uberlin

Wow guys, thanks for coming out to BLOG LOVE IS CREW LOVE last Friday. Shit was Off. The. Chain.

This week I’m DJing AGAIN (sorry!), but at a very different kind of party: Feeling Gloomy Berlin,  ”the club that brings a tear to your eye.” I’m going to be playing Madchester classics, from New Order to the Happy Mondays, so, to cast you into a suitable Northern gloom, here’s a minimix I made and a Joy Division video someone pieced together from vintage footage of Berlin.

Full event details here – see you on Saturday, dancing with tears in your eyes! ;_(

Joy Division – Shadowplay from Napoleon Bonaparte on Vimeo.

Nick Catchdubs by Ian Meyer

Music Montag bonus beats WHAT? While burning CDs for Feeling Gloomy Berlin’s 2nd Birthday Party this Friday, I discovered that my favourite mixtape is actually a SERIES of mixtapes. Nick Catchdubs and Mr Drucker’s “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” cuts up classic grunge (Nirvana, Temple of the Dog), Tarantino movie samples (“dick dick dick dick dick dick dick”), one-hit wonders (“Detachable Penis”!), live hip hop (Cypress Hill at Woodstock ’94, A Tribe Called Quest at Free Tibet) and that most 90s phenomenon, the hidden track. And the best thing about it? It’s just one of FOUR slacktastic alternarock compilations!

Why am I telling you all this? Well, because I’m planning a set just like this (although mixed more poorly) at Feeling Gloomy Berlin’s 2nd Birthday Party at Roter Salon in Volksbühne. Expect 90s grunge, indie, Britpop and assorted miserabilia. If you have any requests, pop them in the comments below and I’ll see what I can do

Did you know that David Bowie once lived in Berlin? And did you know that he also recorded some music while he was here? I learnt these facts, and actual interesting ones too, when I went on Feeling Gloomy Berlin’s Bowie walking tour a couple of months back. It was THIS MUCH FUN:

And now you have a chance to take a walk in the Thin White Duke’s platform boots, as we’re giving away a pair of free places on the Berlin Bowie Walk this Saturday (July 21st, other details here). To win two spots for you and a friend, all you have to do is tell us where you would like to go for a walk with David Bowie, and why you think he would like it. Leave your entry in the comments below, by 6pm Berlin time this Friday (July 20th), when we’ll pick our favourite and let the winner know by email.

For what it’s worth, we think Ziggy Stardust would like to go on a walkabout across the Australian desert, because it resembles the surface of MARS and is full of SPIDERS… :/ You must be able to beat that! But if you need some inspiration, check out Network Awesome, which is screening collections of Bowie’s live performances and stabs at acting. Good luck!!!

It’s been over a week since Feeling Gloomy ♥ Bowie, so we’ve just about recovered. The London-import indie disco celebrated the ultimate Berlin expat with Bowie tunes aplenty, professional facepainting (I went with the Ziggy Stardust) and the drinking of beers and virgin’s tears*. You can see all of Zoë’s amazing photos in the Feeling Gloomy Berlin Facebook group, but they’re so good that we couldn’t help sharing some here. If you’re sore you missed out, FGB are doing another of their sehr fun Bowie Walking Tours this Saturday- see their Facebook group for deets.

*No, not really.

It’s a big year for Bowie, as Dame David has just turned 65 and celebrated the 35th anniversary of his first classic Berlin album, Low. The city is celebrating its favourite adopted son this week with a film screening, walking tour and club night in his honour. Allow us to join in by posting the video for Xu Xu Fang’s cover of “China Girl”, featuring a few of our favourite things – horses, beards, black and white.

If you feel like toasting the Thin White Duke, you should start with Merkezi Movie Club on Monday, which is screening Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell To Earth, starring Bowie as the eponymous alien. Feeling Gloomy will be going through ch-ch-changes all day Saturday, with a Bowie Tour and a Bowie-themed edition of the Feeling Gloomy Clubnacht.

If you’re unlucky enough not to live in Berlin (sadface), or can’t make these awesome events for any other reason, you can at least live vicariously through illustrator Holly Sims’ Bowie-inspired poster series for Feeling Gloomy. Altogether now, “I, I will be king…”

BOO!

All Hallow’s Eve is still a week away, but we started celebrations early at the Halloween edition of Feeling Gloomy Berlin. DJing at Feeling Goolish gave me a chance to dust off my most diabolical dancefloor-fillers for a set full of questionable choices like playing Slayer’s borderline Nazi-sympathetic “Angel of Blood”. In Berlin. In makeup that, in a certain light, looked like I had a swastika on my forehead. My defence? I was playing the DJ Ayres “Fuck Off Nazi Punks” remix… obviously.

Anyway, below is a home recording of said set. See if you can guess which tracks I left out to spare the sanity of the crowd, and which ones I decided to play anyway .

As a bonus for everyone with access to Spotify (sorry again Germany!), here is a playlist to get you in the mood as you apply the grease paint and fake blood for whatever Monster Bash you are going to this weekend: Warm Up The Dead.

PS: can you guess who I was dressed as?