmastaz, Otto von Schirach, Pfadfinderei, and Rhythm and Sound, all quite successfully. It's either a testament to their flexibility as artists or a hurrah to the staying power of their own unique brew of bass and delay that they've yet to stumble when it comes to producing brain shattering music alongside other artists, no matter how dissimilar.



After witnessing (what now seems like) the only natural intersection of Apparat and Modeselektor in the flesh, I can tell you that it is an entirely different experience than listening to the recordings in the comfort of your own dirty, low rent apartment (which you can do on Soundcloud for free by the way...) The process is so transparent on the stage that it is almost humbling to look at. Front and center it looked like just three friends standing around drinking beers over a couple laptops while foreign sounds exploded through the speakers. In fact, I got so close to the trio that I could see up Modeselektor's nostrils, which are plenty handsome by the way. And I was so moved by the seamless interaction between man and machine exhibited by these three electronic MUSICIANS in the truest sense of the word that I'm afraid I'll never wash these ears again.

Mircrobe Man & Central Heating of Death

Yesterday I was sick so I spent the whole day watching Moyashimon which is an anime series about a guy who can see microbes (adorable adorable microbes). You can watch it here the next time you're feeling under the weather and want to celebrate how cute the microbes infecting your weak, useless body are.

This "morning" I woke up at 3pm. The jet lag is lovely.

I checked my email and in my regular newsletter for White Trash Fast Food (a club in Mitte that indeed serves white trash fast food and does live music performances) I came across a flyer for a band called zentralheizung of death (Central Heating of Death). Not sure if I'll go to the show but I sure do appreciate the concept.

Our heating bill for the year was $2,000. I'm pretty sure part of this is us ending up paying for someone else's heat as we didn't keep record of the heating BEFORE we moved in (stupid expats) but there is, as usual, nothing we can do about it but zahlen.

Good news: the weather in Berlin is lovely. It is sunny with a dash of lightning storms.

Secret Club & Bi-curious Open Mouth Night

A couple days over-due. And with reason.

1. Saturday - 2 AM arrival @ Zementgarten located just foot steps away from the middle of f---ing nowhere / Lichtenberg. After wandering around dark streets lined in dilapidating apartment buildings for 10 min. am lucky enough to find boy on Ecstasy aimlessly searching for the sbahn. Wir fragen re: secret entrance to warehouse club. He points to an almost person-sized break in a sheet metal gate. Across huge former parking lot in dead warehouse city lit only by single street lamp we pull a security door. Enter moist, red dungeon of a squat party dotted in hippies dancing with drugs. Despite aversion to fusion music, manage to move feet significantly to the sounds of computers, vocoder, kazoos, and plastic bottles. Dragged butt home just shy of daylight.

2. Sunday - The Berlin poetry release of Paula Varjack aka: my friend sara from London / New York / & Washington DC- featuring: others. Others consist of: Germany's first "Mid-western mid-eastern blue grass band," a drunk girl who was supposed to MC but showed up halfway through the event to slur some words into a microphone, a British comedian whose jokes consisted mainly of using the words "cunt" and "crisps" in succession, and a band of Romanian minstrels dressed in druidic-looking robes. This madness (survived by no less than 2 gin and tonics) was followed by a trip to nearby 8 mm where the very bad man of a DJ encouraged sara's unruly throng to dance on chairs, have a make-out huddle, and sing along to "Roxanne." There was much making out between the girls and f*ing in the bathrooms, especially after my group converged with a gaggle of blond Danish 20-somethings who were impressed with our belligerence. I alone abstained and was subsequently told by the bartender that I didn't look like I was having a good time. 3 bottles of beer later I had made friends with everyone, but holding strong to my promise not to catch mono refrained from the all-girl tongue lashing. None-the-less, an Olympicly persistent Swedish girl insisted upon giving me her phone number and myspace "just in case I come to Stockholm for sexy orgy." Did not beat daylight on the long, cold bike ride home. And am still haunted by the memories.

Making Out In The Deep Freeze

This weekend I made out in a deep freezer. Today, my throat is killing me.

Dr. Pong: The Ping Pong Bar

Later I'm going to a Ping Pong bar in prenzlauerberg. Everyone stands around a ping pong table with a paddle hitting it back and forth until only two people are left- they then have to run from one side of the table to the other hitting the ball until somebody gets out. Then everything starts over again. Whee!

Dear Maria am Ostbahnhof

You suck. Every time I go to see a show, the cover is too much (12 euros is the least I've ever paid) and never announced beforehand. Your bartenders are rude and mix crappy overpriced drinks. Your second room is always lame, with the same lame DJs spinning the same lame industrial goth music regardless of the lineup in the main room. I could put up with all that if I could only get to enjoy the musicians I go to see. But no. Your sound system is badly arranged. You let too many people in most nights and so the main room gets crowded to all hell and no one can dance or see anything. You either have the headliner go on at 11 p.m. or 6 a.m. (whichever time you think will be more inconvenient). As a result, I paid my 12 euros last night to see Doppler Effekt and only got to see 5 minutes of them because you put them before every other musician in the line up, a time when most people haven't even left their houses to go out. What gives? I'm done with you. Go to hell.

Fury in the Slaughterhouse: Lightning Fields: A Pirate Bar

We've been busy the past couple days because my good friend Avri and his friend Cliff came to stay with us on Thursday. The main goal of their trip (in addition to seeing me/Berlin) was to go to a concert for a band that Cliff has been a huge fan of for many many years called Fury in the Slaughterhouse. The concert was on Friday and we rented a car and drove for hours in traffic and rain (or I should say Carlos drove for hours in traffic and rain) to Hannover. The concert itself was maybe not my biggest cup of tea. But I think Cliff at least had a good time as the band dedicated a song to him for coming all the way from America (and the drummer's wife later called him insane). Carlos and I had a pretty miserable time as we did not have backstage passes and spent much of the time after the concert dodging drunken Hannoverins and trying to figure out where the car was in the rain. We didn't get back until 5 and fell asleep upon arrival. After returning the car the next day, we realized we had paid over 200 euros for the whole experience, which is about 75 dollars each. This morning on the table there was a note written to Carlos from Avri stating his gratitude and suggesting that we had all gotten into more than we had bargained for.

On Saturday, Los and I went to the Sugimoto exhibit at the Neu National Gallery. Sugimoto was at the De Young Museum last year so a lot of the works on display we had already seen. But his newest segment, Lightning Fields, is simply amazing. Negatives of photos of lightning bolts were hung in front of a lit screen (much in the same way x-rays are observed by doctors). The result is that you can see all the "fibers" of the bolts, and the intricate root-like patterns mirrored in other bolts. It was pretty amazing. We took home a poster of his picture of the diorama at Madame Tussards of Henry the 8th. Sugimoto's website is here in case you want to take a look: http://www.sugimotohiroshi.com/ We also saw a temporary exhibit on Rupprecht Geiger who is now 100 years old and experimenting with bright neon colors that are almost too much for human perception. Take that young people.

Sunday we tried to find fun stuff in Berlin amuse our visitors with, but as it was raining not much could be found. We mostly ended up wandering trying to find the Jewish Museum but never did. We stopped at Yaam (a reggae club that was supposed to be having a festival) which was nearly vacant and infested with bees. Los went home. The rest of us went to a pirate bar and had drinks while waiting for a band featuring a violin, guitar, drumset, accordian, and a unicycle (or so we thought) to set up. While waiting, one of Berlin's colorful locals with a bit too much alcohol in 'em came over and started talking to us about the Police. He started off by singing "Sending out an SOS" (which was the song currently on the itunes shuffle lazily abandoned by the bartender). Then he crouched down in front of the table so he was eye level with us and told us how he had seen Sting play at the Ziegman Sea (?) in Overalls(!) And do you know what he was singing?" he asked us incredulously. "No, what?" "He was singing..." his voice escalated rapidly to the point where he was screaming, "about the RHINE!" The small, disinterested waitress came over and with a wristful series of hand gestures told the gentleman to leave. We decided at this point to leave and went to Burgermeister (a sub-metro hamburger joint where railings with padding = seats) for dinner where we overheard a festival band doing covers of "Jump, Jump" "Just Like A Pill" and other songs featured in "NOW" CDs. We went back to the Pirate Bar to see if the unicycle band was up an running. It was, but only in the usual way bar bands are. We left. Went home. Fell asleep.

I Was Drugged

Although this is very personal, I feel like sharing this in hopes it may cause people I know to be more careful at parties, bars, and clubs so that this sort of thing doesn't happen to you. Last night a few friends of mine went out to a club called Weekend. While at the club, my friend and I were slipped something in our drink, possibly by the bartender (the only drink I remember us both having were shots of whiskey that we couldn't pay for because my friend had left her wallet at home- the bartenders said "it's okay, as long as you have a drink with us"). My friend had already had a good amount to drink so it acted on her very fast. She started acting strangely- becoming hyper talkative (esp. to strangers), flirty, and falling down. I too, fell down a lot and was more hyper than usual, but in the end was able to overcome most of the effects of the drug due to the concern for my friend and not having had as much to drink. At one point she passed out and wouldn't open her eyes. We had to force water down her throat, get her heart rate up, and call an ambulance. We waited in the emergency room all night and most of the morning. At around noon she woke up and was able to walk home with us. She doesn't remember much of what happened, but we know that she was not raped as we were very attentive to her once we realized something was up. The drug I believe we were slipped is called Rohypnol. It is a legal sleep aid here in Europe. It is illegal in the states, but that does not stop people from bringing it in illegaly. This drug can cause memory loss, loss of muscle control, and possibly death. I'm very glad that we both survived this experience relatively unharmed and that we had friends there with us to take care of us. Needless to say, I will not be drinking nor clubbing for some time, and the next time I do I will act a good deal smarter.

Journey To The Center of the Kit Kat Club

Okay, so Carlos and I had been joking for a long time about going to the Kit Kat Club- home of Berlin's most well-known, long-loved S&M /kink / fetishy-type szene. Although Carlos and I are certainly not leading each other around the house via dog collar or strapping each other to that awful 1990s couch in our boarding house, the Kit Kat Club has such tremendous noteriety that I figured, as new neighbors, going there was a necessary part of our initiation as Berliners.

(Above: Dresscode for the Kit Kat Club)
Firstly, let me say that I have never been to the Kit Kat's sister club in San Francisco- The Power Exchange, but I imagine the Kit Kat Club is a lot like it in certain ways. There were lots of naked people, lots of half-naked people, a few trannys, some people having sex upstairs, girls in their underwear, vinyl, leather, nurse costumes, cop costumes, and a plethora of odd decorations such as gynecology chairs and metal toilets strewn throughout the black, humid interior. The walls were painted in elaborate blacklight sensitive murals with men, women, and everything in between partaking in a myriad of activities in the "done while naked" category. After I got over the initial shock of seeing nude, untethered penis flopping this way and that I realized that most of the clientele were actually pretty respectful of each other's space. Of course there were two things that helped with this. A) Most of the men there were gay men, and B) there were a great deal of couples dotting the dance floor. I never once had anyone try to grab me, or even hit on me, although I can't say the same of Carlos who is like a bunny at the dog tracks to clean cut gay men and trashy goth girls. Another thing- the music was quite good, resident DJs DramaNui (sassy redhead) and Clark Kent (butch gay extraordinaire) spinning a mix of electro, mashup, and techno that wasn't too cheesy or too eclectic, but frightfully danceable. I was a little disappointed to find only two dance floors as the Kit Kat Club recently took over the notorious Sage Club (which used to have 4 floors of banging techno with a pool in the middle from what I hear) but this is the nature of the unstoppable metamorphosis that is the Berlin club scene. We arrived at 2 and left sometime around 5, needing to escape the unbearable humidity, not to mention rest our feet and morals. I can't say I'm planning on becoming a regular, but could certainly see myself wandering in here on one of those nights that needs more craziness or leather men.

Electroclas & Bikes @ MauerPark

Our first week has been full of excitement, adventure and bicycles. More specifically, yesterday we went to the flea market with Miguel aka: Kid606 and bought bikes. It was the first time we had really been out in a few days due to partying as hard as we do during the weekdays (par example: Friday we saw Mochipet and stayed out until 8 in the morning at a bar called Molotov Cocktail which serves actual flaming bottles of sweet sweet fury!). It was nice to be awake before 3 for a change, and get to do something productive. The flea market gave me chills as it reminded me so much of the Ashby fleamarket in Berkeley from the hipsters digging through tables of retro clothing to the herbal mineral supplements in hand-labeled brown glass jars. As our main purpose was to get bikes, I decided to stick to that this time around, although I did develop a fancy for many of the hand-made animals, t-shirts and dolls which I may have to go back for. Carlos lucked out and got a really nice old-fashioned blue town bike. I got what the man who sold it to me said was a kid's bike, but as Miguel claims I'm "the size of a kid anyway" so I guess it's okay >^_^< We rode the bikes home, avoiding the touristy mess that is Alexanderplatz, and got lach crepes in Mitte for lunch. One odd thing I noticed about my bike on the ride home is that the splash guard has a screw loose and so when I go fast it rattles and sounds like shooting bullets. Even stranger, when I put the brakes on the tires make a whizzing sound like a bomb dropping. This has led me to the conclusion that my bike is apparently possessed by World War One. Be this as it may, it'll be so nice to have a(n inexpensive) way to get around town (apparently u-bahn monthly passes cost 70 euro - about 100 bucks!) Now I just need to get some turtlenecks and big goofy hats to keep the wind from destroying my face while riding my bike in winter.
0.o Speaking of housing, today we're going to look at a sublet right down the street from us. I hope it works out! We have to give notice on the 15th if we're planning to move out, and hopefully we are. It's not that I don't like the boarding house but I'd like to find a permanent place so I can start settling in.