#189 Fail: How to not get to a Berlin club

This is a cautionary tale of Berlin

Welcome back,
If you like posts with detailed stories written out like in this one, then press the like button up here so I know next time.

To make up for not telling you the nights out stories in the last post and the one before, I took my time to give you a full report of last Saturday night, which wasn't special in other way than that the fact that nothing much happened. It could be called a fail. It is however a good account of how time disappears in Berlin, we went through 8 hours as it was nothing.

There's always something to see on the walls.

This weekend we decided to go to a club. The only available night for us was the Saturday and so we chose that. We met up at Kotbusser Tor at eleven pm and decided it was too early for a club and we should hit the bars first to go to a club later. The first stop was a bar on Oranienstrasse, which is quite a good street for going to a bar and I have witnessed more action here than at the Kreutzberg area (feel free to disagree with this in the comments).

Enjoying the park and beer.

We went to a bar I had spotted last weekend, but hadn't gone in yet. When buying beer the standard "also pay the DJ with the 1st drink" rule applied. We reluctantly accepted our stamps as we had planned to only stay for one drink and the DJ was playing some boring reggae or something else. The bar was packed and after circling it we found a sitting place on a ledge. Soon after sitting down I was asked to take a photo of the girls and a boy at the table next to us. They were using the "small" Fuji instax that prints out the photo straight away. It was a fun toy, but it takes forever for the photo to appear on the paper. It took significantly less time for a waitress to appear and to tell me it was forbidden to take photos, I forwarded her to the owner of the camera. This didn't faze them at all and as the waitress left they took a photo of us too and handed it to me, saying that it's very expensive.

The expensive Instax photo of us in that bar.

Soon after that we continued on. We had to decide between Berghain, Stattbad, About Blank, Louche and Renate. As Stattbad had Elektro Guzzi and Cassegrain playing lives and it was really close to our home we decided to go for that. We agreed that the night wasn't right for the Berghain line. We still had a bottle of bubbly to chug and we decided to take everything from being in the south before we headed back towards the calmer north. I managed to storm a rock bar only to discover it had a ticket when I backed out of there ten minutes later. We spent some time sitting in a park and tried out an obnoxious Australian accent we had heard on the street.

The bar where everyone drinks their own drinks.

We then continued to a bar in Kotbusser Tor where I was told it's "okay" to go there with your own drink. We got to a random door opened it and pushed a side the thick dark curtains. Inside there were people sitting and smoking on furniture made of wooden storage pallets. Old monitors were used as interior design and the vibe was strange. We finished our drinks in there and continued on to look for something more vibrant. By then it was around 3 am.

Rosenthaler platz bar.

We got the Ubahn to Rosenthaler platz at 3:30 to see if it had more action than the nights before. We stopped by a Spätkauf and got a couple of Sternburgs and Peeter whipped out a pair of sandwiches from his backpack. You see he had come straight from work and there were some catering sandwiches left over as he left. So we enjoyed the sandwiches and beer outside of the Späti and tried to out talk the loud Spaniard youths sitting at the next table. Needless to say we lost that competition.

Sandwiches are a good alternative to kebab...

So we continued further at around 4:30 am. I remembered from the internet that there was supposed to be Trust bar on Torstrasse. It turned out that internet was a senile liar and the bar had since moved. We found a bar with a mirror door on the way, which seemed to only let in models. As we approached the door a random looking woman denied us entrance because of Peeter's work clothes, which weren't dirty, just worn. We continued on to Chelsea bar and wanted to check if this was the night when someone would actually be there. Yet again we were denied entrance, this time because of his steel tip boots. I knew I looked fine, because just ten minutes ago a passing stranger had complimented my shirt to me. As I had mentally prepared myself to get turned down by Sven at Berghain, these random bars didn't hurt more than a mosquito bite after a broken arm.

...kebab is a good alternative to sandwiches...

So we continued on towards Stattbad and watched the dawn near the Berlin wall at 5:17am. As our home was on the way, Peeter insisted that he could leave his backpack and change clothes before we go to Stattbad to start a fresh. We left our place at around 6 and headed towards the club. On the way I stopped a couple of girls and asked them about the state of the party. They told us that everyone was leaving and it was pretty much over. We were somewhat disappointed.

...all in all there's food lying everywhere.

Once we arrived there at 6:30 we were still asked to pay the full cover fee, the two live shows were over and the last Dj was about to go on. Didn't seem like it was worth it. So we went to check out Panke across the street. It was closed, but someone was having a party in the house next to it. We tried our luck on crashing it, but after ten minutes of looking for the right door, we realized they were already cleaning up the party. At that point the bed seemed like the best private club for me. Peeter still insisted on going to club Humboldthain and we split ways.

One of the last things I saw when I went home.

From 7 I slept till 11 to perfectly hit a sleep cycle and possibly go to Club Der Visionaere or another Sunday morning after party, possibly an Open Air. We however only had the energy to go to the Mauer park fleamarket, which was packed full because it was a beautiful day. The sun, a friend from England and Club Mate made the perfect Sunday.

See you,

What happened in 2011

Welcome back, for the last time this year! Push play before you read on. These are four tracks of my coming Ep. It's been a good year and here's why:


>we completed the video for Frank Call,
>the video was on TV, where I also gave an interview,
>Frank Call got featured as demo of the week on Radio2,
>For play Ep was released,
>shot photos with Gabriela,
>made Blo Me shirts and sold them all,
>Pick Up track was featured on MAP,
>played 11 shows/sets,
>Had a houseshow at my studio,
>around 8000 readers were on Fluon,
>published 58 posts on Fluon,
>three of my prints were on exhibition,
>shot photos for Eazy Jet magazine.

The photo that almost cost me my camera.

I spent this year working on different music skills. I studied further mixing and mastering skills to give you a better quality listening experience. I consulted Ö-stuudio to better understand those techniques.  I also studied composition and classical music theory (chords, keys) to know what is commonly used in music. This was the first time I had studied any music theory. Lots of tracks were made during summer to capture the light and happy beachy mood. Those are the tracks you can hear in the mix, up there. I also put a lot of work into this blog and my Facebook page. I focused more on DJing as it's something that I'm planning to do more in the future. I'll mix it up with some of my bootlegs and mash-ups.
My new year's promise is to get music out to you faster. That might mean that tracks will be just downloads instead of Eps, but I haven't decided yet how to do it exactly.

Artwork for the Ep tracks.

The shows and sets I played this year were enjoyable. The last set at Nälg was a real treat with people dancing from the first song non-stop to the last one. The Errorfests had a strong concentration of great people and good friends. It was also an opportunity to interact with foreign artists, even if the dance floor wasn't packed. Mõisa Karneval was a great festival, which I enjoyed even despite having pneumonia. The most experimental experience was playing a house show at my place, something I would like to do more when the occasion arises.

Best way to live is to be always celebrating.

I went to a Californian guy's housewarming party on Tuesday. 400 invited, 40 attending, 30 came. At the party I was attacked by a crazy bitch when I was taking photos of her. Her assault resulted in damaging my camera. Bitches be crazy! To be discreet, I'll post no face or name, but my camera is barely alive. We also got a visit from the downstairs neighbor thug, who was complaining about music. Except for those incidents nothing much happened. It was a regular Christmas week with pretty much everything closed.

See you next year and leave your new year's promises in the comments!
Barthol

Frank video - coming out

*ring* Where's that video of yours? Private? Oh well I guess I'll wait.

Welcome back!

It's finally time to talk about my music video. The video is for "Frank call", its basically finished and should premiere on the 12th in Tallinn. I'm still looking for a venue and event in Tartu. It's my first time to direct a video.

Ever gotten dressed at a parking lot?

The video is about a girl called Samantha Baker who wreaks havoc around the city while a boy tries to reach her at the house. She smokes, drinks and dances around the streets and takes an occasional wizz in the back alley. At the same time the boy gets yelled at by her paranoid grandparents. During shooting we were assisted by the police, I wrote about it in this earlier post.

Samantha meeting another boy on the street.

The budget was only 10€ and it consisted of various drinks we bought during shooting. It's possible to create on a tight budget and for that I have to thank my crew, which consisted mostly of Redlip but not only. Our actress  ***** asks you not to reveal her identity even if you recognize her. She was really easy to work with and really enthusiastic about the whole idea, even the police part. The track "Frank call" has been specially remastered for the video and has now lots more lower end.

Also featuring Barthol's fresh "B" logo.

We hope to have the video appear in the media, including television. Any help with it is welcome. Suggest a venue, do an interview or just join us on Facebook.
See you soon!
B

Come party with us! We have presents.

Welcome to my birthday party. You're a little late, I had a special present for you. Still look around, mingle and enjoy the party. As you can see old friends like Sebastien Tellier, Toxic Avenger, Hercules + Love Affair and Frankmusik are here. They'll be playing soon, just push play>

First we cruise the streets of facebook with bass and invite people with us to the night. All the french electro Djs, bad girls and cool dancers are welcome. Come on, invite your friends over here as well, the more the merrier. Share it, so we'll break the current record for Fluon which is 120. If you find these guys a bit strange then don't worry it's just that they are French. It's an advantage when we get to the night club, because they know how to dance. Stay with us because our next stop is a pub in England. I also wanted to take you to Calvin Harris' Scottish manor, but his label hasn't allowed this.

Next part of the night - England with Frankmusik. He guides us through the night from a pub to another and even to the dusty dumpster to throw up. Meet loads of easy girls, skinny hipster boys with fake glasses and an occasional bloke parading by. Enough of dancing in the night club, it's time to take shots of hard licor with the locals. Try not to get too wasted an kicked out like Frank usually does. We still have to go to New York city for the afterparty.

It appears we have traveled back in time as well. Welcome to the eighties of New York city. They sing to "put my house in order", but noone is bothering with cleaning up and everyone is just partying away to the next day. Loads of empty and half empty bottles and snacks on the tables and the messed up mascara of the girls because of  making out with the french boys in the night club. How come there are so many people in horrible outfits here? Oh well, whatever it's time for last drinks. One for the road, but where are we going to next?

The hangover is an artform in itself. This party ends with the French hangover or a gueule du bois. The cloudy morning has arrived, the pool is out of champagne and Sebastien Tellier is singing. Apparently everyone else stayed in New York city and it's just us, Sebastien Tellier and twenty three French girls over here. I lend him my sunglasses because the dim morning light hurts his eyes and he can't sing properly without those. The girls can't find their pants anywhere or remember why they don't have any in the first place. It doesn't really matter it's not that cold. Everyone can go around in their underwear anyway. We have some breakfast, make out with some girls and talk about last nights party. It's almost over now.

But it isn't actually over, you can take a part of this back home with you. It's the free mp3 download of my new 80's bassline track Frank call (presents ran out on the 7th of march). Listen to it and remember our party and if you have any presents for me then send them to me through comments or email. Thanks for coming and see you real soon.

Barthol