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Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

theguardian.com

161–170 of 305 posts

Re: Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

#161
post #19

Any Australians here who were there for Melbourne’s ‘dirty electro’ scene through the 00s-10s? I feel very privileged to have lived my 30s through that time. Public Office in West Melbourne. The Lounge! Oh my god the Lounge on Swanston. E55 at the bottom end of Elizabeth. And let’s never forget Revolver, not that it needs forgetting as it’s still going. Everyone in that scene was there for the music. We all danced, w…

My time in Melbourne was after that, but Revs was still a beautiful place. So many great memories, and some hazy ones.

Re: Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, because they do not want people there, who listen to promotions and whatever the socialsewersystems carries as hip to them. Where there is affordable housing, there be musicians doing brave new things instead of worrying about rent and rapping rants about gentrification.

> Where there is affordable housing, there be musicians doing brave new things instead of worrying about rent and rapping rants about gentrification. So I am not a techno aficionado, and I'm curious what the state of Detroit techno is now. It seems like it should be more notable (maybe it is and I'm not in the scene to know) given the history and cost of living. I regret the US turning away from house and techno, com…

Detroit's cost of living is higher than the national average.

https://www.payscale.com/cost-of-living-calculator/Michigan-...

https://www.axios.com/local/detroit/2023/11/21/cost-of-livin...

Re: Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

#163
post #4

According to many people, including record shop owners I’ve talked to, Berlin’s scene is actually not so underground and not so cool anymore as a result of tourism and immigration. Rich people nowadays buy property in Potsdam, and the scene is moving towards Leipzig. In a more general sense the old rave cities are making way, and have been making way, to other cities. A movement spanning more than 20 years now, thank…

>Berlin’s scene is actually not so underground and not so cool anymore as a result of tourism and immigration. In my experience, people who like things because they are hidden and exclusive tend to be shitty, shallow, superficial people. Many, many, varied decades of life lived all over the world, and I've never witnessed a counterexample so I hesitate to make it an absolute. Same goes for people who think they like…

"In my experience, people who like things because they are hidden"

Sounds a bit like a strawmen. No one here said, they like something, because it is hidden.

But hidden places are quite free and can cultivate a very different culture, than one that plays by all the legal rules. And where money took over everything.

The best places I have been, were not listed in lonely planet. And I could not book them online. I had to find them.

Re: Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

#164
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's the case for a lot of "normies", but it really feels insulting to the electronic music fans in general. Unlike say rock nobody's gonna ask you to know every band in existence and every album they put out decades ago, but you should be able to distinguish between major electronic music genres like house, techno, drum and bass, trance, hardstyle and what not. Plenty of people are able to enjoy music without ge…

> Plenty of people are able to enjoy music without getting caught up in nomenclature. The idea that those people aren't real fans always feels very snobbish. If you can't differentiate between neurofunk and liquid, you're probably not a big dnb fan. That doesn't mean you can't enjoy it, but enjoying something and being a fan of something can be quite distinct things.

> If you can't differentiate between neurofunk and liquid, you're probably not a big dnb fan.

I'll be honest with you, I thought this was satire before I read the next line.

Re: Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

#165
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Berlin’s scene is actually not so underground and not so cool anymore as a result of tourism and immigration. It's funny how the (somewhat leftist) techno scene hates on foreigners destroying their tradition. Berlin and Bavaria aren't so far apart after all.

Which is immensely ironic considering that modern house and techno is an invention of African Americans in Chicago. We've truly come full circle. The same thing is being done to hiphop in a similar way.

>African Americans in Chicago

That's funny, Detroit lays claim to the same thing.

Re: Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

#166
post #81
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Berlin. This isn't true at all. Berlin's underground scene is still quite strong, perhaps just not as strong as it used to be. There's more "in the open" stuff due to the popularity, yes, but there's still plenty of (sometimes literal) underground raves happening. I'd also argue that the most recent accelerator for the shift in culture in Berlin isn't so much the tourism, but the pandemic. People haven't re…

Tourism definitely wasn't a major drag on the techno scene. There's always been the tourist clubs and the clubs that were more underground. Berliners usually don't go to Berlin's best known clubs. (Who the hell goes to Watergate or Tresor? Old joke was that Tresor was the biggest club in Dresden.) I think the biggest drag is actually rent prices. When I got to Berlin 20 years ago you could get a room in a shared flat…

I think your comment depicts the current & past situation in Berlin quite well. Overall, rents & overall cost of living in Berlin have increased tremendously, and available resources (unused warehouses, apartments, …) have gone down. It just can't be as underground and "poor but sexy" anymore if your DJs and ravers, during the day, all need to work high-paying 9-to-5 job to make ends meet.

Sooner or later, the Berlin scene will just feel like the one in Brooklyn. Everything will be properly gentrified.

Re: Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

#167

"Der Klang der Familie: Berlin, Techno and the Fall of the Wall" [0] is a good book on the origins of the Berlin Techno scene. It's based on interviews and discussions by the people originally setting up the whole thing, making it a pretty breezy read that you don't necessarily have to go through chronologically. No city can really replicate the absurd situation Berlin was in after the second world war. The absolute…

> after the second world war.

I think you mean the cold war.

Re: Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Berlin’s scene is actually not so underground and not so cool anymore as a result of tourism and immigration. In my experience, people who like things because they are hidden and exclusive tend to be shitty, shallow, superficial people. Many, many, varied decades of life lived all over the world, and I've never witnessed a counterexample so I hesitate to make it an absolute. Same goes for people who think they like…

On the other hand, normies do ruin everything.

In my experience, 100% of all people who use the word "normie" unironically are shitty, shallow, superficial people.

Re: Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

#169
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One clear difference is that EDM tends to have a lot of lyrics, whereas Techno tends not to.

Depends on the subgenre of Techno. A lot of hardcore and Tekno features a lot of movie samples.

I meant words that are sung not spoken.

Re: Berlin's techno scene added to Unesco intangible cultural heritage list

#170

"Der Klang der Familie: Berlin, Techno and the Fall of the Wall" [0] is a good book on the origins of the Berlin Techno scene. It's based on interviews and discussions by the people originally setting up the whole thing, making it a pretty breezy read that you don't necessarily have to go through chronologically. No city can really replicate the absurd situation Berlin was in after the second world war. The absolute…

Can't remember climbing a ladder down to get into Tresor. The ladder was into the cellar of the Fischbüro location somewhere in Kreuzberg 36. (these guys started Tresor later) (Eimer (Bucket) was a really bad location several years later, you wouldn't have been able to get out of the basement if ...)

What exactly is Kreuzberg 36? I always assumed that was a street number after hearing an old Smut Peddlers song.

https://genius.com/Smut-peddlers-kreuzberg-36-lyrics

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