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

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

#191
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Genuine Q. Do berliner straight dislike any tourist no matter how they behave? I tend to go out in Buenos Aires where I live to more underground clubs and don't mind that there are a few tourists here and there. Im travelling to Berlin and was recommended Tresor, is it just a place for tourists?

Depends on the tourists - there's a lot of tourists that fit in the scene very easily, there's some that don't. It's not a requirement but if you already listen to the artists that are going to be playing you are in the first group. Tresor has pretty decent lineups while still being a bit more touristey but it's not a tourist trap or an ibiza-style club or anything like that. The crowd is generally considered a bit worse than the cool clubs, but nowhere near as bad as the actually uncool clubs (like say Watergate).

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

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netherlands is top in Europe overall. Most Berlin people are migrating to Amsterdam.

They must really love the music then, they sure as hell aren't moving for the better housing prices. I'm not at all in the Amsterdam EDM or hardstyle scene (just not my music), but I had indirectly got the feeling that it was slowly declining (ADE excepted), I could be quite wrong though, maybe they're just all in NDSM or something.

ADE is wild. I don't think anything else compares.

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

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netherlands is top in Europe overall. Most Berlin people are migrating to Amsterdam.

Hardly. Amsterdam is comparatively small city = much smaller audience. You can se the stability of the scene in how often clubs close down. Just recently De School closed (now it should be reopen again under different management/name). Some of the Berlin clubs have been open and solid for 20 years.

Did De School close because lack of interest? From what I've experienced (during ADE) and also heard, Amsterdam is very popular for all the techno sub-genres.

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

#194
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine Q. Do berliner straight dislike any tourist no matter how they behave? I tend to go out in Buenos Aires where I live to more underground clubs and don't mind that there are a few tourists here and there. Im travelling to Berlin and was recommended Tresor, is it just a place for tourists?

Hate's not the right word. A lot of clubs have a community around them -- they have their regulars; people go there to see their friends. If there are too many tourists, there's less space for regulars. There are always some tourists, and that's fine, but a lot of those communities that I mentioned a second ago have been choked out by a club eventually being so popular with tourists that the regulars don't bother goi…

Dang... a Berlin native friend of mine took me to Renate around 2011-2012 ish. Great vibe but I got yelled at for being a tourist :(

I get it though, where I live we have desert undergrounds and parties up in the mountains with a vibe that is threatening to be overrun by tourists. To say nothing of all the plug-in camps popping up at Burning Man...

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

#195
post #179

The museum-ification of Europe continues unabated. I can't get into the mind of the people who thought that this award was a good idea, much less anyone who'd feel happy about receiving it (it's usually not the 'real' locals anyway, but people who are close enough to feel some connection but far enough to not be exposed to the reality; or people with financial interests).

That's similar to my initial response.

The museum treatment is the end for any artform, IMHO; it's petrification. Did rock'n'roll grow and move and thrive after its Hall of Fame opened? I suppose there was grunge.

It freezes the artform in a certain state (and by who and how is that state chosen?) and defines it that way for eternity. That's death - growth and change are ended; like the dearly departed it's defined by memories of it, not who it will be today or tomorrow; it's no longer doing something new that will surprise you or make you uncomfortable; it's sometimes reenacted by people who try to represent it, who miss the point of art - to express something of your own.

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

#196
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>towards Leipzig. This has been a meme forever, and while Leipzig has its own decent scene for its size, it is not remotely close to rivaling Berlin. Pick a decent sample of either established or up and coming DJs and compare how often they play in Berlin vs there to disuade yourself of that notion. >and even Sofia. Yeah, no. Just because a city has some parties here and there, it doesn't mean it should even be in th…

> established or up and coming DJs Well there's the problem. What you should compare is how many unknown new guys just making good music for fun in small unknown clubs visited by locals are there. In my city I can go to a random non-descript bar with zero marketing or entrance fee, sit down peacefully with a drink, and hear world class techno together with few dozen strangers. Every evening. Doesn't feel that way in…

What city?

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

#197
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. Jeff Mills was a Skinny Puppy fan, and you can hear it. All the Belleville Three were heavily influenced by Kraftwerk and euro-electro, and you can hear that too. All of them namecheck a much richer and diverse set of influences than Chicago house, itself a refinement of disco, a far from strictly racially-defined movement. The UK was the first to wake up to US techno, long before the US did, if you actuall…

Yep, exactly. It was German etc sounds being appreciated by African Americans in Detroit, being mixed with their influences in Chicago, and then travelling back across the Atlantic. Its a transatlantic international group effort and to deny either side of it misses the whole point.

You both explained it very succinctly. I don't get why people have to grasp at depictions of history that simply aren't true. They want to believe that Jeff Mills and Belleville 3 somehow created this new music from nothing and inspired the entire world.

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

#198
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That's fine, maybe you don't care about being able to differentiate between the stuff you listen to, a lot of us do.

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

#199
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…

The rent thing doesn’t exactly make sense to me because there are sometimes large underground scenes in expensive cities too. I have no idea how they coordinate warehouse parties in these places where the warehouse even for warehouse use would have a lot of value, but they do.

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

#200
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…

Yea prices, forgot to mention it. Indeed very massive factor, Berlin is much more expensive compared to… say 2005.

Belgrade is long way from Europe although the scene is good, but I’d say Croatia and Albania are much more preferred by promoters

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