Nu Disco

Dance music and I go way back. In England I listened to a lot of Punk and New Wave, and for a couple of years I got lost in the whole Jam Band thing in the US, but the garage ethos co-joined with the psychedelic side when I returned to Berlin and discovered the Techno scene. While most kids were still trying to figure out college, I actually started D’Vision Records, a dance label in Berlin in the early 1990s – an outrageous time in a crazy city. Case-study alert: being 22 years old, I made every business mistake I could, but as my father pointed out: it was better money spent than any business school tuition, and I got my investment back.

I absolutely love dance music, but it requires a certain amount of research, and some good guidance, to find exactly what you want. In Berlin, we are incredibly proud of our Techno, House, and Trance roots, but it’s always been very “underground” to a fault. It seems as though the entire scene expends a huge effort ensuring no one can join the fun. Admittedly, we fumbled it once before. What started as “our” movement, the first real German thing that wasn’t somehow trying to be American or English ended up growing really huge really fast. The Love Parade (as the most obvious symptom) grew from a few hundred dancers, to a really fun crowd of 40,000 ravers, to 1.5 million drunken hooligans before collapsing under a garbage heap of beer bottles and plastic rave wigs. Worse, no one in Berlin figured out how to earn any real money off it, while people from everywhere else made a killing. I guess the scene is intent on avoiding a version 2.0.

I recommend Tobias Rapp’s “Lost and Sound”, a book that nicely chronicles the current club scene in Berlin – a perfect storm of cool, available spaces, a ton of creative types focused on variations of House music, and the EasyJet-Set, which rolls in and out of Berlin every weekend for the kind of full-on fun that makes any experienced Hedonist blush with envy. The sound coming out of Berlin over the last three years has been dubbed Minimal, and for good reason. As the name implies, it’s pretty straight-forward, actually more focused on the after-hour set with reduced bass, and none of that hands-in-the-air rave favored by American aficionados of Trance House. Minimal is somewhat hypnotic, with its sparse loops and nuanced variations, and it’s easy to see how it plays gently in the background of a river-side concrete café in Berlin on a Sunday as people are slowly coming down from (and gearing up for another) long night.

If you want a taste, download three recent samplers that give you a TON of music for eight bucks each, including two hour-long mixes per compilation. Check out Sound of Berlin Vol. 1, Vol. 2, and Vol. 3…

…or just check out Rodriguez Jr.’s track Kids of Hula by clicking below:

Record stores in Berlin have always been difficult. There are few left that have any expertise, and the really important ones don’t want to sell you anything, unless you’re part of the in-crowd. It certainly isn’t a friendly place to go and learn about what’s new and interesting. The big music retailers have left the playing field, and Amazon is great if you know what you want, but their recommendation system is too wide to help with the endless nuanced sub-genres. So where do I go for help? Beatport.com, an online retailer that focuses on dance music, and is a treasure trove of well sorted music. Most DJs nowadays just download music and play it back via digital devices. Check out what Pioneer just brought to market to see what I mean!

Beatport also has great articles. One that really caught my attention recently was called 2009: The Year of Disco? It was a well-researched and cross-linked article about the Nu-Disco scene. Karen had made it pretty clear that she had hit the wall on Minimal House, and needed something more organic. Hand-claps and cow-bell to the rescue, baby! I strongly recommend the Horse Meat Disco compilation, as well as the Selected Works from Permanent Vacation. But what really blew me away was the three tracks from Tensnake’s recent EP called I Want You to Cry. Like any good dance number, it builds slowly, and it takes more than one track to close the deal.

Tensnake, In the End (I Want You To Cry)

…and of course, I have a vested interested in the scene, as I suddenly find myself back in the music business. Together with my old business partner Chris Zippel, here is one of the current releases, a Nu Disco compilation capturing the mood of my restaurant in Amsterdam. Get yourself a copy of the Park Hotel presents Momo CD, available now via Amazon and Beatport.

… and we even snuck in a Minimal track Hey, gotta wave that Berlin flag!

Maximus

Let the crazy online propagation begin!

If Tobias Rapp is right, then it won’t take much longer than a week or two before a song becomes a hit on the internet and, then goes into the clubs. In the day and age where every DJ downloads tracks, here’s a fresh one (with a phat video to boot!) It is unbelievable how fast music moves from city to city these days.

Maximus by Beni, featuring Sam Sparro. Berlin via Ghent via Los Angeles with pieces of Chicago and Melbourne.

Berlin Minimal with touches of House.

WHAT A GREAT TRACK! … and the kids are kind of cute, too. Betcha buck the thing was shot with a 5D Mk II and a 24mm f/1.4 L. The colors just look Canonesque, if you know what I mean….

Check it in HD and Full Screen, of course:

… and if you’re not seeing the video, click through to my blog and see it there!

Get up and DANCE, y’all!

350!

Another fun protest! Saturday the 24th of October is the International Day of Climate Action, and all over the world people will be raising awareness for the number 350, which… well, read the mission, freshly pasted from the 350.org website:

350.org is an international campaign dedicated to building a movement to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis–the solutions that science and justice demand.

Our mission is to inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis—to create a new sense of urgency and of possibility for our planet. Our focus is on the number 350–as in parts per million, the level scientists have identified as the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere. But 350 is more than a number–it’s a symbol of where we need to head as a planet.

To tackle climate change we need to move quickly, and we need to act in unison—and 2009 will be an absolutely crucial year.  This December, world leaders will meet in Copenhagen, Denmark to craft a new global treaty on cutting emissions. The problem is, the treaty currently on the table doesn’t meet the severity of the climate crisis—it doesn’t pass the 350 test.

In order to unite the public, media, and our political leaders behind the 350 goal, we’re harnessing the power of the internet to coordinate a planetary day of action on October 24, 2009.  We hope to have actions at hundreds of iconic places around the world – from the Taj Mahal to the Great Barrier Reef to your community – and clear message to world leaders: the solutions to climate change must be equitable, they must be grounded in science, and they must meet the scale of the crisis.

If an international grassroots movement holds our leaders accountable to the latest climate science, we can start the global transformation we so desperately need.

Unfortunately we are already way over 350 parts per million, which means we need to actually bring it back down – not just reduce the growth curve, actually reverse it. Check out this simple video, made without words so that everyone can understand it.

I don’t expect the onus for change to ride solely on the backs of consumers, but every little bit helps. There’s another major climate conference coming up, and hopefully people’s awareness will make it easier for leaders to come to a sensible agreement.

How can we make people aware? There are a number of activities planned in Berlin, but two sound particularly fun:

The Silent Climate Parade will be held at 2 PM in Berlin, but you have to sign up first. There’s only going to be 350 participants, each of whom will be wearing radio-connected headphones. Then these 350 protesters will make the ultimate sacrifice, which is having to listen to Dr. Motte DJ while they silently move through town… just like Love Parade 1989, I guess…

Afterward, you can join Berlin’s CarrotMob, who will be invading a willing Imbiss Bude and spending a lot of money there, in return for which the mobbed owner will voluntarily spend most of that money greening the greasy spoon. This time the “victim” will be eve&adam, which features lower-case spaceless spelling for extra coolness! Come to Rosa-Luxemburg Strasse 24-26 to be part of the fun and some really good food, whether you’re cool in real life or just on the internet.

Carrot Mob is a world-wide movement as well, take a look at their website.

Kutiman spins YouTube

I’ve written about talented Israeli musicians before, but thanks to Bobby Solomon I found Kutiman, who takes existing footage from YouTube and cuts it together to create cool new music. What makes it special is that he retains the underlying video in the sampling process, and cuts that into the mix, too. Usually the video snippets sit next to one another in the frame, so you see it all happening at the same time. It’s a audio-visual pastiche. The source material is of varying quality, but that’s what makes it so charming… which is a nice way of describing YouTube in general, by the way. Through other people’s music, he creates something new. Check out this one, appropriately called The Mother of all Funk Chords.

If you’re up for more of it, check out his site called Thru You. Take a look at Track 8 (About) to meet Kutiman.

Joe Jackson and his smoking diatribe

I couldn’t sleep last night, so around midnight I snuck to my computer for a little late-night browsing. I ended up at The Local, an English-language news site covering Berlin.

Imagine my pleasure when I found an editorial written by one of my favorite musicians, Joe Jackson!

Imagine my excitement when I read that he’s been living in Berlin for several years!

Imagine my disappointment when I realized the man is an idiot!

First off, allow me to quote his editorial in full. You can always click over to The Local, and read the article embedded in its home page… but it’s not going to make it any less crazy.

Steppin’ Out for a Smoke

Having lived in Berlin for the better part of three years, I’ve been asked to write something about my ‘right’ to smoke here. But I’m not sure I have one. The real question, I think, is: who has the right to forbid me to smoke, and on what grounds? Consider the following:

(1) Tobacco is legal in Germany.
(2) Smokers are adults.
(3) Smokers contribute enormous amounts of tax revenue.
(4) Pubs, bars, clubs and restaurants are private property.
(5) If some people don’t like smoke, this is a matter of taste and therefore for the free market to sort out, not the government.
(6) A decent modern ventilation system can render smoke virtually unnoticeable.
(7) ‘Second-hand,’ or ‘passive’ smoke hurts no one anyway.

This all seems pretty obvious to me, but the last point may need some explanation. Seven years of research has convinced me that the potential risks involved in smoking are currently hugely exaggerated, for reasons which have more to do with politics than health.

In the case of ‘second-hand’ smoke, though, anyone who really looks at the evidence – how the studies are done, who pays for them, what the statistics really mean – is soon reminded of the old story of The Emperor’s New Clothes.

You remember the one: the Emperor thinks he’s wearing a fabulous invisible costume, and no one has the nerve to tell him he’s naked because, well, he’s the Emperor! We’re not so impressed by emperors these days, or by priests or popes or politicians. But we seem to practically swoon at the sight of a doctor’s white coat. That’s why, more and more, it’s the uniform of choice for anyone in authority who wants to nag you, bully you, raise your taxes and generally push you around.

In Germany, the ‘official’ figure for yearly deaths from ‘passive smoke’ has been, for the last four years, exactly 3,301 – two-thirds of whom, incidentally, are supposedly over 75 years old and one-third over 85. This comes from a cancer research centre in Heidelberg. How do they know? Well, they don’t. They have just cherry-picked a few dubious statistics from a few trashy studies, and done computer projections from them. They can’t actually prove even one death.

I’m happy to say there seems to be a bit more (healthy!) skepticism about this sort of thing in Germany than, say, the UK. I’m delighted, too, that in the face of court rulings, fierce resistance, and half-hearted enforcement, smoking bans are unravelling in Berlin and the rest of the country.

Very few people, it seems, wanted them in the first place, and even most non-smokers favour some kind of freedom of choice. After all, a Berlin Eckkneipe, or corner pub, is typically a place where the owner, the bartenders, and most of the customers smoke. How far are authorities willing to go to stop them? The Nazis were fierce anti-smokers, but even they did not ban smoking in pubs.

There are bigger things bothering me than some nebulous ‘right to smoke.’ Basic democratic principles (freedom of choice, property rights, free enterprise, tolerance) are increasingly regarded, by politicians and lobby groups acting in the name of ‘health,’ as nothing more than obstacles to be scornfully swept aside.

People need to look beyond their personal prejudices and wake up. The phenomenal recent success of the anti-smoking movement is evidence not of the ascendancy of a noble cause, but of phenomenal infusions of cash. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been extorted out of the US tobacco industry in behind-the-scenes deals like the Master Settlement Agreement. Add to that punitive taxation and especially, the enthusiastic support of the pharmaceutical industry – which wants to sell nicotine products and antidepressants to the world’s 1.2 billion smokers. This is how a fairly small network of prohibitionist fanatics grows into a juggernaut which simply intimidates any opposition into silence.

Anti-tobacco in Europe is driven to a large extent by the World Health Organization – in an explicit partnership with three of the world’s biggest drug companies. AIDS, typhoid and dysentery are rampant in developing countries, and two million children a year die just from lack of clean water. Yet the WHO now prefers to bully the generally healthy citizens of prosperous countries over ‘lifestyle’ issues such as tobacco, alcohol, diet, obesity, and road safety.

Every aspect of our personal lives is being dictated, more and more, by unelected and unaccountable bodies like the WHO or various bit of the EU bureaucracy. If you don’t smoke, you may think it’s none of your business. But don’t kid yourself. If you’re a few pounds ‘overweight,’ or drink more than two government-defined ‘units’ of alcohol per day, or eat ‘unhealthy’ foods, then you’re next in line to be scapegoated and stigmatized, denied health care or insurance, denied jobs or housing, forbidden to adopt children . . . the list is growing daily.

These things are already happening in nanny states like the UK, Canada and Australia, and Germany can’t be so far behind. Nevertheless there is some cause for cautious optimism here. Germany, at least, won’t be the first country to sleep-walk into a joyless, squeaky-clean, socially-engineered future. So light a cigarette, raise a glass, and drink to that healthy disrespect for authority which is still alive and well in the bars of Berlin.

This man borders on the paranoid. A grand collusion of the pharma industry to outlaw smoking… so they can sell nicotine gum? Die he actually use the phrase Nanny State? His juvenile Me-and-Mine approach to rights is reminiscent of the most primitive wing-nut Fox News watchers.

The Germans have a lovely Neu-Deutsch phrase called Fremdscham – it’s New German for being ashamed on behalf of someone else… like when you see someone make a complete ass out of himself without realizing it. This is a version of empathy I’m feeling for a former larger-than-life star in my personal pantheon of 1980s hipsters.

I’m an ex-smoker. I don’t mind people smoking in my house. I don’t even mind it in most restaurants, but after the ban came into effect I noticed the air got better. I like it, but I’m not militant about it. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s a hard habit to kick. But with all the real problems in the world, Joe Jackson makes his grand stand on the barricades of the pro-smoking struggle. Cigarettes are a product marketed to 14-year olds, most of whom figure out relatively quickly that personal insecurity can be compensated through more effective ways than posing in the school yard like a member of the Sharks or the Jets. Grow up, and quit smoking. Don’t sell it back to us as an infringement of your rights and a conspiracy of NGOs.

Joe, we hardly knew ya….

Someone show this man the door… he may need to go smoke.