“i have a love
i have a love for this world,
a kind of love that will break my heart
a kind of love that reconstructs and remodels the past
that adds a dryness to the dry august grass
that adds the sunshine to the magnifying glass
and makes me fight for something that cant last” J.Lekman

Over the last few months I had once more felt a little party recession mood rising in me. Too much booze&co., too many people who can’t handle booze&co., people coming for elbow & ego rave pits and testosterone house only instead of coming for dancing and socializing… all in all sometimes more stress than fun and I had secretly started to wonder why I was doing this at all. It’s one thing if you only turn up as a dj somewhere else and only have to care about your set but when I also am one of the promoters I want everyone on that night to enjoy themselves. And that includes the people at the door, wardrobe, bar. I don’t want me and them to have to constantly worry about possible problems that come with a rowdy crowd.

ORCHID two weeks ago restored my faith in club nights. I really really loved the friendly and sparkling atmosphere of that night. I bet it was because it was the second ORCHID night in a row at which I got a fluffy unicorn as a gift! 🙂
I also think I’ve never heard so many different people saying ‘thank you for the night’ while actually I was the one who felt thankful. I mean, let’s face it: With music and decoration and flyers you still can only give people some kind of ‘vessel’ when you put up a club night. It is always the crowd who fills it and makes it what it is. And it’s always thrilling to wait which people come out for it and what they make of it. You never really know what will happen. And on that night you worked magic. At some point when I walked around it was as if every single one in the room and in the hallway was beamingly happy but not in a hysteric way, more in a relaxed ‘here I can let go’ way. The prototype of ‘friendly atmosphere’.
I was really happy that Martina and Irene made their fabulous ‘Make your own mask‘ stand and it worked a treat. Usually I don’t really like party photographers but this time I really wish I’d had some more pictures to remember. It was wonderful to have Jörg Freitag over, an old friend who also was part of the musikerein when he used to live here. He also was the first person to try setting up electronic club nights at the K4 at all. I think we worked pretty good together musically..?! The crowded dancefloor and the many smiling faces made us think so. 🙂
What got me in a bit of sweat was that the time pitcher of one of our cd players broke that night and I only had cds with me. Somehow I steered my way through the tunes without emptying the dancefloor anyhow. Anyway? Whatever. At the end of this blog entry I’ll post a brainstorming effort of a tracklist of some of the weirdo pop I played out and I hope I find the time to upload a little ORCHID mix within the next couple of days. And thankyouthankyouthankyou again for this wonderful night.

Last weekend then it was time for IT’S THE BEAT meets SUB:CITY for which we had invited RUSTIE from Glasgow, and 8BITCH played as surprise guest (we asked her at dinner and luckily she had her laptop with her and said yes), with Chris (= Selfintoxicated, YesYes of sub:city) and Benni (= Jazz:Pa of Amplified Attitued, Rock:it) as local djs. That night was a blast too. We had a rather diverse crowd that was wild but not aggressive. Some party nights I remember as one constant flow and blur of things but that night I remember for lots of shiny tiny impressions that made me smile. Seli decorating the room with her never ending supply of bass owl variations. Rustie’s shy&short soundcheck. Robert selling white fruit gum mice he had nabbed from the theatre premiere’s buffet next door. Another great snapshot in my memory was when while 8bitch was playing out some infectious R&B flavoured stuff one of the Lonsdale-cliche-hool hunks sat down on the edge of the stage with an inner sigh of resignation so big that you could almost see it while in front of him some girls were dancing wildly. People chanting in the hallway instead of going home in the morning. The poor little video beamer desperately trying to fight the mighty bass waves with ‘keystone correction’ all night. The sub was a mighty one indeed. On the edge of painful in some moments. Loads of people used our free ear plugs on that night. A few parts of RUSTIE‘s set got so loud that it got distorted but. But. BUT! I loved each and every set of that night but Rustie really killed it. It was the best ADS-style set I’ve heard since I don’t know… Kid 606 with his two chaospads when breakcore was still exciting? RUSTIE‘s a genius in not only picking excellent tracks but in actually composing them into a monster of a set. If you take only a short glance the combination of beats might sound too broken for a dancefloor but everyone who really gave it a listen – (and thank you, Nuremberg, lots of people did on that night) – RUSTIE‘s set relentlessly sucked you in. I really don’t dance often these days but that was such fun and had such mighty beats and silly synths and was anarchic and wild and yet so-well combined (some of us wondered if he Rustie had parents that already had brought him up with some musical background because the set showed a really broad musical horizon.) Made me smile, made me dance, made me go “WTF?!”. Perfect.
And he seemed to enjoy himself too as he played muuuuuch longer than he had intended to. Hours. 🙂
It was all so good that the not-so-nice things of the night didn’t bother me much. Of course there were a few: It was annoying sisyphos-work to try keeping the smoking-ban up. Some idiot started a fire alarm but gladly the guys from the K4 stopped it before the firemen turned up. A few times our door people had to close entry cause it got too crowded and some guys misbehaved a bit when they didn’t get in. Guys with rucksacks on the dancefloor. When we started to clean up after the night the floor was a pure mess of flyers, broken glass and things-you-didn’t-want-to-give-a-closer-look.
Ach, in my eyes this all was more than outweighed by the monster of a party we had. I can’t wait for Otto von Schirach in march cause I expect equally mind-whirling controlled-anarchy-madness music from his set in march.

* _ *

Weakmemorybrainstormingeffort of an ORCHID playlist that makes it seem I played less electronic music than I though I had:

DJ John – Rockin down the house with rum & cocacola
Ali Love – Love Harder (Mighty Mouse mix)
N.A.S.A. – Theirs a party
Atomizer  – Je suis lesbien
LCD Soundsystem – Tribulations (Tiga mix)
La Roux + The Kooks – In for the Kooks (Reborn Identity mix)
Le Tigre – Hot topic
Kelis – Acapella
Boys Noize – Jeffer (Modeselektor mix)
The Knife – Heartbeats (Rex The Dog mix)
The Cure – Just like heaven
Feathers – Small rooms
Gils – Lust for life
Colder – To the music (Optimo mix)
RAC/Justice + Freeeze – I.O.U. a pragmatic phantom (eve massacre mix)
Peaches – Mommy complex
Matt & Kim – Daylight
The Faint – The geeks were right (Boys Noize + DIM mix)
Bloody Beetroots + Bloc Party – Bloody party (eve massacre mix)
MGMG + Peaches + Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fuck the kids (eve massacre mix)
Gossip – Love long distance (Riva Starr mix)
Fever Ray – Triangle walks (Tiga mix)
Vitamin C – Last nite
Bloc Party + Pussycat Dolls (Dunproofin mix)
Hurts – Wonderful life
The Golden Filter – Thunderbird (Villa dub mix)
Bloody Beetroots – Theolonius (French Fries mix)
O Children – Dead disco dancer (The Golden Filter mix)
Luscious Jackson – Deep Shag
Prince & The Revolution – Raspberry beret
Hudson Mohawke – Joy fantastic
The Very Best – Warm heart of Africa (Kissy Sell Out mix)
Interpol – Mammoth (Erol Alkan mix)
Le Tigre – Deceptacon
The Thermals – How we know
C.Aarmé – Ti ca tu a
Patrick Wolf – A boy like me
Simon Bookish – Michael (Franz Ferdinand cover)
Jens Lekman – Into eternity
The Smiths – Everyday feels like Sunday