Filed under: bar, club, getting dancey, made in berlin, party | Tags: appartement, haus am köllnischen park 6, kitsuné, martini, music, partyy
TO DO:
<<i sincerely hope this isn’t some kind of sassy symbolism.
my fingertips are feeling the first phantom sting of subzero glass, i’m seeing the fiery candlelit twinkle of microscopic ice floes on glacial grapefruit-juniper tanqueray deeps. that slick slide of poison over frostbitten lips before it bites my tongue and anaesthetizes my esophagus.
<<and then there’s this.
update: the location for the kitsuné biznass has CHANGED. see here. plusss there’s like posters EVERYWHERE; i think it’s going to be a mess (or LAME, blerggg) and probs won’t go, fyi.
Filed under: club, getting dancey, made in berlin, party | Tags: appartement, partyy, stattbad, villa
Anyway, back to my main rant: Berlin is the perfect treasure hunter’s city. It’s a cave of jewels and ancient riches; it’s riddled with trap doors and mazes; underground; makeshift.
Largely it seems to be an afterglow, or desperate nostalgic simulation, of the charged fluidity and frantic change from the time right after the two Germanies were vigorously smooshed back together, when Berlin actually was the grungy sinkhole it still likes to pretend to be.
But what if it is a tawdry ruse? It’s so fucking fun.
The most exciting places to dance and prance, not surprisingly, are either impossible to find, in some back alley or weird basement or gutted insurance office somewhere, requiring you to clamber through a window or up a fire escape to get in, or best of all: password protected.
The Stattbad, e.g., while it’s definitely on the radar, is cool because it’s in a closed-down public indoor pool. They host parties and exhibitions. Also it’s in Wedding, which I can’t decide if that means it’s so uncool it’s cool again, or if it’s just queasy. Takes forEVER to get there.
o jesus!
Then there’s Villa, which is just all about keeping it on the DL. At the door, a tweaked out pixie with big goggly eyes and twirling in a poncho sang out as we tried to enter*, “and where are you going, my pretties?!” This made me feel confused (and not only because I was a half bottle of sekt deep) as I had believed it was generally clear to all that we were going into the club. She wanted, as it turned out, to test us, like a little guardian troll type thing, to see if we were tuned in enough to know the name of the event, which I vaguely remembered from the flyer only because it sounded a little like
fuck.
Phew!
Inside it feels like a creepy but cool apartment. It is Berlin, remember, buzzing little beehive of creepy/cool apartments with crumbling plaster moldings on cavernous ceilings, just begging to be outfitted with chandeliers and disco balls and ironic taxidermal birds of prey to set the stage for dance party magic.
in retrospect it seems weird that there was a cute little birthday party with candy and snacks going on at 2 in the morning, but villa is the kind of place where you generally just go with it.
And, because Tuesday nights are really the most utterly depressing time of the whole entire week, it’s a good thing that Dinner for Friends happens to be just then, in a little place called Appartement on Prenzlauer Allee, where you can get yourself a helping of warm noodles with a side of warm, fuzzy candlelight and a sprinkling of peppy throwback beats.
Wash it all down with the fierce hipster parade that starts marching in around 10 or 11 and that’s some damn tasty Berlin. But don’t even try and get past the gatekeeper if you don’t know the password.
*roughly translated
Filed under: club, concerts, food, getting dancey, music, party, restaurants, songs on the internet | Tags: diplo, major lazer, mitte, mp3, music, partyy, switch, themroc, wmf
You might say that the theme for this post is bad photography.
Or: what happens on a Friday night when you power through from work>>dinner>>club/party.
Namely, exhaustion, drunkenness, bad photography.
And fun times.
(Just don’t expect good pictures, is what I’m trying to get at here)
The night began righteously with a restaurant I simultaneously want to tell everyone about, and not tell anyone, so that it will stay a little lovely secret, because I don’t really like to share.
I’m talking about cozy-wozy Themroc on Torstraße, where we almost got turned away at 8 because of “reservations,” but after milling around the bar for 5 mins. we were apparently legit enough to be seated.
The awkward shuffle at the door was quickly forgiven and forgotten.
The view from our table was…the kitchen. As in sink, spice rack, cook. As in making our food. And no, this doesn’t mean we got hustled into the nosebleed section on account of no reservations. The kitchen is adorably right by the door.
As in any kitchen worth its guests, the refrigerator is covered in magnets/cute pictures. Jazz in the background and the gentle hum of various groups of people who like each other talking about things that make them feel good.
The menu is very small and exists only in the brains of the cook (1) and waiter (1). On offer was one appetizer, a sort of tabbouleh-style salad with shrimp. I like my tabbouleh with a little more zing and zest i.e. lemony-mintyness, but the shrimp were flavorful morsels grilled to perfection.
Next was a choice between something lamb and something chicken, I regret to admit that I was paying nil attention at this point, focusing more on like the wine-aspect of the meal (also excellent and plentiful), and so can tell you nothing about the lamb, since everyone at my table and at all the neighboring tables seemed to be going for the chicken.
The entree was solid and satisfying, if not spectacular. A little mogul of basmati rice mediated between a hunk of (baked?) chicken and a tzatziki salad. The chicken was tender and melty, basking but not bathing in a zesty-sweet-curry kind of sauce….mm now that I think about it, it actually was pretty perfect. It just didn’t stand out, exactly, but with the obvious theme here being that feel-good satisfaction of utter simplicity, wouldn’t anything more have been too much?
In any case, the dessert launched me to new heights of happiness: a warm fig amid fruity sauce and vanilla cream, all gooey and soft and choice with tiny caramelized crunchy nuts sprinkled on top.
All this warm and wonderful comfort food + drinks aplenty for less than the price of a pair of American Apparel leggings.
Speaking of which, the next stop was Major Lazer at WMF. This was really a great party, mostly because they had a little side room where the dj actually laid down the hip-hop all night long (this never happens in Germany), including some mash-ups that even though I feel negative about the mashup genre generally I have to say were pretty tight.
“MAJOR LAZER is a fictional cartoon character, who (according to press releases) fought as a Jamaican commando who lost his arm in a secret zombie war in 1984. He fights vampires and various monsters, parties hard, and has a rocket-powered hoverboard.” (Wikipedia)
I don’t feel like that requires further explanation, except that it’s the mutant science experiment of dj/producers Diplo and Switch and rocked pretty effing hard.
um you may recall I mentioned something about substandard photography. i think i should get points for even trying to take pictures and dance simultaneously.
why yes, thank you for asking, that is in fact a storm trooper in the right hand corner on stage. mostly blocked by some hombre getting way better pictures than me.
Forget the visuals, here’s an audio.
**Major Lazer – Hold the Line**
so get your dl on
Filed under: club, concerts, getting dancey, made in berlin, music, party | Tags: dance remix, disco, electropop, le salon de paris, music, partyy, stattbad, thieves like us
Filed under: bar, concerts, getting dancey, made in berlin, music, party | Tags: kim bar, music, partyy, thieves like us
Filed under: club, concerts, getting dancey, made in berlin, music, party | Tags: mp3, music, partyy, tape, the whitest boy alive
whitest boy alive will be getting their outdoors on. in the TAPE garden at 1600 hours. so will i.
Filed under: club, concerts, getting dancey, made in berlin, music, party | Tags: dance remix, electropop, junior boys, modeselektor, mp3, music, partyy, pete doherty, tempelhof, whomadewho
Up until yester-eve at 1800 hours the tricked out electrofest that is BERLINFESTIVAL 2009 was not on my skejj for the weekend but the unexpectendess doubtless made it all the more awesome.
arrived around 9ish, when nothing yet exciting was happening. o yea except we were at the AIRPORT. word.
defunct tempelhof is WAY cooler than functional tempelhof.
got my tix at a steal from twitchy kids confused about which language they wanted to speak, in the parking lot, unclear whether they were aware of said generous discount.
anyway soon junior boys went on. front and center ppl were dancing, they were way sick.
thought i didnt know them but i totally know that song “too young”.
UPDATE whooops that song is actually called “in the morning”
give it a listen *Junior Boys – In The Morning*
whomadewho was fun too, cute in lil hats and suspenders.
then these plant ppl did a little weird dance and celebrated green growing things or something.
they were chill, i guess.
but it wasn’t all weirdos playing with hay. hot kids in hats were all around.
pete doherty looked a little tired, but he held it together. didn’t exactly bring it, tho.
O yea, drunkies, just in case u forgot u were at the AIRPORT, here’s an airplane bitches.
But real talk now. MODERAT brought it like i’ve NEVER heard or felt or seen. didn’t know what to expect from them but duuuuude. Didn’t actually plan on staying for their set but I can’t even imagine what my life would be like now if i had missed it. Freal.
While they mixed it UP with outrageous soul gripping beats from the fourth dimension, and everykid grooved his/her own personal groove, little individualistic waves in one great grooving sea, the screen behind them showed mindbending scenes of surrealistic awesome. exploding plaster, wooden spiders, flickering t-rex skulls i don’t even know but it WAS majestic. damn o damn.
UPDATE did a little reading up. MODERAT are equal parts Modeselektor (an age old Berlin electro group from the illicit underground days,1 of Thom Yorke’s fave bands.) and Apparat (aka Sasch Ring; a Berlin-based electro guy). Their self-titled album just came out this March. a frantic frenzy of excellence.
BUT DON’T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT!!! listen: **Moderat – Rusty Nails** (mp3)
o yea then peaches played some schizoid electrobeats while her dancers pissed on stage and she spit champagne on ppl while wearing some fifth element style modular sparklesuit.
o kids that means bedtime. tomorrow is another day. HEALTH and Digitalism, and Deichkind, o my.
Filed under: getting dancey, music, party, songs on the internet | Tags: dance remix, electropop, miami horror, music, partyy, pregame playlist, treasure fingers
WHOA watch yourself this is some treacherously catchy I-cant-believe-its-not-80s synthesizer mayhem here, the original will make you joggle your leg if you have lots of self control, the remix will make you moonwalk. true. f-in. story.
So Miami Horror, what is its deal, how is it all over the bloggs all of a sudden hmm?
let’s ignore the fact that blogs have been blogging about it since like ’07. who cares
the remixes are great (yea try like Pnau, Midnight Juggernauts, &c.), remixes of the originals, remixes of the remixes are great,
Miami Horror is a cute lil Australian hipstertype guy (band, whatever) and we just love it. listen listen.
O-RIGINAL
RE-MIX
**Don’t Be On With Her (Treasure Fingers Remix)**
Filed under: getting dancey, music, party, songs on the internet | Tags: dance remix, electropop, mp3, music, partyy, pony pony run run, pregame playlist, stereoheroes, work
Good god what’s gotten into me Ive actually been working these days and so haven’t been able to blog all day as I truly wish I could..
This means I’ve been sitting on a number of delicious dance remixes which I will deploy as the mood strikes& time allows.
Here a perfect one to make even Tuesday twinkle with magic.
Pony Pony Run Run name Weezer as one of their greatest influences, though I dont rly hear the likeness except maybe in terms of like, both make me want to move my feet, and it’s sort of impossible not to sing along by the time they reach the second chorus, &plus their songs display a special stealthy ability for getting played on repeat by me until I hear them quietly continue in my ears when they’re not even playing anymore.
They maintain a certain mystique, identifying their 3 members by only the letters G, A, &T.
What this is is fun fun synthpop, Cut Copy comes to mind a little, very much in the vein of the chimey dancey discoey stuff coming out of the French electropop scene these days. The early 80s come back to life with a yearning heart, a sexy french accent, adorable falsetto moments, & the whole thing lends itself amazingly to the creation of slightly more intense remix versions. I heard it first a week ago and thought it was sugarsweet, embarassingly happy stuff…but i sat on it, and listened to it again, and again, and it has gotten its claws into me somehow. I’m even falling for the cutesy video
And now presenting the downy little songlets themselves: “Hey You” is off their new album, “You Need Pony Pony Run Run” (check out their myspace to buy it for your own) which dropped earlier this month. First the original, then a remix which makes you want to run run like a pony pony.
**Pony Pony Run Run – Hey You**
**Pony Pony Run Run – Hey You (StereoHeroes Remix)**
original + remix courtesy Trash Menagerie
Filed under: club, concerts, getting dancey, music, songs on the internet | Tags: cookies, disco, electropop, glass candy, mp3, music, partyy, pregame playlist
True, this event has come and gone, but in honor of their appearance at Cookies on Tues. we raise our first glass on this Friday night to Glass Candy–Ida No (vocals) & Johnny Jewel (everything else), that is–an electropop (most recently with Italo Disco leanings, but they are prone to experimentation) outfit from Portland, OR.
The duo’s look is just as decadently retro eurosexy as their sound. Perfect soundtrack for rifling through ur lamé, diamonds, furs, painting your eyes pink and teal before venturing into the urban night.
