New location (Skalitzer 130), new drive, great line-up: This sunday, October 21st, the legendary Beatstreet afterhour opens its gates again (18:00) and tries to live up to the big expectations. Check beatstreet.info for more information and Hauptstadtblog for a longer stories about Berlin afterhours including a movie that starts at Beatstreet.
Stylewalker appears behind the turntables again this saturday at Waldohreule near Schlesisches Tor, so be prepared!
Schrödingers Cat, installation by Reinhard WannerThese three have something in common: It’s the promise for something big that’s hiding behind it. When I heard Radioheads “OK Computer” for the first time or Notwists “Shrink”, I knew it were great pieces of music I am just not able to understand yet. I listened to them again and again and slowly they unfolded their magic just like I expected.
With system theory it happened to me in a similar way. The first time I heard about the idea of seeing society as a communicative system that consists of communication and nothing else I was fascinated yet unable to grasp only ten percent of what it really means as a consequence. Now, I even read books understanding that their authors criticize system theory without having understood them.
As for quantum theory I am still struggling – what about these strange states and probabilities little quantums are in? Being waves and particles at the same time? And what about Schrödinger’s cat who is dead AND alive at the same time? I know there is something big waiting for me, I just need to be patient to understand.
In the meantime I listen to Stars new album “In Our Bedroom After The War” (order on itunes) because it’s really great and look forward to Chikinki‘s new album “Brace Brace” which will be out on Weekender records in November. Singer Rupert’S voice still sounds pretty whiny but very charismatic and the whole Chikinki-experience has become much bigger and broader. Check out “Oh my God” from the new album:
[audio:http://weekenderrecords.de/mp3/chikinki-oh_my_god.mp3]
While being in the middle of preparing their appearance at Insomnia festival in Tromsö, Norway, the friendly yet hard partying robots and robotines have a special appearance at ZMF this wednesday: Notic Nastic will play live at zurmoebelfabrik on Brunnenstrasse 10, stagetime: 01:00h. Rock with us, go with us on a holiday, celebrate the Norwegian winter!
Notic Nastic Myspace
Before you can go to Week-end to attend a lecture held by Sonar Kollektiv and Red Bull Music Academy about the last ten years in music business. Starts at 20pm and features Jürgen von Knoblauch, Claas Brieler, Stefan Leisering, Axel Reinemer (all Jazzanova), Steffen “Dixon” Berkhahn (Innervisions), Dirk Rumpff (Red Bull Music Academy) and Jan Joswig (De:Bug).
If one bar in Barcelona has made an impressive career this year it must have been “La Caseta del Migdia“. Even without being in Barcelona, you could hear the talk about it all over Europe. Also Bread and Butter had the final celebration in that amazing place on Montjuic. Situated on the south corner of the Montjuic Castell, you have a great view over the harbour on one side and over the city to the other. It is open air, they serve fine food and good drinks and DJs spin chilly rare grooves while you contemplate the Mediterranean.
You can get there, taking the 55 bus and walk upwards to the castle, In summer, on weekend evenings it used to be open until 2am, now I assume they close a little earlier. Here is another little article about La Caseta del Migdia
Friday and Saturday I attended the Jahrestagung (annual summit) of the German scientist community for organizational communication. It was not only nice to meet Thomas Pleil and Ansgar Zerfaß again and to listen some very interesting insights about the professional world of organizational communication like Vodafone, EADS or Scholz & Friends but also good to realize that I could follow most of the speeches pretty much – after all, we had the most advanced scientists on that subject gathered here. And I was delighted to see, that the vibe amongst all these scientists and professionals was very relaxed and folksy. In the end we (I comprise myself here) do not only like to talk much, but also: to listen.
Is reunification the opposite of independence? Is unification a hidden calling for sexual action? Everybody come together and unite! Ok then, let’s check out some public places for uniting and celebrating into the 3rd of October, our beloved national holiday.
At Cookies Phonique plays some records so at least the music will be ok. The people will be especially ok at PartyArty in 103 (creative, unconventional, entertaining), Zementgarten will be open tonight, for free, but the best party I guess will be beneath Schlossplatz across from Palast der Republik, between Karl-Liebknechtstr. and Rathausstr: PALACE RESISTANCE vs. FREAK CAMP @ Katakomben Schlossfreiheit.
View map
“Alles Paletti” by Tiny Domingos, Scotty Enterprise at KunstsalonThis weekend, a massive crowd of art people invaded Berlin and you could play games, like who spots the most art items: “O, oh, art glasses, art glasses!” “Art scarf”, “Art hair!!”. It’s the beginning of Berliner Kunstherbst and the overground raises its head even higher than the emerging underground.
Today and tomorrow will be the best days to look for interesting objects, it’s the last days of the fairs and hopefully it will not be as crowded as it was the last days.
The biggest and most prestigious event is the Art Forum Berlin of course. Expect prices up to several hundred thousand € for living contemporary artists like Bisky and such.
But as usual for this kind of big events, the “off-shows” that organize like parasites around a major platform are much more exciting and, since all of this event is about the money making with art, also promise a better return on investment – the artists are simply not as famous yet. If you really want to catch the big stars of tomorrow be sure not to miss Preview Berlin, Berliner Liste and most importantly the Berliner Kunstsalon which takes place in an ex tramway repairing facility.
Tonight will see an interesting exhibition opening at Circle Culture gallery again. Jaybo aka Monk is originally from France but has been living in Berlin for quite some time. He started as a graffiti artist but now uses installations, cut-outs, objects and big sized paintings. We’ll even see some unfinished stuff tonight which is a great idea, taking the perfectionism and insecurity of some artists into account.
The exhibition will run from 27th of September to 16th of November and is called: „OLD SCARS AND NEW INJURIES ARE THE BEAUTY OF THE ETERNAL NOW“. Let’s get hurt then. See you tonight.
OFFICE BERLIN
GIPSSTRASSE 11
10119 BERLIN MITTE GERMANY
.. took place yesterday at Tape Gallery and was again a nice get-together of creative people with more or less interesting subjects and more or less well done speeches. But to be honest, I expected a little more. The tow guys from Aka-Aki were impossible to understand, others, like Cosima Reif were so nervous the hysterical laughters produced feedbacks. But I liked very much David Henry Brown Jr’s talk about his personality Alex von Fürstenberg which got him into celebrity parties in New York and of course Tobi X’s Firefox plugin “Timemachine” which turns webpages into a state of like ten years ago: Full of candles, christmas trees, animated gifs, midi melodies and star backgrounds.
So, the wild days have started, Berlin is a little extra hyped on top, a little more than normally even, because big pop business is in town. Yes, there is still a big music industry but it’s not lables so much anymore that make the big profits. It’s all in the live concerts. The bookers, the agencies, the festival organizers – these are the ones that run the business really.
So it’s all about concerts and which band is able to really give the people a good time and makes them tell their friends and come back the next time. Music is a service, more than ever.
A band who is able to rock it every time are Mike Skinner aka the Streets and his musicians. Wednesday evening, a sponsored concert brought about 1500 people to an open air venue and after a little chilly start everybody got into a great mood and danced and hugged each other to get a little warmer. Thumbs up for Mike Skinner!
Yesterday, I missed Polarkreis18 AGAIN! Damn, but these boys play and play and actually here is a little concert (again, by Sli-Fi, these people have a LOT of stuff on the net..)
So what’s the program? Tonight: Trentemöller at Maria and Sonar Kollektiv, at Tape and saturday Pokerflat night at Watergate and Sunday, well, if the weather stays as great as it did these days, there will be some open air after hour like the Stadtfest or the Karneval for sure..
