#Berghain is one of the most popular clubs in the world

[teanicolae]

Tender Run Through Memories: You are crazy, my child. You must go to Berlin (2018)

extracts from a Berlin travel guide i worked on during my first internship. i was spellbound by Berlin’s entrancing mix of rich culture & gritty club-scene. i fell in love with the city, bit by bit, and i spent one month reviewing its art, museums and vegan food. during my time there, David Bowie kept ringing in my ears, as it was one of his soul-cities 🌼 you got the width of my tongue name on the sun 🌷 velvet goldmine, you stroke me like the rain, snake it, take it, panther princess you must stay 🦋

Feature: Introduction to Berlin

Much has been written about Berlin’s blend of history, outstanding culture and infamous nightlife. Proclaimed the capital of cool, Berlin is where you can “go to all-night parties, attend a screening of an arthouse film and an anti-Trump demonstration within 24 hours”, as The Times noted. Some talk about Berlin’s fall from grace, wondering if the city’s growing popularity diminished its authenticity and turned the city into a growingly expensive tourist trap.

From Marlene Dietrich, who sang “I still keep a suitcase in Berlin” with a piercing longing, to the rebellious singer Iggy Pop, who called Berlin his home, many artists have voiced their love for Berlin.

“You are crazy, my child. You must go to Berlin” (Franz von Suppé)

Affordable, buzzing, wild and carefree, Berlin is a symbol for tolerance and open-mindedness. Unlike other metropolises in Europe, it’s a place where you can relax. Berliners do not rush. They take their time, basking in the sun with their low-cut T-shirts and heavily tattooed arms, flicking back their occasionally bright-coloured hair.

Nights in Berlin are freaky, intense and fiery. The club culture is exhilarating; anything goes. Berlin is a techno capital: notorious DJs, outrageous raves and 36-hour long parties. There are plenty of clubs to choose from, perhaps the most infamous being Berghain, which pays the same taxes as theatres and concert halls, as it is considered to produce work of cultural significance.

It’s magical to lose yourself in Berlin’s night scene, in the hazy beat of electronic music and in the half-clothed masses. There is a strong sense of acceptance. You are free to be yourself. You won’t be judged.

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“Berlin, the greatest cultural extravaganza that one could imagine” (David Bowie)

Berlin is a home to artists and a paradise to emerging creators, who come here to pursue their dreams. There are around 20,000 artists living and working in the city, lured by cheap rents, the city’s libertine energy and the massive studio spaces. The street art mirrors the city’s fantastic art scene.

Berlin is bursting with culture and history. It has 175 museums, even more than New York. It’s an open museum too: from the Berlin Wall to Checkpoint Charlie and to the Nazi book burning site at Babelplatz, Berlin’s unique history can be seen by foot.

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“Berlin is cheap, but sexy” (Klaus Wowereit)

Berlin is the cheapest capital city in Western Europe. While it is getting expensive, perhaps because of its touristy appeal, it is the perfect place for backpackers, artists and adventurers for now. You can get a cup of coffee for €2, a lunch for less than €10, a pint of beer for €2-4, a day travel pass for €6,50 and a decent double room in a hotel for €50 per night. What is more, some of the attractions of Berlin are free, such as East Side Gallery, Raw Tempel and Yaam Beach.

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Paris is always Paris and Berlin is never Berlin! (Jack Lang)

Nonetheless, Berlin is constantly changing, you never know what to expect. You need to experience it yourself.

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Reviews: Art, Beauty & Vegan Food

Beyond Compare: How African and European Sculptures Carve the Essence of Humanity

There are few exhibitions as fascinating as Bode Museum’s “Beyond Compare”. “Beyond Compare” brings together, compares and analyses the sculptural traditions of two continents by displaying, side by side, 70 African sculptures, along with renowned masterpieces from Byzantium, Italy and central Europe.

Despite their radical stylistic differences, it is interesting to observe how the artworks touch the same themes. They illustrate the frailty of the human experience, exploring subjects such as death, beauty, motherhood, power, spirituality and love. Cultures apart, humans seemed to be moved by the same matters; it is remarkable to see the dainty, gothic sculpture of Madonna, Virgin of Mercy, appear next to a seemingly raw sculpture which represents a power figure from Congo. The second sculpture looks quite crude next to the carefully-carved Madonna, but both were made with the intent to ask for protection, to invoke forces that are beyond the physical world.

In the exhibition’s first slide, it is noted that the works displayed were made by human beings, and not by “cultures”, “tribes”, “ethnic groups” or “nations”. It is important to keep this in mind while strolling through the museum, as this exhibition is not an objective comparison between two different cultures, but a soft reflection of human nature.

Address: Am Kupfergraben, 10117 Berlin. Closest stations: Friedrichstraße, Hackescher Markt; Bus TXL Staatsoper, Lustgarten, Friedrichstraße. Opening hours: Monday – closed; Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday: 10:00 – 18:00; Thursday: 10.00 – 20.00. Prices: 12,00 EUR, Reduced 6,00. Website: https://www.smb.museum/museen-und-einrichtungen/bode-museum/home.html Contact: Tel 030 266 42 42 42

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Enjoy the silence in Museum der Stille

Museum der Stille (“Museum of Silence”) is a unique invitation to embrace the silence in the middle of the lively district of Berlin Mitte. It’s a small, free and beautiful exhibition of paintings and architectural models that illustrate different stages of stillness. It is lovely, subtle and, above all, silent. In the middle of the museum, there is only one piercing painting of a woman who’s gazing through you, with a simple wooden bench in front it. The walls are a deep, warm red and the light is dimmed. The profound silence makes the experience sincere and intense; you are struck by a strong feeling of here and now. While at the beginning you might be put off by the awkwardness of hearing your feet clumsily shuffling through the museum, you will gently ease into the museum’s serenity, if you let yourself. For once, you do not have to rush. It’s enough just to take it all in.

Even after leaving the museum and walking back into broad daylight, the spell of silence is not broken. You might be finding yourself humming Depeche Mode and thinking that they were right, perhaps. It is enough just to enjoy the silence.

Address: Linienstraße 154A, 10115 Berlin Closest stations: Oranienburger Tor, Oranienburger Straße. Opening hours: Tuesday - Sunday 14:00 - 19:00 Prices: Free Website: http://museum-der-stille.de/de/ Contact: info@museum-der-stille.de Tel: +49 (0) 30 278 919 90

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CWC Gallery: exploring the modern and the contemporary

If you have a soft spot for art, but find most museums to be too sombre and a little old-fashioned, CWC Gallery might just be the place for you. “CWC” stands for “Camera Work Contemporary” and, as its name suggests, it focuses on contemporary and slightly modern positions found in photography, painting and sculpture. The gallery is in the heart of the bohemian Berlin-Mitte quarter and, while stylish and elegant, it isn’t pretentious and it has an easy-going vibe. It’s also completely free!

The first floor is a homage to the 1990s that recreates the dreamy allure of the era. Wandering around, you are charmed by goddesses of the ‘90s: photos of the iconic Iman, Gisele Bündchen, Uma Thurman and Halle Berry, all captured by Micheal Comte, are plastered on walls. Their half-smile and bouncy curls will leave you longing. You can soothe your temporary nostalgia by moving onto the next floors, where you can admire a beautifully curated and impressive exhibition of modern works of art, some of which display a striking social commentary.

In the same building, you can also find quite an interesting permanent exhibition about The Kennedys, which explores the political success and the private life of John F. Kennedy. The admission fee is 5€.

Address: Auguststraße 11–13, 10117 Berlin Closest stations: Oranienburger Tor, Oranienburger Straße. Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday 10:00 -18:00 Saturday 11:00 – 18:00. . Prices: Free. Website: https://camerawork.de/ Contact: info@camerawork.de Tel 030 24048614

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Yoyo FoodWorld: the oldest vegan fast-food joint in Berlin

Yoyo FoodWorld is a hip fast-food joint on the Gärtnerstrasse 27 and the first and oldest vegan fast-food in Berlin.

For almost ten years, Yoyo hasn’t been your typical fast-food. Its atmosphere is similar to one of a quiet, cozy indie bar. Indoors, the light is slightly dimmed and there are photos of famous musicians and philosophers plastered on the restaurant’s walls, along with cult film posters that would make any film student swoon. Soft rock music plays in the background. The outdoor sitting is just as delightful, as the area surrounding the joint is lovely and inviting.

The food is cheap, fantastic and sure to satisfy your cravings, as the options are varied. They have 3,50€ burgers, 6,50€ pizza, 5€ wraps, 6€ schnitzels, 5€ seitan Currywursts, 3,80€ sea food and meatballs at the price of 8 for 3,20€. All the dishes are deliciously vegan and would work perfectly as comfort food or hangover food. It’s also the place to take your friends to convince them that vegan food is tasty.

Another highlight is the toilet, which is exceptionally cool. It’s filled with queer stickers, feminist and political statements, colourful graffiti and carefully scribbled love poems; ideal for a quirky Instagram post.

Address: Gärtnerstraße 27, 10245 Berlin Closest stations: Samariterstr., Frankfurter Tor, Warschauer Str. Opening hours: Monday- Thursday 12:00 - 23:00, Friday - Saturday 12:00 - 00:00, Sunday 12:00 - 23:00. Prices: € Website: http://www.yoyofoodworld-berlin.de/ Contact: kontakt@yoyofoodworld-berlin.de

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Get fettundbetrunken at the Chaostheorie

Chaostheorie is the first vegan cocktail bar in Germany. Their slogan is “fettundbetrunken”: “fat and drunk”, so expect to find a perfect mix of cheap comfort food and funky alcohol.

Onto the first part of their motto, “fat”: the food is fantastic. From a veganized traditional cuisine to more modern dishes, the highlights are juicy currywursts, enormous doner kebabs, fries with dripping dips, pulled mushroom burgers and thick cheese meatball sandwiches. To sweeten things up, the selection of house-made cakes is flavourful to say the least. The Oreo cake, smooth and crunchy at the same time, is a popular favourite. The soft drinks are also a dream: creamy milkshakes, Snickers, Manner or Oreo flavored, and rich freakshakes. You can settle for classic options, too: late macchiato, hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows, coffee with caramelized milk and hot applesauce with cinnamon and vanilla soya milk.

Now, onto the second part of their motto…”drunk”! You can sip traditional cocktails or try out the bartender’s specials: experimental and refreshing mixtures such as Julep Blue, bourbon, blue curaçao, ginger ale and limette.

The place itself is cozy: dim light, soft indie music, shelves stacked with books and a lovely photobooth perfect for making memories.

Even if you’re looking for a quiet afternoon with good food or for a tipsy evening, in Chaostheorie you can find the things you thought you’d never enjoy again once you went vegan.

Address: Schliemannstraße 15, 10437 Berlin. Closest Stations: Prenzlauer Alle, Stargarder Str., Schönhauser Allee. Opening Hours: Mon, Tue, Wed: 17:00 – 22:00; Thu: 17:00 - 23:00; Fri: 17:00 - 01:00; Sat: 15:00 - 01:00; Sun: 15:00 - 22:00. Price range: € (under €10). Website: http://www.chaostheorie.berlin/ Contact: 030/548 907 34; info@chaostheorie.berlin.

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Challenge yourself at the Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art

The Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art is a remarkable contemporary art institution located in the Berlin’s picturesque district Mitte. The building is a sight itself and it has a sophisticated allure, tall and elegant. The outdoor café has a lovely Parisian appeal and it’s where the hip tattooed artists you might have seen on Tumblr sip their coffees in the afternoon.

The works of art exhibited in the Institute are complex. You can marvel at political activist art, video art, visual art or interactive art. They’re also controversial, with people either excitedly praising them or dismissing them as meaningless. The exhibitions are divided into rooms: in some rooms you might be deafened by booming nature sounds, while in others you might be asked to take off your shoes and wander into an empty, soundproof room, where you’d be faced with a gut-wrenching documentary about the condition of the modern black artist. However, you never know what to expect, as the exhibits change constantly. Nonetheless, the works of emerging young artists are unique and do not hold the reassurance of traditional art: they challenge you and shake you. They draw out a strong response, be it positive or negative.

Finally, even if you occasionally roll your eyes at modern art, you should give the KW Institute a chance. At least one of the works of art displayed might move you.

Address: Auguststraße 69, 10117 Berlin. Closest stations: Oranienburger Tor, Oranienburger Straße.  Price: 16€ general entrance, 10€ reduced. Opening hours: Monday: 11:00 – 19:00. Tuesday: Closed. Wednesday: 11:00-19:00. Thursday: 11:00-21:00. Friday, Saturday, Sunday: 11:00 – 19:00. Website: https://www.kw-berlin.de/ Contact : +49 30 243459-0, info@kw-berlin.de.

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Be Here, Be Queer at the Schwules Museum

The Schwules Museum is the world’s first gay museum, originally opened in 1985. It exhibits the violent history and the injustices the LGBTQ community endured in the past, as well as Berlin’s current queer life.

Schwules is not your typical queer museum. If you expect it to be bustling with colour and rainbows, you might be taken aback. To an extent, it is exceptionally colourful, with cheeky illustrations of young gay couples kissing, soft porn photos and neon slogans about love. But a more serious tone is predominant. The permanent exhibitions also depict gay history milestones, such as the feminist revolution, the composition of the first feminist songs of the German movement or the protests of a working group of lesbian teachers. In the middle of the museum, there’s a memorial dedicated to the LGBT people who were killed in concentration camps. Their names are written in blood-red. You will also shudder upon entering the museum, where you can see a lengthy list of countries where homosexuality is currently considered a punishable crime.

It is important to go to the Schwules Museum because you will be reminded of how painful history is and how the free world we live in required sacrifices. And how, for some, the world still isn’t free.

It is not allowed to take pictures, which at first might be quite annoying, as your initial impulse might be to want to immortalize everything. However, this might help you take in all the information and carefully weigh what you’re seeing.

Finally, is important to go to the Schwules Museum because you will be reminded of how painful history is and how the free world we live in required sacrifices. And how, for some, the world still isn’t free.

Address: Lützowstraße 73, 10785 Berlin Closest Stations: U Nollendorfplatz, U Kurfürstenstraße, Lützowstraße / Potsdamer Straße, Lützowplatz. Opening hours: Monday: 14:00 – 18:00, Tuesday: Closed, Wednesday: 14:00 – 18:00, Thursday: 14:00 – 20:00, Friday: 14:00 -18:00, Saturday: 14:00 – 19:00, Sunday: 14:00 – 18:00. Price: € 7.50 regular, € 4 reduced. Website: https://www.schwulesmuseum.de/ Contact: 030 69599050

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Sun and wholesome food at The Bowl

The Bowl, self-proclaimed a “clean-eating restaurant”, is the perfect place for a cozy lunch with your friends or for a breakfast date with a book. They only use fresh, seasonal, healthy and gluten-free products. Everything is fully sustainable and vegan. They even use natural sugar! And, truthfully, the food is indeed full of flavour and it leaves you with a sense of freshness. They have a great variety of bowls: from rich breakfast bowls filled with sweet fruit, raw chocolate and creamy soy yoghurt to lavish plates with roasted vegetables, mashed avocado raw crackers, zucchini and smoked paprika.

The desserts are a treat, as well. The highlights are the lush vanilla almond cake, with coconut blossom sugar, raw chocolate and coconut strawberry and bananenbrot, with grilled banana, granola, warm strawberry sauce and raw chocolate.

While it is a bit pricey, 6,50 € for breakfast bowls and around 10 € for the lunch specials, the naturalness of the food, its filling base and vitamin-rich toppings make it all worth it.

The dishes are perfectly Instagrammable and the colourful variety of vegetables and legumes doesn’t even need a filter. While enjoying your wholesome food, you can bask in the sun in front of the large windows and observe the buzzing Warschauer Straße, with hazy, synth-pop music unfolding in the background.

What is more, on the ground floor of the same building where Bowl is, you can find Veganz, a plant-based supermarket with an impressively wide range of products, from cheese and ham slices to cashew cookies, ice cream and the finest chocolate cream.

Address: Warschauer Str. 33, 10243 Berlin Closest Stations: Warschauer Str. Opening hours: Monday: 10:30-23:00, Tuesday: 10:30–23:00, Wednesday: 10:30–23:00, Thursday: 10:30–23:00, Friday: 10:30–23:00, Saturday: 10:00–23:00, Sunday: 10:00-23:00. Price: €€ Website: http://www.the-bowl.de/ Contact: 030 29771447

[buttonholedlife]

Coronavirus acts like a 'Excavator' in the music business|Techno Setting

Coronavirus acts like a 'Excavator' in the popular music industry

A number of full weeks ago my journeying for job between Leipzig and also Berlin ceased as a result of this coronavirus outbreak. I have actually given that then understood I have actually been actually totally eaten through work the final although and haven't been taking note of worldly affairs. I totally overlooked acting on the information coverage on covid19. Like the rest of us, I have never ever seen this kind of scenario where a global virus burst out so quickly around the globe.

Purportedly the constantly harmful and also aged that are actually thought about the absolute most at risk in our society currently over time are actually the absolute most in jeopardy, however there have been actually bunches of newspaper article from all over the world about folks under the age of fifty that are actually being actually laid up in Intensive Treatment.

Along with what believes that a comprehensive lockdown in result throughout the globe, to sway this infection which our company at this minute don't understand just how much it will definitely take our company in Corona's cooling rollercoaster. A considerable amount of individuals from throughout the world are really straining, the music business is actually enduring financially now over time, from group managers, PR organizations as well as the DJs. While all of us are being actually informed that social distancing is actually a must, purportedly any type of social get in touch with may create the matters worse.

Must our team comply with the policies of each of our federal governments and remain at our homes or should we say fuck the globe and be defiant and also keep going crazy whatever?

To become truthful, I am actually still quite a lot in shock about just how the world has totally shutdown but also for fundamental essential needs. Every little thing appears inverted, it is actually a little creepy, it seems that one thing thus little such as a microorganism can essentially handle traveling, globe markets, as well as authorities, an infection that's still in its own infancy participating in mayhem outside and in. Last night I went purchasing for groceries and also any of the grocery stores I went to all had operated out of fresh fruit and vegetables, dairy, eggs, bread, spaghetti all the everyday based was actually fully gone.

Let's continue track and also discuss the songs industry, where nightclubs like the epic Berghain and Berlin's finest Tresor among various other clubs almost everywhere are defending their presence. DJs are immediately certainly not being actually scheduled or every one of their approaching jobs for the following pair of months being terminated and God knows for how much time. The cycle of the songs field is actually being damaged presently. This is actually why I had an interest in exactly how DJs coming from various spots around the entire world & & exactly how it's impacted them as well as just how they are actually coping with it today.

We asked numerous individuals coming from the songs industry; How possesses the 'LOCKDOWN' condition impacted you individually as well as how are your household taking care of the disruption as well as perhaps very most importantly, just how is it impacting you fiscally?

DAVE CLARKE

"The important things concerning this lockdown is actually just how you discover exactly how it is actually affecting each and every individual, the anxiety, the worry of does a sneezing indicate merely a cold or "The Infection"? It is more vital than ever to connect and also mention hi digitally to every person you care approximately, to pay attention, to learn (I was actually talking with a friend in China to attempt and learn ideas for instance) to sustain, to acquire help, to try as well as be actually amusing and have submissiveness. Easy things like losing the drone of the urban area seems for me has actually been actually quite disturbing, you really feel alone, the managing your food items source like a stockroom for efficiency (which tbh need to possess consistently held true, yet an unacceptable apple believes that a crime currently) understanding individuals may certainly not pay for food items, the stress they possess.

The loss of all the liberties we considered given, in retrospection the pointless stupidity of business community. Walking the roads to acquire food experiences like Sundays made use of to be actually, every little thing now is actually full-on sell sell, probably closing the outlets down for a time a week will definitely help the mind, the loved ones, the private inhale far better. Oh, and the social networking sites birthed DJ's, possibly a lot better for me not to claim just about anything regarding that shitshow of arrogance. Allow's survive this find out, grieve, be actually better individuals, oh and really love even more honestly."

SANTONIO ECHOLS

"For me, It is actually beginning to get actual for our team in Michigan. My partner as well as I chose to stockpile on some things 3 weeks ago for the residence (food-wise) merely in the event that. I personally assume it is going to get a lot worse just before it gets better. After chatting with my booking organization My jobs were actually terminated or on grip for the month of May. Monetarily it is actually not affecting our team my better half is actually working from house and we possess a couple of dollars do away with for a stormy time. Companies are actually hurting a little, I'm hoping that this will definitely be actually short phrase. Effective my moms and dads and my spouse's parents to remain within was the tough part. Finding exactly how it is actually influencing seniors differently ... Let's keep prayerful!"

ORLANDO VOORN

"Most of us recognize that Coronavirus is actually a major concern for any individual around immediately, but as for feeling the economic grief on my edge and likely for a lot of underground songs producers, this performs not modify a lot given that our company have been paralyzed through this new system of greed as well as no drug age. Many of us discovered currently other means to keep afloat. I make popular music for over three decades and also ain't going no place.

I wish all my actual popular music manufacturers and also lovers to keep tough and strive and smart to maintain doing you for US. Nevertheless, the "elite" Non-producer DJ along with a million fans are currently weakened through this virus and can not go fist-pumping or even whatever else unawareness they may consider to supply the audience. Can not create that 50k a program anymore, I would certainly must claim along with satisfaction in my vocal. Fate involved you incognito as well as her name is Circle. Feel free to do not be sobbing online over how poor you possess it and also begging for donations given that you can not hand push any sort of longer. Because of the brand-new corrupt unit of Fans the whole scene how it got created has actually obtained raped from its own source by the greed of the corporates alleged advocates of the Techno as well as residence scene but definitely are out commercial just. Do not care about the top quality of the popular music. Those events that do treatment are actually rare. Below ground for life little one our experts such as roaches, certainly never dying always living As well as along with that being pointed out Let's return to the course!"

STATIC OBSTRUCTION

"This coronavirus pandemic carries 2 major risks to individual suffering, a wellness danger which is without a doubt the best essential but stone's throw behind is the financial risk. This 2nd one can easily trigger human suffering on a much bigger scale, unemployment, bankruptcy, making fear. Its own a cause and effect and a symptom of the capitalist device that is actually dated and also extreme. Our financial system might be established up in a manner elevating everyone from hardship, certainly not only the abundant, but also for the absolute most part, it loads scientific research as well as advancement. In my viewpoint, our federal governments need to have to carry out a global simple earnings for all, so people do not suffer needlessly, our company do not need additional mayhem bordering this problems, we require actual management and a planning of action to reduce the quantity of interruption presently happening.

All artists/DJs/graphic designers/promoters are influenced through this current state of affairs. Over the final 10 years, our team have actually viewed the amount of amount of money our company bring in coming from generating music decrease due to the onset of streaming web sites. In 2015 was awful in mind available because I started releasing popular music in 2005 and also but my songs was actually streamed over 500,000 opportunities on a variety of different internet sites. Along with most countries entering into lockdown, I am now not needed to create leaflets or banners as all events have been called off. I'm additionally certainly not able to DJ anywhere, each of this will possess a knock-on impact of eating into our financial savings. Currently, I don't understand anyone with the virus, each of my friends and family are actually taking safety measures along with social distancing, but it's having an extensive impact on every person. Coming from my viewpoint, It presents exactly how delicate our society is actually and also partly how unproductive a considerable amount of our work are actually."

DJ SURGELES

"The 'Lock-Down' has actually delivered our company considerably. I find it in the people around me, that are currently pretty panicky and also question where this will definitely lead. My efficiencies have actually been called off up until the end of April. The only positive factor I observe right now is that individuals are actually cooperating more to try to quell the huge complication and also for example in Wuhan there is again sunlight and crystal clear skies which has certainly not taken place for many years because of the smogginess, Venice has actually also taken a positive turn, the water is very clear once again while it was polluted. Perhaps it is actually Mama Attribute that offers a warning to humanity. From an economic standpoint, I will, obviously, step, yet that doesn't matter, our company need to make an effort to obtain the Infection in control!"

ADAM HELDER

"A lot of our clients are expert DJs, as well as occasions are suspended around the planet currently. Most of all of them are facing a come by their profit and it is actually mirroring also on our job. On yet another palm it is actually a good moment for that desires to advertise a brand-new launch, there's a ton of musicians spending more opportunity on podcasts and also stay streaming DJ collections, so they're seeking brand new songs, and at Grasp Coupon we'll release soon a charity initiative entailing our most prominent services, to help the performers certainly not to lose their upcoming releases and also give a contribution, in our little bit of, to keep the underground Techno as well as Property setting running in the course of this tough instant.

The Planet is actually dealing with a significant challenge along with the COVID19 infection. Every one of you artists, keep risk-free, devote the upcoming weeks with your household and let your creative thinking flow, now especially we require your contribution, for our thoughts and also spirit. Our personnel at Reach Coupon will be operating, as standard, to support musical tasks during these tough days, waiting on the instant we will certainly be clubbing once more together, bound as being one."

Ecilo is actually popular for his partner with Detroit inventor Thomas Barnett (Rhythim is actually Rhythim w/ Derrick May), we inquired him just how the situation is at this second in Jakarta (Indonesia).

"Our team are certainly not actually on Lockdown, our condition at the moment is the Authorities notifies everyone to operate from their homes plus all the schools are closed. As for me individually, it definitely influences me since I'm a citizen at Club Kilo Jakarta (Indonesia) and also it's immediately is unfilled and also a few individuals involve the celebration every night. Hey, I completely know it, It's technique too self-centered for me to think business-wise about the money aspect. Crucial for everyone is actually to remain paid attention to their health and wellness as well as be in addition to their family members in these weird opportunities where a virus is keeping getting control of the planet. For all promoters, it is actually time for them to perform investigation that the real skills are actually so our experts can easily possess typically one thing brand new hereafter pandemic. I wish all my close friends throughout the globe, and I truly think our company can encounter it all together."-- Ecilo Jones

For additional information on coronavirus see

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Look into our month to month podcast on di.fm, pay attention to past program listed here: https://technoscene.eu/on-air/

This content was originally published here.

[thisisheffner]

Pet Shop Boys: 'The acoustic guitar should be banned' | Music | The Guardian

The new Pet Shop Boys album is, they say, the third in a trilogy. Hotspot follows 2013’s Electric and 2016’s Super, all collaborations with producer Stuart Price, all examples of the duo’s return to “electronic purism” after a succession of albums where, as Neil Tennant puts it, they variously “pretended to be a rock band” (Release), “made a zany one with everything and the kitchen sink on it” (Yes) and “went to LA and made an album about being old” (Elysium).

“That was your big idea, being old,” says Tennant, nodding in the direction of his fellow Pet Shop Boy Chris Lowe, who is sitting alongside him on the sofa in a record company office in the City of London. “He explained that to our manager and she was absolutely aghast. She looked completely horrified.”

It is worth noting that in recent years the Pet Shop Boys have also written scores for Eisenstein’s 1925 silent film Battleship Potemkin and a ballet based on a Hans Christian Andersen fairytale (2011’s The Most Incredible Thing), as well as premiering A Man From the Future – a kind of pop oratorio based on the life of Alan Turing – at the Proms. They also provided the music for a theatrical adaptation of Stephen Frears’ film My Beautiful Laundrette and a one-woman Edinburgh festival show by actor Frances Barber, based on the character of Billie Trix, the washed-up pop star she played in the Pet Shop Boys’ 2001 musical Closer To Heaven. Its revival was also noticeably more successful than the critically savaged original production. “It was a very outrageous piece for 2001, loads of drugs in it, somebody dies,” notes Tennant. “Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s company produced it and I remember him saying: ‘Well, sorry guys, I guess it was a bit too much for everybody.’”

Set against this backdrop, the Electric/Super/Hotspot trilogy does seem like a return to what you might call Pet Shop Boys basics. They began their career in 1984, working with hi-NRG producer Bobby Orlando, transforming the predominant sound of the era’s gay clubs into a very British and brainy brand of pop music, shot through with a streak of social comment so subtly done that people frequently missed the point entirely. Thirty years of the duo patiently explaining that Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money) was a satire of 80s excess doesn’t seem to have dimmed TV documentary directors’ enthusiasm for playing it in the background during footage of yuppies shouting into enormous mobile phones or spraying champagne; 1987’s Shopping was a withering portrait of London consumerism between the Big Bang and Black Monday, so shrewdly drawn you could imagine a City boy of the era banging the wheel of his Ferrari and bellowing along, oblivious to its real intent.

A lot has changed since 1984, though. For one thing, the Pet Shop Boys have sold 100m records. But while the vast majority of their 80s contemporaries have long been consigned to the nostalgia circuit or vanished entirely – “down the dumper,” as Tennant memorably put it while working as a journalist on Smash Hits – the Pet Shop Boys have become a kind of curious national institution. Still close enough to the heart of pop that younger stars flock to work with them – Hotspot features Olly Alexander of Years & Years, who, Tennant dryly notes, “is of a different generation to us, sings in a different style, more R&B, whereas Chris always says I sing like Julie Andrews” – and yet sufficiently highbrow that all the ballets and oratorios and scores for silent films feel like a natural fit rather than an affectation.

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The duo long ago reneged on their refusal to play gigs, although, as Tennant points out, his celebrated 80s line about how he “liked proving that we can’t cut it live” was meant as a joke, on account of their inability to make their grandiose plans for shows work financially – their first US tour was both a vast success and lost half a million pounds. Now, however, they are a reliably stadium-filling, festival-headlining act – a 25-date greatest hits tour of European arenas begins in May. It’s a state of affairs they seem to enjoy, but it’s not without its hiccups. “I announced I was going to retire,” sighs Tennant, “when we played a half-empty venue in Grimsby on my birthday in 2002.”

And yet here they are, in 2020, roughly where they were in 1984, occasional residents of Berlin (they own a flat in the city, its kitchen converted into a recording studio, complete with “a vocoder which we never use because I don’t know how to plug it in,” says Lowe), making music at least partly inspired by the city’s nightlife. They are regular visitors to its notoriously hedonistic techno mecca Berghain, although their approach to the club seems impressively genteel, as befits men in their 60s. “We go on Sunday lunchtimes,” smiles Tennant, “around 12 o’clock. We treat it as pre-lunch drinks – we go up to the Panorama Bar and have a glass of prosecco. You get the people who’ve been there all night, they’re absolutely twatted, but then there’s a fresh crowd coming in as well, and it’s a very interesting atmosphere. And it’s great to walk in from daylight on to the main dancefloor, which is completely dark, there’s just a kick drum playing four-to-the-floor, and it’s really, really exciting in an alienating way.”

If the duo’s penchant for satire seems less present on Hotspot, says Tennant, that’s because it was “siphoned off” on the 2019 EP Agenda, home to Give Stupidity a Chance and What Are We Going to Do About the Rich?, by some distance the angriest songs the Pet Shop Boys have ever recorded. “What was the reaction to them? Probably generally negative,” laughs Tennant. “I mean, if you’re doing something to wind people up and they get wound up, I suppose your job’s been done.”

In fact, a careworn song about the refugee crisis aside, the tone of Hotspot is often rather romantic. “Berlin’s quite a romantic place,” says Tennant. “People in Britain tend to think of Berlin, even now, as the wall and Bowie making ‘Heroes’. But it’s got 80 lakes in it, you can be in the countryside in 20 minutes, it’s such a beautiful place in the summer, you have pubs on the river. So that’s why I think it sounds warm and romantic.”

The duo are famously entertaining interviewees, Tennant’s background as a music journalist clear both in his theorising about “the discipline of the pop single” and an awareness of how things look in print. When talk turns to the current crop of earnest post-Ed Sheeran troubadours, he first, perhaps rashly, suggests: “I think the acoustic guitar should be banned, actually.” Then offers a headline for a feature based around that quote: “Pet Shop Boys Blast Lame Rock Rivals”.

Lowe, meanwhile, contrary to his public image – stony-faced and silent beneath an unending selection of preposterous hats – is drily funny about everything from his partner’s singing voice (“Neil is not from the gospel tradition, despite having been an altar boy”), to the Americanisation of British culture: “I can’t believe schools have started having prom dances. As if school isn’t bad enough anyway without a prom at the end of it. They never end well in films, do they? We’ve all seen Carrie.”

But nevertheless, an old-fashioned element of mystery and distance remains intact: what they do when they are not being the Pet Shop Boys remains largely unknown, their private lives off limits throughout their career. They don’t do social media, or rather they did, then reconsidered when they realised that it involved “interaction”, a word Tennant says with comic horror. “We were early adopters of Twitter,” says Lowe, “and early leavers. The only thing I liked about it was blocking people. I loved to block.”

“Chris,” smiles Tennant, “is the sort of person who, if he’d been a pop star in the 1970s, would have posted a turd to someone he didn’t like.”

They do feel a little out of place in the current pop climate’s obsession with authenticity and ordinariness (“authenticity is a style,” notes Tennant, “and it’s always the same style”), its lyrical penchant for what they waspishly term “narcissistic misery”.

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“We’re always looking for euphoria and excitement in music,” he says, “that sort of feeling we got the first time we heard Bobby O’s records, or Helter Skelter by the Beatles, or even She Loves You, going right back to being a child. That euphoric thing came back in with the rave scene in the 80s, but it isn’t really at the core of pop music now. Its context is social media; social media has actually created and defined the form of popular music and I think, unfortunately, that takes it down the narcissistic misery route. It doesn’t have the importance it once had, and that’s been the case for quite a while. It’s become a facet of social media. You know, everything we do, there’s people working out how to edit it down to 10 seconds, literally everything. I wonder what would happen now if you released Bohemian Rhapsody.”

Then again, says Tennant, they never did fit in. “When we started off we really did think we were going to create our own world that might reference other things, like a novelist writing a series of novels set in a particular era or something like that, where we were characters. And when we did collaborations, we judged them very carefully. So our first collaboration was with Dusty Springfield [on 1987’s What Have I Done To Deserve This?]. Our label didn’t want us to work with her, they wanted us to work with Tina Turner or someone like that. I remember the director of EMI going: ‘I can get you Streisand!’ But” – he thumps the coffee table before him for emphasis – “we wanted Dusty. Then we worked with Liza Minnelli and that was sort of politely greeted with horror, but everyone went along with it and it worked, because it’s our world.”

Of Top of the Pops, he says: “We were never the kind of performers who were going to enter into it wholeheartedly. Chris established early on that we weren’t allowed to look thrilled to be there. Whenever the camera came over to us, he’d say: ‘Don’t look triumphant!’ But we used to quite enjoy Top of the Pops, you know, being glared at by some singer because you’d said something nasty about them in the press.” He laughs. “I always liked the way that British pop stars always hated each other. When I worked on Smash Hits, I remember the editor saying: ‘We should do a piece on Paul Weller, because he’ll slag everyone off.’ The feuds! Duran Duran and Spandau, Boy George and Pete Burns arguing about who had those sort of gay dreadlocks first.”

“I don’t think bands do that now,” nods Lowe. “When we tour, we’ve got this band, young musicians, and it’s so refreshing because they’re so nice. They feel part of a musical community, they all know each other, they play on each other’s records, they’re all linked in. It wasn’t like that when we were around.”

But, of course, they are still around. Their albums – if not their singles – are inevitably Top 10 hits and sprinkled with songs that rank alongside their best. The Billie Trix cabaret show, Musik, is about to transfer to London, and there are excited rumours abounding that they are playing Glastonbury this year – “which we can’t talk about, which is annoying” – after their guest spot on the Killers’ headline set in 2019.

“Making music, there is still a magic about going into a studio and finding that sort of euphoria and excitement of something new,” says Tennant. “There’s a magic to realising there’s nothing more you can add to something, it’s finished, and then judging its value or whatever. It’s a supremely enjoyable and satisfying career, and, you know, you can’t stop doing it. I mean, if you run out of ideas, that’s when you stop.”

“I’m quite looking forward to that actually,” nods Lowe. “Running out of ideas.” He grins. “Because that’s when you go and work with Brian Eno.”

Hotspot is out today

This content was originally published here.

[brokelings]

A trip which might have seemed pretty long, finally came to an end at the beautiful German capital, Berlin. Having heard a lot about the liveliness and the music scene of the city, we were sure to be in for a great two days. Only to realise that two days or even a week wouldn’t have been enough to experience this city completely. Here’s why we think another trip is necessary to Berlin!

The “weird” clubbing scene

One time in Berlin is definitely not enough to gain access to your choice of club. It’s weird in the sense that entry to the club is upto the bouncers mood and your appearance on the night. The bouncer at About Blank denied to give us a reason for rejecting an entry into the club. After talking to a few friends we learnt that it’s not just us, this “rejection” is faced even by Berliners. People attempt to enter the best clubs like Berghain multiple number of times until their wish is finally fulfilled. 

Wish we’d gotten into About Blank!

A random building that might look abandoned from the outside might be one of the most happening clubs of Berlin. Full respect to the privacy of people is given as a sticker is put on your phone camera so you can’t take pictures inside. People enter the clubs on 3am Friday night (saturday morning) and exit only on sunday morning. Can you manage that?

Brokelings tip: Don’t let your heart break by getting rejected by the bouncer. The wise man once said, try try try till you succeed.

Check this video that someone managed to sneakily record from inside Berghain. He might’ve landed a couple of punches from the bouncer later!

Pubhopping never ends here

Just like the thriving music scene of Berlin. The number of offbeat pubs are only increasing with time. Hunt for your boozy comfort zones in the many streets of Berlin which overflow with pubs that are big and small. Our favourite was the very colourful and buzzing Eschschloraque. It’s quite difficult to find at first, but don’t miss out on this bar which turns into a movie theatre quite often. 

Suggestion: Yaam is a beach themed pub by the day and a nightclub by the evening. It’s located close to the Berlin Ostbahnhof and is said to be one of the most lively places.  

The food only gets better 

Like London and NYC, street food is quite popular in Berlin with a number of street food arenas and stalls on the streets. My favourite find was a vegan Currywurst at Curry 61.

Vegan currywurst at Curry 61!

Pretzels anytime, anywhere!

New street art appears and the old disappear 

Creative and interesting pieces of street art that are scattered all around the town. Wander around the town and find your favourite pieces. The most fun part is, you’d probably never see the same art which you saw earlier as the artists take down each others art work to show off theirs with time. 

Paper cutouts of random girls photographed at a party!

Metal artifacts!

A spaceman made to get more business to this locality.

Weihnachts Zauber (Christmas Magic) can be experienced only during the winter period

The days might get smaller in the winter, but the evenings at the christmas markets here are world renowned. If you haven’t been to Berlin in the winter, this counts as a reason to always go back and treat yourself with some mulled wine at the Gendarmen Markt. 

Sunsets are unique, enjoy them from the many spots Berlin has to offer

Berlin has many quaint spots which offer great views of the city. These spots are scattered across the town and it’s practically impossible to enjoy a sunset from all of these spots at once. Our favourites are :

Modersohnbrücke, which is a bridge from which the Berlin skyline can be enjoyed in a silhouette. 

Klunkerkranich, is a parking lot of a shopping mall in Neukolln which has been converted into a rooftop bar. It’s a really cool place to be around the sunset and to stay until late. 

Teufelsberg is an abandoned NSA listening station set on a hill outside of Berlin. The place in itself is a magnet for street artists and also offers great views of Berlin.

More the hostels you live in, more the friends you make

In order to experience the hostel culture of Berlin, staying in more than one themed hostels is mandatory. We stayed at the very cool Amstel House Hostel, and are definitely going back to Berlin for more.

The very artistry wall behind me is at the very colourful @amstelhouse hostel in #berlin 🇩🇪 . We had a great time staying there, find the highlights of my stay with the post in bio! 👆🏼

A post shared by Mayank Nagori (@nagorio) on Nov 28, 2017 at 4:21am PST

Shopping, nuff said

No trip is ever complete without adding a few extra kilos to your bag. Shop till you drop at the many street shopping arenas and boutiques tucked into the streets. I enjoy food shopping and while just walking around I found, Eat Berlin which sells only processed food made in and around Berlin. I absolutely loved the concept.

Let us know if you find something which really nice in the comments section below!

Learn something new about Berlin everytime you walk with a local

Many free walking tour providers exist in Berlin and the variety of themed walking tours is immense. From food to street art, Nazi Germany to techno music scene, free walking tours that match everyone’s interest are available here in Berlin.

Unlimited history

What happened historically in Germany and in Berlin especially was not something worthy of celebrating. But by learning the history of Germany, a lot of respect and sympathy can be earned for all the people that went through the terrible atrocities of communism and Nazism. Despite being through such a brutal past, Berlin stands as one of the most happening cities in the world. You gotta experience this city atleast once!

The very famous Checkpoint Charlie!

Berliner Dom. The outers are black due to the bombs during the world war!

The holocaust memorial. The design means so much!

    Pin this for later!

And so we’re at the end of our intense 6 day 5 city tour. Covering Warsaw, Krakow, Bratislava, Vienna and Berlin, while staying at 4 different hostels. This whole tour was an experience of a lifetime. We met a lot of people, and the conversations had with them, we’d remember forever.

We hope you’ve been following our trip through Eastern Europe and we hope to get back there soon and see more and write more. What did you like/dislike/feel jealous about from what we’ve written and show you, COMMENT BELOW. We haven’t reached a stage where we’d give you prizes to comment and like, but very soon we will. SO show us some love. Like, share and subscribe!

Image credits: Flixbus, Alexander Voss

10 reasons why once is not enough to explore Berlin A trip which might have seemed pretty long, finally came to an end at the beautiful German capital, Berlin.

[mastcomm]

Protesters and Politicians Rally to Protect Berlin’s Clubs

BERLIN — On Wednesday afternoon, about 300 protesters gathered in front of a municipal building in the southeast of Berlin, dancing and holding signs. “All clubs are beautiful,” one placard said; “The day I stop dancing is the day I stop breathing,” read another.

Accompanied by loud techno music, they had come to protest the impending closure of Griessmuehle, a well-known nightclub. As has happened to numerous Berlin venues in recent years, the club is being evicted because new owners plan to redevelop the site.

Several politicians addressed the crowd, including Martin Hikel, the mayor of the Neukölln district, where the protest took place. “There is a consensus among parties that club culture should be protected,” he told the demonstrators, adding that there was “the political will” to take action on the issue.

Berlin is known for its freewheeling club scene, but in the last decade, that culture has come under increasing pressure from real estate investors and infrastructure projects. The situation is complicated by an acute housing shortage, and the city’s dramatic economic growth. In recent years, many formerly abandoned spaces have been redeveloped as offices and apartments, and real estate prices have soared.

According to the Club Commission, a group dedicated to promoting and protecting Berlin’s night life, about 100 clubs have closed over the past decade, and about 25 venues are currently under threat. There’s even a German word for it, “clubsterben,” or “club dying,” that has entered the mainstream lexicon.

A growing number of politicians from across the political spectrum have taken up the cause, partly to protect the venues’ unique role in the city’s cultural fabric, but also because the clubs are moneymakers for the broader economy. According to a study by the Club Commission, tourists visiting Berlin for its club scene contributed 1.5 billion euros, or about $1.66 billion, to the capital’s economy in 2018. The clubs have also played a large role in attracting young workers for the city’s start-up scene, which many politicians see as crucial to Berlin’s economic growth.

In an interview, Lutz Leichsenring, a spokesman for the Club Commission, said, “It’s easier to attract start-ups to Berlin than to Munich and Hamburg. And that’s not because we have better shopping options.”

In recent years, as gentrification has driven a rise in disputes between venues and residents, and led to many closures, other major cities have started initiatives to protect club culture. Amsterdam, London and Paris have all appointed “night mayors,” and, in 2017, New York established an Office of Nightlife to mediate between bars and clubs, the government and residents. But perhaps no other major city in the world is as defined by its club scene as Berlin, or stands to lose so much, both economically and culturally, if too many venues disappear.

The city’s club culture, which emerged in the 1990s after D.J.s and organizers began throwing parties in ruined buildings after the fall of the Berlin Wall, is known worldwide for its focus on techno music, and for its unvarnished, anything-goes nature. Many parties, including at Griessmuehle, go on for several days.

This fall, Caren Lay, a lawmaker for the Left party in the German Parliament, proposed legislation that would offer clubs greater protection from rent increases and strengthen their classification in building law. In an interview, she explained that clubs were placed in the same urban-planning category as brothels, making them vulnerable to eviction. She would like them to be considered as cultural institutions, on a par with theaters and concert halls, she said.

“If more good clubs close, we would be on our way toward being another boring, faceless city,” Lay said.

More people come to Berlin to go to Berghain, one of the city’s most famous techno clubs, than to go to the Staatsballett, the ballet company, she said. “Both are great,” she added, “but it’s time they are seen as being on the same level.”

The Greens have made a similar proposal, and Lay said she hoped that the resulting public pressure would force members of the governing coalition — comprising the center-left Social Democrats and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats — to adopt more protective measures when Germany’s building law comes up for debate later this year.

Since 2018, Berlin’s state government has also offered €1 million in funding annually to support soundproofing measures in clubs, an effort to limit conflicts between venues and nearby residents.

Yet, despite state support, many clubs remain at risk. This fall, the KitKatClub, a popular fetish and dance venue, announced that its landlord had refused to extend its lease, though negotiations were still ongoing.

Several other well-known clubs, including About Blank and Salon zur Wilden Renate, are threatened by a planned autobahn extension. The project, which was proposed over a decade ago and is meant to allow drivers to bypass the city center, is the subject of a continuing dispute between the federal and state governments, and is likely to be a major issue in next year’s state elections.

Griessmuehle, which was founded eight years ago on the site of a former noodle factory, is sandwiched between a canal and a train line. It has a playground-like outdoor area and has become known for its open-air events, and for hosting a monthly, multiday L.G.B.T.Q. party called Cocktail d’Amore.

David Ciura, the club’s managing director, said he first spotted the space while riding past it on a train, and managed to negotiate a sublease agreement with its former occupants, a logistics company, in five minutes. “That will not happen again,” he said in an interview.

The property was sold four years ago to a subsidiary of S Immo, an Austrian real estate company. Last summer, the new owners announced that they would not renew the club’s sublease. In a statement, a spokeswoman for the company said that the plan was to build “offices, lofts and workshops, as well as a community hall” there.

This week, state and local lawmakers, and members of the Club Commission, negotiated concessions from the new owner, including allowing the club to hold a closing party and exploring the possibility of opening a new club space in the developed site. Ciura said he did not want to jeopardize negotiations by commenting on them, but he added that “without the politicians getting involved and pushing the conversation, nothing would have happened.”

“Without the clubs, not only the direct but also the indirect flow of money into the city would decrease,” he said. “A lot of politicians now have it at the top of their agenda, but the more politicians take up the subject, the better.”

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/entertainment/protesters-and-politicians-rally-to-protect-berlins-clubs/

[itsshaylablogs]

WEEK THREE

Exercise One: Reflect on first three topics of the course

Blog task 1

Group work, e.g

How well is your group working? Are you happy with your contribution to the group and what might you try to do more/less of with your group in the future.

 I think out group works and communicates well together as we all get alone well with one another. My contribution to the group could definitely be better in terms of being more involved within our group activities, I could try do more of sharing own personal opinions. 

Values, e.g

If you are re-imagining the future world through your creative work, what values will underpin your creative practice?  Do you feel you've identified these? Are they enough to guide your work?

One thing I value is a tidy environment, as earlier in my work I showed an image of the overflowing rubbish bins within the city, a clean and tidy environment is important. This also relates to the traffic, I value a clean surroundings and cars and rubbish both pollute the environment in their own way. Another thing I value is the art presented in wellington, all thought out the city you can see large murals and street up spanning across buildings. Continuing with valuing art, another thing supporting this is the cities artistic structure displays. The structures really show how creative the city is, which is something a really value. 

Ethics, e.g

Do you feel confident identifying ethical and unethical creative practices? Would you be able to undertake your own ethical investigation?

Yes because I have read the Kaupapa Maori and MU Principles, which has given me the understanding and confidence with identifying ethical and unethical creative practices, and would feel reasonably conformable to undertake my own ethical investigation. 

Exercise Two: How do we live creative work?

Blog Task 2 

1. Atmosphere: Reputation

The techno club Berghain gained a lot of attention from the media, it was labelled “the best techno club in the world” by many voices ranging from the New York Times to DJ Mag. Also grabbing attention from journalist, as one writes “Berghain is notorious for its countless stories of drugs, X-rated sexual encounters and mind-blowing industrial techno” And also how Berghain at night transforms into a mecca for ravers, the holy grail of electronic beats, the motherland of unconformity and a haven where outlandish sexual fantasies come true. DJ Mag writes about the club as the “most pure, epic and stripped- back rave environment you ever will encounter.” Hearing all the outrageous remarks about the Berghain has made people curious and grab their attention. The Berghain reputation is known to be very exclusive by having a strict dress code, not allowing everyone to enter (even turning away celebrities), and a policy of no photography taken inside the club.  This has caused a mysterious feel for those who have never been inside the techno club.

2. Atmosphere: Sound 

The sound of techno music first emerged from historic event within Germany “of the fall of the wall,” when empty spaces in the former death strip were used for illegal parties, driven by people’s euphoria. Not official speeches and political initiatives but rather techno music and the rave is said to have united the divided nation as the “sound of the family” when people from the East and West were dancing together without valuing each other’s appearance, background and socialization.  Techno music has been described by the Rolling Stone, “[Berlin] was politically aligned with the left; it had a very militant character, which expressed itself in a very aggressive, minimalist raw form of techno... It’s a fuck- off to the rigid capitalist version of time .... it’s the experience that matters.”

3. Atmosphere: Controlive

The Berghain can be found to have a controlling system from some stand points. The issue has been raised within the media, from the clubs unpredictable door policies, of rejecting people many people which is considered as a way of being controlive and mystification. It is believed by popular writers, discern in the policy a democratic idea that chimes with the Berlin spirit by not respecting any celebrities but turning them away. Which has lead to negative attention, as one writers says “Finally making it to the start of the line, I had the honour (or should I say displeasure) of Marquardt [the chief bouncer] giving me a millisecond of a glance and giving me a quick ‘nein’. Tonight wasn’t the night to grace Berghain with my presence, or perhaps it didn’t want a piece of me at all, ever.” However those allowed inside are required to observe style codes that often include dark casual clothes, boots and, in some cases, leather fetish outfits, which can be seen as another power/control issue with the Berghain.

4. Atmosphere: Architecture 

Berghian is structural built from traidition of a city with history from post-war depression, inflantation and poverty. They bring back that feeling or memory of the 1930s sulpture, portrayed by Christopher Isherwood as having the atmosphere of a bohe mian city in a world on the very brink of ruin. (shabby, dirty, crowned, comsuption of sex, alcohol and fulilment.) The internal room structure of Berghian has some small and intimate spaces, as well as these massive spaces which is described by architects as “architecture of enabling”. Other key elements to the interrior of the building is its raw industrial style of the 18-m-high turbine hallway. People will go up the stair case to be met with a massive dance floor and for which another staircase leads to Panoramabar.

[jacobbrendanfleming-blog]

Best 10 New Year's Eve Destinations Worldwide

Situated inside the trendy and bustling district of Soho, Club49 is a stylish and thriving venue creating it the ideal nightlife hotspot. When you fancy "a single for the road" immediately after last orders at the pub, these late night bars in London could possibly just be the ticket. The Sky Bar club in Lebanon, the Berghain club in Germany, the Fabric club in the United Kingdom, the Womb club in Japan and so on are some of the world's most wonderful nightclubs. London's best moored boat bar, Bar&Co is one of the capital's hidden gems and is an unmistakably a wonderful night out. In the Spring of 2015 we re-launched the space independently to the pub, functioning with the industry's ideal promoters and building an thrilling a new programme of reside music and club nights. The image below shows the distribution of these venues around London. It delivers members month-to-month social events at high-finish venues, and lets users share their upcoming travel plans. Pulido, who plays for Greek giants Olympiakos and was part of Mexico's 2014 Globe Cup squad, was kidnapped late Saturday by 4 armed men as he returned from a celebration with his girlfriend in the crime-plagued region. Rihanna and Cara Delevingne continued their party assault on London last evening as they partied together Bjouis nightclub in Mayfair following the Diamonds star's functionality at Twickenham. With the Jubilee Line joining the Central and Victoria lines in going 24-hours at weekends , London could challenge New York's crown. Actually a globe popular gentlemen's club, Stringfellows, in London's Covent Garden is mesmerising. London 's Victoria is popular for a couple of factors, including Buckingham Palace, Westminster Cathedral, The Royal Mews, and, of course, Victoria's grand train station itself. Tickets for Carole King: Tapestry - Captured Live at Hyde Park London” can be purchased on line by going to and at participating theater box offices. Just down Upper Street, Small Bat serves cocktails till 1am, and there are 3 storeys of late-night fun at The Doll's Home , also open till 4am.

[pinstripemag]

DESTINATION: Berlin, Germany | The Artsy Young Free Capital City

DESTINATION: Berlin, Germany 

Politically and physically divided into East and West by the Berlin Wall for nearly 30 years, Berlin is one of—if not the—most unique capital cities in the world. Since November 9, 1989 when thousands of East Berliners stood up for their freedom, Germany’s headquarters have stood tall, unified by an audacious, artistic spirit, and amazing tourist attractions. Here are some tried-and-true, trendy and neu (new) ways to: STAY | SHOP | EAT | TOUR | PLAY in Berlin.

  STAY

  Dive right into your tourist checklist when you book a stay at Das Stue, the #1 ranked hotel in Berlin and all of Deutschland (the way Germans actually say “Germany”). Located next to Tiergarten (“Animal Park”), this luxury boutique hotel features a private entrance to Tierpark (Berlin Zoo) and the fine dining of Michelin-starred restaurant Cinco by Paco Pérez. If you prefer a higher profile place to lay your head, Hotel Adlon is just adjacent to Brandenburger Tor, Berlin’s top tourist site, and has hosted dignitaries and celebrities from President Barack Obama to Queen Elizabeth II to Charlie Chaplin to Michael Jackson who infamously dangled his baby “Blanket” off an Adlon balcony. To feel like royalty, The Ritz Carlton at Potsdamer Platz will suffice, however if you’re more of a trend-seeker—and setter—check into the Members’ Club and Hotel Soho House Berlin or try the Über creative Michelberger Hotel with a funky bar and bedazzled rooms like the “Golden One”.

    SHOP

  For the ultimate Berlin shopping experience, look no further than Kaufhaus des Westens, aka KaDeWe, the largest department store in Europe outside of Harrods in London, dressed head to toe in high-end luxury. Other world class shopping centers include the impressive Mall of Berlin, Galeria Kaufhof (with the newly opened TOPMAN), and Alexa Centre near Alexander Platz where you’ll find the tallest structure in Germany, the Berliner Fernsehturm—that iconic TV Tower punctuating the city’s skyline. And get your vintage kicks—literally—at Paul’s Boutique in Prenzlauer Berg stocked with 1000s of sneakers, T-Shirts, Star Wars collectibles, boomboxes and more showcased amidst eccentric décor.

  EAT

  After all that shopping, it’s time to EAT! Listed as the top restaurant in the city, Zur Gerichtslaube is in the heart of Berlin’s Old Town and considered one the city’s oldest structures having been built around the year 1270. Old World meets Art Nouveau at the inviting bar, restaurant and ballroom Wirtshaus Max und Moritz.

For food on the go, you must try Berliner street food. First up is Currywurst. Made of sliced sausage (Bratwurst) served with curry ketchup, and best enjoyed with Pommes (French Fries), the most sought after Currywursts are at Curry 36, and Konnopke’s Imbiss under the Schönhauser Allee S-Bahn (city train). And perhaps even more popular to eat on the street is Turkish döner kebab, with the best spot—and longest line—hands down being Mustafa’s Gemüse Kebap in Krezberg right outside the U-Bahn (underground train) Merringdamm Station.

    TOUR

  Berlin is a lovely city to include on your Cycling Through Europe tour, rich with art, culture and history. Of its many museums, the Pergamon Museum on Museumsinsel (Museum Island) along the River Spree is a tourist favorite, while Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, provides a way to honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Experience “Berlin’s C.B.G.B.” at the Ramones Museum and tribute to the legendary punk band.

See and touch what still stands of the Berlin Wall at the outdoor East Side Gallery painted with powerful murals and signature graffiti art. Viktoria Park has a 360° view of Berlin and running waterfall during warm-weather months, while Mauerpark (Wall Park) hosts a flea market and Bearpit Karaoke on (most) Sundays. One of the most beautiful squares in Europe, Gendarmenmarkt includes Konzerthaus Berlin and, during the holidays, WeihnachtsZauber (“Christmas Magic”) Market which is key to the German Winter Wunderland experience—especially when you warm up some Glühwein (Mulled wine).

    PLAY

  Now it’s time to…DANCE! Germany is world-renowned for its electronic music scene, and the hottest nightclub in Berlin is Berghain where celebs like Lady Gaga and André Galluzzi frequent. Join the party after 3am, that is, if you can get in. (Our sources say Britney Spears was once turned away at the door due to her poor choice of shoes.) With a panoramic view of the Oberbaum Bridge and Spree River, Watergate is another topnotch club playing techno, electro and house music. For a “jazz lounge” that also plays funk, soul, Latin, blues and rock, Quasimodo is king.  For hip hop, check out The Swag Jam at Badehaus Szimpla every Tuesday. And for Berliner-style Ballroom Musik & Tanz (music & dance) like Salsa and tango, give Clärchens Ballhaus a whirl.

If you don’t speak Deutsch and feel a bit intimidated to visit Berlin, read our guide on how to prepare for a country when you don’t speak the language, then go for it! You’ll encounter interesting people from all around the globe, visiting and living in Germany’s dynamic capital city. Do you have other spots to recommend in Berlin? Let us know in the comments.

  The post DESTINATION: Berlin, Germany | The Artsy Young Free Capital City appeared first on Pinstripe Magazine.

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[fadingfartconnoisseur]

30+ Essential Resources for the Modern LGBT Traveler

I’ve added an LGBT column for the website to make the site more inclusive and talk about issues that affect some members of our community. In this column, we will hear from voices in the LGBT community about their experiences on the road, safety tips, events, and overall advice for other LGBT travelers to get the most out of their time on the road! Back again this month is our column leader Adam from travelsofadam.com who is talking about the best websites, apps, and blogs for LGBT travelers. 

Today, modern lesbian, gay, bi, and trans travelers no longer need a print guidebook to find underground, gay-friendly places. We don’t have to walk around with colored bandanas to send secret signals when cruising. Why? Because now — more often than not — we’re out in the open.

The basic LGBT trip  now starts like any other planned holiday. Where do we go? What do we want to do and see? How do we save money? Thanks to increased acceptance over the years, we’re far more out in the open and, with that comes a lot more options – both online and off – to plan your trip and find LGBT friendly attractions, businesses, tours, and ways to meet people. While we don’t have to let our sexuality define our travels, if you’re looking for activities and people who share a similar lifestyle, these are the best tools on the web:

Where to Find LGBT Travel Inspiration & Things to Do

Travel blogs & vlogs – In this new era for the travel media industry, independent bloggers and YouTubers have been at the forefront. Increasingly, we base our travel decisions (where to go, what to do) on not just our friends’ Instagrams but those  who’ve already been there, done that. The most popular gay and lesbian travel bloggers (myself included) generally publish destination guides — it’s just a matter of finding the one that fits your own personal travel style. Here are some of my favorites (starting with my own):

Travels of Adam

Globetrotter Girls

Dopes on the Road

Leave Your Daily Hell

The Queer Life

(For more blogs, check out my list here: http://ift.tt/1oLBeUa)

Websites – There are a handful of dedicated LGBT travel websites that publish detailed and up to date guides. My favorite are:

Out Traveler – once a print magazine, still publishes and maintains up-to-date LGBT city guides on its website.

AfterEllen – Regularly publishes lesbian travel guides.

TravelGayEurope and TravelGayAsia – These websites provide comprehensive city guides.

Travel guidebooks – The Damron series started out in 1964 for men but has also published a separate guidebook for lesbians for nearly 20 years. And Spartacus Publishing (out of Germany) has printed a comprehensive guidebook to all gay-oriented hospitality businesses since 1970. Moreover, these days, even the most mainstream publications are likely to include some LGBT-specific recommendations in their listings. For the past several summers, many major travel brands (such as Trip.com, Lonely Planet, Expedia, and even Hostelworld) have gone so far as to print LGBT Pride travel guides.

Local magazines, newspapers, and guides – There are countless independent, LGBT-oriented city magazines and newspapers around the world. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Adelaide, Australia, or London, England — you’re going to find a local LGBT print publication or guide. Some will include weekly listings of clubs, parties, and events; others might feature personal ads.

Unfortunately most of these indie publications have poor websites, so your best LGBT travel research is going to have to happen on the ground. One of the best ways to find them in a new city is to simply go to the queer neighborhood and then look for them in a bookstore or bar — anyone who’s ever been inside a gay bar or club is probably familiar with the stack of magazines, brochures, or flyers in the doorway or by the bathrooms. (And make sure to support those businesses that carry these publications!) Also check out the pamphlets, flyers, and advertisements on the corkboard in the local LGBT center.

Some examples:

Siegessäule, Berlin’s free gay magazine, likes to claim one of the highest readerships and circulations of any print media in Germany.

HISKIND, a free lifestyle magazine in London with thought-provoking essays and local artist and drag queen interviews.

Windy City Times still prints an LGBT newspaper for Chicago.

Washington Blade operates in DC.

Seattle Gay News covers Seattle.

Company blogs – Even the biggest gay apps have started to push out content through their channels. Grindr launched a digital magazine, Into, with a travel section earlier this year, and Hornet acquired the one-time popular gossip blog Unicorn Booty several years ago and now publishes gay men’s travel guides for assorted cities (even if they’re slightly basic). Each of the other hookup apps, including the more niche ones, like Surge, Blued, and Planet Romeo, maintain regularly published blogs, sometimes featuring travel tips and local insider guides. Scruff probably has gone the furthest in incorporating travel tips into its app with the feature Scruff Venture, which allows users to search a destination for other visitors, local ambassadors, and events.

IGLTA – The International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association is the leader when it comes to LGBT tourism. Its members include hundreds of airlines, hotels, destination tourism offices, and independent tour operators, both LGBT-owned and mainstream. On its website, you’ll find a useful “Plan Your Trip” feature that searches through its members (just be mindful that these are members who have paid for their placement). It’s a great place to find LGBT-specific things to do on your trip.

Related: An In-Depth Guide to Planning a Lesbian-Friendly Trip

LGBT-friendly accommodation – Often the most challenging part of gay travel can be finding an LGBT-friendly hotel or accommodation. Some of the biggest hotel chains and brands have actively supported the LGBT community by participating in Pride events around the world, by training all their staff (from the front desk to the reservations center) in diversity and inclusiveness issues, and by running LGBT-inclusive campaigns. Even Airbnb launched a #HostWithPride campaign last year after updating its terms of service to protect and safeguard LGBT travelers and hosts.

There are gay-specific accommodation websites such as Rainbow World Hotels, Purple Roofs, and MisterBNB, but you’ll almost always find the same listings on mainstream sites for far cheaper prices. You’re paying a premium when trying to book through a gay-specific website, and in most instances, the mainstream sites and listings are increasingly safe and comfortable for LGBT travelers.

How to Meet Other LGBT Travelers

Gay travelers today are much luckier to have apps like Grindr in their pockets. I never would’ve discovered a gay bar in Amman without the Grindr app and a local’s helpful directions, nor would I have met that handsome tourist from Austria during Prague Gay Pride. Meeting strangers is one of the joys of traveling, and there’s nothing better than having an LGBT local to show you around. It will certainly make a trip more interesting, much more memorable. Here’s where to find them:

The hookup apps – If there’s one thing that’s revolutionized our little gay world, it’s Grindr, the location-based hookup app for gay men. For better or worse (you either love it or hate it), Grindr has changed the way we find sex, love, or even friends and it’s also quite simply enabled a lot more connections. Grindr makes it easier to meet locals when you’re abroad, whether it’s for a romp in the bushes behind Berghain or an innocent coffee date. While sex does happen often enough through these apps, it doesn’t have to be the end goal or even your main objective to still find value in them. Here are the main useful apps:

Grindr

Scruff

Jackd

Tinder

HER

Recon

Feeld

Networking groups – For a long time, Couchsurfing was one of the best places to meet other LGBT travelers and locals. With a strong community, the bed-sharing and hosting network made it easy to connect with other travelers — and the “Queer Couchsurfers” group was one of the site’s most active and welcoming. There were plenty of times I used Couchsurfing not just for a place to sleep but also to attend local get-togethers.

On Meetup.com you’ll find most major destinations have LGBT/queer-themed groups and meetups, and these are often a great and safe way to meet other LGBT travelers in nonsexual encounters. Sometimes you’ll find them for very specific interests, whether it’s a group of gay science fiction fans in Berlin or LGBT professional networking in London.

StartOut, a nonprofit for professional business and entrepreneurship networking events in various American cities, is also worth checking out. Facebook, with its thousands of public groups, can also provide a great meeting point online — and then offline — through local city or regional networking groups. It’s just a matter of doing some research beforehand to find the right networking group for your trip.

A Note on Safety

As I’ve written before in this LGBT travel column, safety and comfort is an important part of any gaycation. Thankfully, there are more than enough resources online to help you decide what or where might be safer to travel. For a more independent look at the LGBT rights and safety situation, Equaldex is my favorite. Unlike media and blogs, this is a crowd-sourced platform where users can post and share country-specific news articles related to LGBT rights. This can be especially helpful for those less-familiar places and to get a general comparison of LGBT inclusiveness around the world.

**** Over the years and thanks to new technologies and new formats for our media, the way we travel now has changed for the better. And for LGBT travelers specifically, these advancements have made it not just easier but also safer and friendlier. Using these tools and resources, so much more of the world is open to us.

Adam Groffman is a former graphic designer who left a publishing job in Boston to travel around the world before settling in Berlin, Germany. He’s a gay travel expert, writer, and blogger and publishes a series of LGBT-friendly Hipster City Guides from around the world on his gay travel blog, Travels of Adam. When he’s not out exploring the coolest bars and clubs, he’s usually enjoying the local arts and culture scene. Find more of his travel tips (and embarrassing stories) on Twitter @travelsofadam.

P.S. – Starting next, I’ll be doing the next round of Nomadic Network meet-ups around the U.S. (and in Canada!). If you want to meet up, come check out the dates and sign up! P.P.S. – I’m doing a BBQ in Austin on Friday. Come hang out!

Photo Credit: 4

The post 30+ Essential Resources for the Modern LGBT Traveler appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

via Travel Blogs http://ift.tt/2rvnJun

[touristguidebuzz]

30+ Essential Resources for the Modern LGBT Traveler

I’ve added an LGBT column for the website to make the site more inclusive and talk about issues that affect some members of our community. In this column, we will hear from voices in the LGBT community about their experiences on the road, safety tips, events, and overall advice for other LGBT travelers to get the most out of their time on the road! Back again this month is our column leader Adam from travelsofadam.com who is talking about the best websites, apps, and blogs for LGBT travelers. 

Today, modern lesbian, gay, bi, and trans travelers no longer need a print guidebook to find underground, gay-friendly places. We don’t have to walk around with colored bandanas to send secret signals when cruising. Why? Because now — more often than not — we’re out in the open.

The basic LGBT trip  now starts like any other planned holiday. Where do we go? What do we want to do and see? How do we save money? Thanks to increased acceptance over the years, we’re far more out in the open and, with that comes a lot more options – both online and off – to plan your trip and find LGBT friendly attractions, businesses, tours, and ways to meet people. While we don’t have to let our sexuality define our travels, if you’re looking for activities and people who share a similar lifestyle, these are the best tools on the web:

Where to Find LGBT Travel Inspiration & Things to Do

Travel blogs & vlogs – In this new era for the travel media industry, independent bloggers and YouTubers have been at the forefront. Increasingly, we base our travel decisions (where to go, what to do) on not just our friends’ Instagrams but those  who’ve already been there, done that. The most popular gay and lesbian travel bloggers (myself included) generally publish destination guides — it’s just a matter of finding the one that fits your own personal travel style. Here are some of my favorites (starting with my own):

Travels of Adam

Globetrotter Girls

Dopes on the Road

Leave Your Daily Hell

The Queer Life

(For more blogs, check out my list here: http://bit.ly/2sH8n9N)

Websites – There are a handful of dedicated LGBT travel websites that publish detailed and up to date guides. My favorite are:

Out Traveler – once a print magazine, still publishes and maintains up-to-date LGBT city guides on its website.

AfterEllen – Regularly publishes lesbian travel guides.

TravelGayEurope and TravelGayAsia – These websites provide comprehensive city guides.

Travel guidebooks – The Damron series started out in 1964 for men but has also published a separate guidebook for lesbians for nearly 20 years. And Spartacus Publishing (out of Germany) has printed a comprehensive guidebook to all gay-oriented hospitality businesses since 1970. Moreover, these days, even the most mainstream publications are likely to include some LGBT-specific recommendations in their listings. For the past several summers, many major travel brands (such as Trip.com, Lonely Planet, Expedia, and even Hostelworld) have gone so far as to print LGBT Pride travel guides.

Local magazines, newspapers, and guides – There are countless independent, LGBT-oriented city magazines and newspapers around the world. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Adelaide, Australia, or London, England — you’re going to find a local LGBT print publication or guide. Some will include weekly listings of clubs, parties, and events; others might feature personal ads.

Unfortunately most of these indie publications have poor websites, so your best LGBT travel research is going to have to happen on the ground. One of the best ways to find them in a new city is to simply go to the queer neighborhood and then look for them in a bookstore or bar — anyone who’s ever been inside a gay bar or club is probably familiar with the stack of magazines, brochures, or flyers in the doorway or by the bathrooms. (And make sure to support those businesses that carry these publications!) Also check out the pamphlets, flyers, and advertisements on the corkboard in the local LGBT center.

Some examples:

Siegessäule, Berlin’s free gay magazine, likes to claim one of the highest readerships and circulations of any print media in Germany.

HISKIND, a free lifestyle magazine in London with thought-provoking essays and local artist and drag queen interviews.

Windy City Times still prints an LGBT newspaper for Chicago.

Washington Blade operates in DC.

Seattle Gay News covers Seattle.

Company blogs – Even the biggest gay apps have started to push out content through their channels. Grindr launched a digital magazine, Into, with a travel section earlier this year, and Hornet acquired the one-time popular gossip blog Unicorn Booty several years ago and now publishes gay men’s travel guides for assorted cities (even if they’re slightly basic). Each of the other hookup apps, including the more niche ones, like Surge, Blued, and Planet Romeo, maintain regularly published blogs, sometimes featuring travel tips and local insider guides. Scruff probably has gone the furthest in incorporating travel tips into its app with the feature Scruff Venture, which allows users to search a destination for other visitors, local ambassadors, and events.

IGLTA – The International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association is the leader when it comes to LGBT tourism. Its members include hundreds of airlines, hotels, destination tourism offices, and independent tour operators, both LGBT-owned and mainstream. On its website, you’ll find a useful “Plan Your Trip” feature that searches through its members (just be mindful that these are members who have paid for their placement). It’s a great place to find LGBT-specific things to do on your trip.

Related: An In-Depth Guide to Planning a Lesbian-Friendly Trip

LGBT-friendly accommodation – Often the most challenging part of gay travel can be finding an LGBT-friendly hotel or accommodation. Some of the biggest hotel chains and brands have actively supported the LGBT community by participating in Pride events around the world, by training all their staff (from the front desk to the reservations center) in diversity and inclusiveness issues, and by running LGBT-inclusive campaigns. Even Airbnb launched a #HostWithPride campaign last year after updating its terms of service to protect and safeguard LGBT travelers and hosts.

There are gay-specific accommodation websites such as Rainbow World Hotels, Purple Roofs, and MisterBNB, but you’ll almost always find the same listings on mainstream sites for far cheaper prices. You’re paying a premium when trying to book through a gay-specific website, and in most instances, the mainstream sites and listings are increasingly safe and comfortable for LGBT travelers.

How to Meet Other LGBT Travelers

Gay travelers today are much luckier to have apps like Grindr in their pockets. I never would’ve discovered a gay bar in Amman without the Grindr app and a local’s helpful directions, nor would I have met that handsome tourist from Austria during Prague Gay Pride. Meeting strangers is one of the joys of traveling, and there’s nothing better than having an LGBT local to show you around. It will certainly make a trip more interesting, much more memorable. Here’s where to find them:

The hookup apps – If there’s one thing that’s revolutionized our little gay world, it’s Grindr, the location-based hookup app for gay men. For better or worse (you either love it or hate it), Grindr has changed the way we find sex, love, or even friends and it’s also quite simply enabled a lot more connections. Grindr makes it easier to meet locals when you’re abroad, whether it’s for a romp in the bushes behind Berghain or an innocent coffee date. While sex does happen often enough through these apps, it doesn’t have to be the end goal or even your main objective to still find value in them. Here are the main useful apps:

Grindr

Scruff

Jackd

Tinder

HER

Recon

Feeld

Networking groups – For a long time, Couchsurfing was one of the best places to meet other LGBT travelers and locals. With a strong community, the bed-sharing and hosting network made it easy to connect with other travelers — and the “Queer Couchsurfers” group was one of the site’s most active and welcoming. There were plenty of times I used Couchsurfing not just for a place to sleep but also to attend local get-togethers.

On Meetup.com you’ll find most major destinations have LGBT/queer-themed groups and meetups, and these are often a great and safe way to meet other LGBT travelers in nonsexual encounters. Sometimes you’ll find them for very specific interests, whether it’s a group of gay science fiction fans in Berlin or LGBT professional networking in London.

StartOut, a nonprofit for professional business and entrepreneurship networking events in various American cities, is also worth checking out. Facebook, with its thousands of public groups, can also provide a great meeting point online — and then offline — through local city or regional networking groups. It’s just a matter of doing some research beforehand to find the right networking group for your trip.

A Note on Safety

As I’ve written before in this LGBT travel column, safety and comfort is an important part of any gaycation. Thankfully, there are more than enough resources online to help you decide what or where might be safer to travel. For a more independent look at the LGBT rights and safety situation, Equaldex is my favorite. Unlike media and blogs, this is a crowd-sourced platform where users can post and share country-specific news articles related to LGBT rights. This can be especially helpful for those less-familiar places and to get a general comparison of LGBT inclusiveness around the world.

**** Over the years and thanks to new technologies and new formats for our media, the way we travel now has changed for the better. And for LGBT travelers specifically, these advancements have made it not just easier but also safer and friendlier. Using these tools and resources, so much more of the world is open to us.

Adam Groffman is a former graphic designer who left a publishing job in Boston to travel around the world before settling in Berlin, Germany. He’s a gay travel expert, writer, and blogger and publishes a series of LGBT-friendly Hipster City Guides from around the world on his gay travel blog, Travels of Adam. When he’s not out exploring the coolest bars and clubs, he’s usually enjoying the local arts and culture scene. Find more of his travel tips (and embarrassing stories) on Twitter @travelsofadam.

P.S. – Starting next, I’ll be doing the next round of Nomadic Network meet-ups around the U.S. (and in Canada!). If you want to meet up, come check out the dates and sign up! P.P.S. – I’m doing a BBQ in Austin on Friday. Come hang out!

Photo Credit: 4

The post 30+ Essential Resources for the Modern LGBT Traveler appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

[tamboradventure]

30+ Essential Resources for the Modern LGBT Traveler

I’ve added an LGBT column for the website to make the site more inclusive and talk about issues that affect some members of our community. In this column, we will hear from voices in the LGBT community about their experiences on the road, safety tips, events, and overall advice for other LGBT travelers to get the most out of their time on the road! Back again this month is our column leader Adam from travelsofadam.com who is talking about the best websites, apps, and blogs for LGBT travelers. 

Today, modern lesbian, gay, bi, and trans travelers no longer need a print guidebook to find underground, gay-friendly places. We don’t have to walk around with colored bandanas to send secret signals when cruising. Why? Because now — more often than not — we’re out in the open.

The basic LGBT trip  now starts like any other planned holiday. Where do we go? What do we want to do and see? How do we save money? Thanks to increased acceptance over the years, we’re far more out in the open and, with that comes a lot more options – both online and off – to plan your trip and find LGBT friendly attractions, businesses, tours, and ways to meet people. While we don’t have to let our sexuality define our travels, if you’re looking for activities and people who share a similar lifestyle, these are the best tools on the web:

Where to Find LGBT Travel Inspiration & Things to Do

Travel blogs & vlogs – In this new era for the travel media industry, independent bloggers and YouTubers have been at the forefront. Increasingly, we base our travel decisions (where to go, what to do) on not just our friends’ Instagrams but those  who’ve already been there, done that. The most popular gay and lesbian travel bloggers (myself included) generally publish destination guides — it’s just a matter of finding the one that fits your own personal travel style. Here are some of my favorites (starting with my own):

Travels of Adam

Globetrotter Girls

Dopes on the Road

Leave Your Daily Hell

The Queer Life

(For more blogs, check out my list here: http://ift.tt/1oLBeUa)

Websites – There are a handful of dedicated LGBT travel websites that publish detailed and up to date guides. My favorite are:

Out Traveler – once a print magazine, still publishes and maintains up-to-date LGBT city guides on its website.

AfterEllen – Regularly publishes lesbian travel guides.

TravelGayEurope and TravelGayAsia – These websites provide comprehensive city guides.

Travel guidebooks – The Damron series started out in 1964 for men but has also published a separate guidebook for lesbians for nearly 20 years. And Spartacus Publishing (out of Germany) has printed a comprehensive guidebook to all gay-oriented hospitality businesses since 1970. Moreover, these days, even the most mainstream publications are likely to include some LGBT-specific recommendations in their listings. For the past several summers, many major travel brands (such as Trip.com, Lonely Planet, Expedia, and even Hostelworld) have gone so far as to print LGBT Pride travel guides.

Local magazines, newspapers, and guides – There are countless independent, LGBT-oriented city magazines and newspapers around the world. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Adelaide, Australia, or London, England — you’re going to find a local LGBT print publication or guide. Some will include weekly listings of clubs, parties, and events; others might feature personal ads.

Unfortunately most of these indie publications have poor websites, so your best LGBT travel research is going to have to happen on the ground. One of the best ways to find them in a new city is to simply go to the queer neighborhood and then look for them in a bookstore or bar — anyone who’s ever been inside a gay bar or club is probably familiar with the stack of magazines, brochures, or flyers in the doorway or by the bathrooms. (And make sure to support those businesses that carry these publications!) Also check out the pamphlets, flyers, and advertisements on the corkboard in the local LGBT center.

Some examples:

Siegessäule, Berlin’s free gay magazine, likes to claim one of the highest readerships and circulations of any print media in Germany.

HISKIND, a free lifestyle magazine in London with thought-provoking essays and local artist and drag queen interviews.

Windy City Times still prints an LGBT newspaper for Chicago.

Washington Blade operates in DC.

Seattle Gay News covers Seattle.

Company blogs – Even the biggest gay apps have started to push out content through their channels. Grindr launched a digital magazine, Into, with a travel section earlier this year, and Hornet acquired the one-time popular gossip blog Unicorn Booty several years ago and now publishes gay men’s travel guides for assorted cities (even if they’re slightly basic). Each of the other hookup apps, including the more niche ones, like Surge, Blued, and Planet Romeo, maintain regularly published blogs, sometimes featuring travel tips and local insider guides. Scruff probably has gone the furthest in incorporating travel tips into its app with the feature Scruff Venture, which allows users to search a destination for other visitors, local ambassadors, and events.

IGLTA – The International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association is the leader when it comes to LGBT tourism. Its members include hundreds of airlines, hotels, destination tourism offices, and independent tour operators, both LGBT-owned and mainstream. On its website, you’ll find a useful “Plan Your Trip” feature that searches through its members (just be mindful that these are members who have paid for their placement). It’s a great place to find LGBT-specific things to do on your trip.

Related: An In-Depth Guide to Planning a Lesbian-Friendly Trip

LGBT-friendly accommodation – Often the most challenging part of gay travel can be finding an LGBT-friendly hotel or accommodation. Some of the biggest hotel chains and brands have actively supported the LGBT community by participating in Pride events around the world, by training all their staff (from the front desk to the reservations center) in diversity and inclusiveness issues, and by running LGBT-inclusive campaigns. Even Airbnb launched a #HostWithPride campaign last year after updating its terms of service to protect and safeguard LGBT travelers and hosts.

There are gay-specific accommodation websites such as Rainbow World Hotels, Purple Roofs, and MisterBNB, but you’ll almost always find the same listings on mainstream sites for far cheaper prices. You’re paying a premium when trying to book through a gay-specific website, and in most instances, the mainstream sites and listings are increasingly safe and comfortable for LGBT travelers.

How to Meet Other LGBT Travelers

Gay travelers today are much luckier to have apps like Grindr in their pockets. I never would’ve discovered a gay bar in Amman without the Grindr app and a local’s helpful directions, nor would I have met that handsome tourist from Austria during Prague Gay Pride. Meeting strangers is one of the joys of traveling, and there’s nothing better than having an LGBT local to show you around. It will certainly make a trip more interesting, much more memorable. Here’s where to find them:

The hookup apps – If there’s one thing that’s revolutionized our little gay world, it’s Grindr, the location-based hookup app for gay men. For better or worse (you either love it or hate it), Grindr has changed the way we find sex, love, or even friends and it’s also quite simply enabled a lot more connections. Grindr makes it easier to meet locals when you’re abroad, whether it’s for a romp in the bushes behind Berghain or an innocent coffee date. While sex does happen often enough through these apps, it doesn’t have to be the end goal or even your main objective to still find value in them. Here are the main useful apps:

Grindr

Scruff

Jackd

Tinder

HER

Recon

Feeld

Networking groups – For a long time, Couchsurfing was one of the best places to meet other LGBT travelers and locals. With a strong community, the bed-sharing and hosting network made it easy to connect with other travelers — and the “Queer Couchsurfers” group was one of the site’s most active and welcoming. There were plenty of times I used Couchsurfing not just for a place to sleep but also to attend local get-togethers.

On Meetup.com you’ll find most major destinations have LGBT/queer-themed groups and meetups, and these are often a great and safe way to meet other LGBT travelers in nonsexual encounters. Sometimes you’ll find them for very specific interests, whether it’s a group of gay science fiction fans in Berlin or LGBT professional networking in London.

StartOut, a nonprofit for professional business and entrepreneurship networking events in various American cities, is also worth checking out. Facebook, with its thousands of public groups, can also provide a great meeting point online — and then offline — through local city or regional networking groups. It’s just a matter of doing some research beforehand to find the right networking group for your trip.

A Note on Safety

As I’ve written before in this LGBT travel column, safety and comfort is an important part of any gaycation. Thankfully, there are more than enough resources online to help you decide what or where might be safer to travel. For a more independent look at the LGBT rights and safety situation, Equaldex is my favorite. Unlike media and blogs, this is a crowd-sourced platform where users can post and share country-specific news articles related to LGBT rights. This can be especially helpful for those less-familiar places and to get a general comparison of LGBT inclusiveness around the world.

**** Over the years and thanks to new technologies and new formats for our media, the way we travel now has changed for the better. And for LGBT travelers specifically, these advancements have made it not just easier but also safer and friendlier. Using these tools and resources, so much more of the world is open to us.

Adam Groffman is a former graphic designer who left a publishing job in Boston to travel around the world before settling in Berlin, Germany. He’s a gay travel expert, writer, and blogger and publishes a series of LGBT-friendly Hipster City Guides from around the world on his gay travel blog, Travels of Adam. When he’s not out exploring the coolest bars and clubs, he’s usually enjoying the local arts and culture scene. Find more of his travel tips (and embarrassing stories) on Twitter @travelsofadam.

P.S. – Starting next, I’ll be doing the next round of Nomadic Network meet-ups around the U.S. (and in Canada!). If you want to meet up, come check out the dates and sign up! P.P.S. – I’m doing a BBQ in Austin on Friday. Come hang out!

Photo Credit: 4

The post 30+ Essential Resources for the Modern LGBT Traveler appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

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Manchester is often dubbed as the cultural capital of the North; sometimes even the country. With brands such as The Warehouse Project, which not only sets up a clubbing Mecca under Manchester’s busiest train station for three months of the year but also hosts its very own two day music festival at the start of summer, and new clubs opening such as Hidden, presenting eclectic line-ups with renowned artists from all over the world it’s not hard to see why. This current success in Manchester’s nightlife, combined with the clubbing heritage the city is now famous for, it’s hard to find how there could be an issue in the cities clubbing scene.

 Manchester then, seems to not only meet expectations of clubbing and dance music culture, but exceed them, with one of Manchester’s largest venues The Albert Hall hosting regular Hacienda nights celebrating the cities heritage. As well as this, new club nights and events are constantly reinvigorating the music scene, giving local and international DJ’s a platform to showcase their talent. The city still has a wide variety of events that could cater to any taste with indie and rock music events running alongside every sub-genre of dance music from jungle, to lo-fi around the city almost every night. The city also boasts a variety of different radio stations from entrepreneurs setting up online shows in their own flats to the BBC having its own Manchester station.

The problems only occur when digging a little deeper. Issues such as world famous brand Sankey’s has closed the doors of its original Manchester nightclub for the final time. This hole that has been left in Manchester’s clubbing scene presents to us the big problem for nightclubs around the country, as well as Manchester. Many establishments around the country are being bought up by property developers and being made into apartments due to gentrification, which is having a profound effect on the industry, with sources stating up to half of the countries nightclubs have closed in the past 10 years, showing that this is a problem that needs to be addressed as soon as possible.

Gentrification is not the only problem facing Manchester’s night life. Despite having many positive effects on the city, the way in which The Warehouse Project books both DJ’s and live acts has potentially damaging effects on the rest of Manchester’s nightclubs and brands. Headline acts at any of The Warehouse Projects events are contractually obliged to only play at Warehouse Project events for the duration of the twelve week residency which the promoter holds in the city as well as for one month before and after. Due to the size of The Warehouse Project brand, they are able to book the most popular  DJ’s in the industry which goes on to put a lot of pressure on smaller events, nightclubs  and promoters when they are no longer able to book more well know DJ’s and acts; making it more difficult for them to make their events appeal to audiences who are interested in the underground music scene. This creates an issue which potentially the council should show more involvement in, in order to stop one brand having the monopoly on Manchester’s night life and therefore helping promote smaller up and coming brands in achieving commercial success. This issue also directly affects the fans as they are frequently forced to spend up to £45 on a ticket to The Warehouse Project because they can’t go and see their favourite DJ anywhere else in the city.In terms of clubbing culture, London presents a rather different scene when looking st night time culture. With nightclubs such as Fabric having a closing time of 10am on a Sunday morning but frequently carrying  on until 2 o’clock in the afternoon, something that is unheard of and would would potentially be unfeasible in a city like Manchester, where only a few nightclubs hold a license until 7am. Fabric is not the only nightclub open till this time, with most of Londons more well-known clubs having a much later licence, especially on Saturday nights; showing how Manchester is leaps and bounds behind in this aspect of clubbing. As well as this, London has deemed their night life so important, they have created this position of Night Czar and hired Amy Lamé to make sure London’s nightlife is still thriving and going forward, highlighting the importance of the night time economy to the city and people of London. Despite this Manchester can be seen to be more progressive with the way in which it tackles drug related issues. Islington council in London closed Fabric down for a number of months with a large possibility of the establishment being permanently closed due to drug relate deaths. Whereas in Manchester when a similar tragedy occurred in The Warehouse Project, the club was allowed to implicate a drug testing station within the venue to test the purity of peoples drugs and promote safe drug taking instead of being shut down and influential members of Manchester’s police force commended the establishment on the way it was run.

Its interesting to see this development of British clubbing in contrast with major European cities. Amsterdam, a city almost identical in population to Manchester, (both around 2.5 million in the metropolitan areas) heralds a 24 hour license and in 2012 Mirik Milan was employed as the cities first nachtburgemeester, or Night Mayor. In an interview with NME he expressed his views on the creative element involved with a cities nightlife in saying ‘Culturally, there’s a lot of talent developing in nightlife for these creative industries. There are people [such as DJs] who make their money [in clubs]. It is their job; it’s what they do. And when there’s a lot of creative people in the city you also attract creative industries. And the creative industry is an engine for local economic growth.’ This employment of Milan and the work that he has done for the cities nightlife, which includes world famous clubs such as De School and Paradiso, could be the reason why the cities night time culture is striving and heralded as ‘Europe's greatest city for nightlife’ by The Telegraph. However the cities nightlife hasn’t been without issues in terms of maintaining their abundance of ground-breaking night clubs in recent years. In 2016 popular clubbing venue Cruquiusglide closed it’s doors after only two years after opening, due to noise complaints and unexpected financial issues, so we can see any array of issues which arise when maintain a clubs presence in major, metropolitan cities

Yet the way in which this city approaches it’s clubbing scene has been influential on other cities, such as London and it’s introduction of the Night Czar as previously mentioned. Manchester needs to follow suit if it is to survive and strive as this mecca for nightlife in the North of England. It is probably unnecessary to introduce a specified person for the control of nightlife like Amy Lamé, but the city needs to look at how it can prevent the closer of historic nightclubs like Sankeys and avoid the exploitation in which Warehouse Projects places on smaller Manchester venues.

Manchester could also take a leaf out of Berlin’s book. The city is home to some of the world’s greatest techno artists such as Ben Klock and Marcel Dettman. It is also home to potentially the worlds greatest nightclub the Berghain. This establishment has won a high court ruling and now it is said that the club ‘should be classed as culture rather than entertainment’ meaning they are subject to a lower tax bracket as well as being heralded as a form of art and shown the respect in which it deserves. This is a world away from the way in which Britain’s government and local councils have being viewing nightlife. This is a really a massive step for night time culture and hopefully other European cities, and Manchester in particular take notice.

  Students and local punters to nightclubs may not see that there are any issues with the nightclubbing scene in their beloved northern town, and a lot of people may argue there isn’t. We are all spoilt for choice in this city and the market for promoters is seen as very saturated and difficult for new nights to start and stay relevant in the city. However, the issue lies with the UK and nightclubbing not just with the city as a specified place. Government and authorities need to work with the scene as a whole, people like nightclub owners and local promoters to build on the strong history that the country has with dance music and to celebrate this. If this was to be the case then it would benefit everyone, it would start a relationship between these two parties that would increase tourism and revenue to cities such as Manchester in such a positive way.