O perfil de Idiotchild

The Junction Bar on Gneisenaustrasse in Kreuzberg is a little piece of Berlin music history. It's provided live music, offering a completely eclectic mix of bands and styles, every night since 1996. Older musicians from the West Berlin scene tell me that for a few years then it was THE place to see and hear bands. It was always packed, everyone who was anyone on the scene was always in and out of the place, and stories abound.
In 2007 it's a slightly different story. Don't get me wrong, it's not dead yet, not by any means, but it's no longer in the loop of the cool and the hip. There's still live music every night followed by a DJ. And for them to have stuck to that for over a decade now deserves a lot of credit. The bands are still eclectic, but also pretty hit and miss. Last time I was down there I was perusing the program and I was quite dumbfounded. A couple of the bands really looked like the kind of bands that you wouldn't imagine anyone, ever, anywhere, booking.
But then, we were playing there, so I suppose they do have intermittent good taste at least (insert clever comment here). Another bad point is that the sound system isn't really that great, and they have a system with setting up the sound that I really have never encountered anywhere before: as a band, you turn up to do the soundcheck, the sound engineer is there (nice guy, actually) and he sorts out the sound for the band – and the mixing desk is somewhere off to the side in a back room(!)....Then he leaves. As in, and doesn't come back. So if it turns out when the room is full (as often happens) (it turning out like that I mean, not necessarily that the room is full) that the sound needs a bit of fine-tuning; or if the sound of the band changes in some way (like swapping between guitars for example), well then you've just got to live with it. Or send someone into the room to twiddle the knobs yourself. Which, obviously, you don't do because things would just go downhill from there...How did I find that out? Guess.
So...the Junction Bar: If you want a guarantee of some live music, go there. If you want a guarantee of good live music, people in the place, and a good sound, then do the other thing.

I went to the Intersoup for the first time for ages and as I walked in I remembered how damn small the place is. But nice. Friendly, quite homely bar. I think actually that what kept me away for so long was that when they opened they wanted it to be a cocktail bar so badly that they only sold one kind of beer, in bottles, and expensive, small bottles at that. Now I like a good double-whammy cocktail as much as the next person but when you find yourself in a bar in Berlin and you can't get a decent beer...Hmm....
Anyway, at some point I heard that they'd started having live music and I always thought vaguely, "I wonder where.." since the place really is pretty tiny. So finally the other night I went down to see an Australian guitarist, Tim Mcmillan, and discovered that actually there is a room downstairs where they have the music. Again, downstairs is tiny. There's room for a couple of sofas, a few chairs, and the bit where the musicians stand or sit. It's pretty scruffy, expense has definitely been spared here.... at least this night it was nice – Tim Mcmillan is an amazing guitarist – death metal done on acoustic guitar with simon and garfunkel vocals (er, more or less), and a very dry Australian sense of humour.
Downside is you gotta go upstairs to get a drink, it's the kind of place where everyone's sitting quietly listening to the music, and the door to the downstairs creaks very loudly as you open and close it. I didn't, of course. I was one of the people who looked disapprovingly at the person who was opening and closing, quietly amused at their hand gestures somehow meant to convey, "Damn, sorry, didn't know it would squeak, I would leave it til the end of the song but I've really got to go for a leak, it's urgent, honest...but I really love the music, it's really great..." etc.
Oh, and Intersoup does soup. International soup.
And cocktails.

If you want to eat some decent chips and you happen to find yourself in Prenzlauerberg, you only have one choice, and it’s Fettnapf. Apparently it was started off by a Belgian, and let’s face it, they have the edge where pommes are concerned. I don’t know why, but I suppose everyone has to be good at something, and if it’s pommes and beer then who am I to stand in the way of that. Anyway, the pommes come in a nice dunce’s hat-type affair in a very swish and cleverly designed wooden holder, with wurst, fish (yes, I am English, and yes, I did take the fish and chip option. Well, I mean, I didn’t want to disappoint anyone) and an array of other accompaniments. Also apparently they’re known for the variety and exoticness of the sauces. I can’t comment, sorry, I was feeling boring that day and had the ubiquitous Ketchup and Mayo.
The service is friendly and efficient, the décor is very nicely done – smart without being overdone – and the chips have just the right amount of grease.
We wandered in there on the first real rainy Autumnal Saturday of the year, and it was just what we needed.

The name is of course awfully clever. It’s on Marienburger, it’s a burger joint, they called it Marien Burger. But as two words – clever eh?
I drove past a couple of times and thought it looked very enticing. I do like a good burger and among the multitude of food options of various types and nationalities in P-berg I find that a decent burger is something of a rarity. The place is nicely done up, the lettering quite funky, and when I saw the ad for the snake burger outside I knew: sooner or later I would talk my girlfriend into eating here.
So I did. However….Unfortunately I shall never know what the snake burger tastes like, or in fact any of the other burgers, because as soon as we walked in and my girlfriend made a polite enquiry regarding the possible existence of a toilet, she was given such a needlessly unfriendly and impolite reply that we walked straight out of there and decided not to go back. I mean, I almost suggested just getting the snake burger to go, but thought better of it. Yes, I am getting better at this whole relationship thing, but I am a man, and it’s slow work.
So…no snake burgers for me. Not that I mind. I mean, it’s really not that big a deal for me, I haven’t even thought about it for, well, days now. The snake burger. Not for days. Nope.

White Trash – hmm...The bar originally opened in another location, which had earlier been a Chinese Restaurant, it wasn’t nearly so big, and it had something of the underground about it. I only popped in there a few times so can’t say much about it but it definitely did have something.
Fast forward to now: WT then moved to a new, bigger location, where there was a possibility for live bands to play.
For a while it was great: Packed, noisy, wild, in short: Rock 'n' Roll.
Then it was decided, it seems, as so often happens, to cash in on that whole underground cool thing.
WT: It’s big, it has been and probably still is one of the cooler bars to hang out in, yes, all the up-and-coming indie rock bands play there, and yes, they do have the best burgers in town. However: call me weird but I really don’t need to go out of an evening and have bar staff ignore me and waitresses be rude to me (or vice-versa). I really just don’t need it.
WT is, I feel, at the point in its lifecycle where it used to be underground and cool. Then it was recently underground and cool. Possibly for a short while it was no longer underground but still cool. Now it’s neither. I find myself feeling slightly embarrassed now for the people who work there and think it will still continue to work to be unfriendly and rude to the customers because it’s WT and they’ll keep coming regardless just because it’s the place to be seen. That time is already fading. Very soon people will start opting for the new cool place to be seen, and that slow exodus may be sped up by the unfriendliness and rudeness of the majority of the staff here.
As to the music, the acoustic acts upstairs can be very hit and miss, sometimes really good, often really not. Downstairs in the Diamond Lounge you get the louder rock bands, and for a while it really was the place for up-and-coming bands to play. That has also unfortunately become a little hit-and-miss, but you never know, you might be lucky.

On the other hand, if you're new in town and looking for somewhere where you'll find an acoustic act upstairs and, on most nights, a louder band playing downstairs, and loads of people from marketing / advertising / MTV in the latest indie-rock gear talking loudly and looking around to see who else is there (Doh! This was going to be the positive bit. Damn!) then go.
If you want to eat a good burger and fries, then yes, this is the place. Just don't expect to be treated like you have a right to be there.

People do seem to have mixed feelings about The Opera House, and I understand why - I'm usually in Tunbridge Wells for a day or two at a time, visiting friends, and I like to pop in there in between shopping if I don't feel like going to one of the coffee places dotted around the shopping precinct. It can tend to be quite noisy, but as I'm usually in Berlin I find this a welcome change to Berlin's more laid-back cafe society. The place was, as you can guess, originally an Opera House, and architecturally it hasn't changed - the non-smoking part of the pub is on what would originally have been the stage, and there's a lowered seating area where you can sit and drink a cup of tea in the noisy surroundings. Apparently during the evening it can get quite rowdy, so if you like that then that's the place to go. But if you're looking for something slightly more civilized / upmarket there are plenty of alternatives within a stone's throw of the place.

A great little bookshop run by two very friendly guys who are classic long-term UK refugees. They have a huge assortment of books, mostly English-language, which they also sell through the internet.
In a room at the back they have regular acoustic gigs, mostly solo or duos, leaning towards the folk direction but quite a mix of different stuff. Always a good atmosphere, you'll be welcomed in like a long-lost friend and will leave humming to yourself some hours later with some newly made ones, your pocket not too much lighter and floating in that particular happy warm glow that comes only from good music, a plentitude of beers and good, relaxed company.

OK, yes, my girlfriend did indeed drag me down there using that old, old trick, the Dance Course as Christmas Present! Apparently I had at some point murmured something about quite fancying trying it out (she says).
So it was initially with much trepidation and brave-face-putting that we first turned up there.
And yes, I was won over. Completely. We did the Beginners Course, we returned for the Mid Level Course, and we're planning on doing the Advanced. And it's all been a blast. There are, inevitably, those moments at the beginning of each new course where the girlfriend glowers while you pretend that you do indeed remember perfectly the steps you learned in the last course, and that you're not trying surreptitiously to watch what the others are doing but are in fact just tying your shoelaces. (it doesn't help, by the way, because nearly all the men in the place are doing exactly the same as you, and nearly all the women are doing what your girlfriend is doing).
But enough of that. Let me tell you more about the place itself.
It is, I think, a quite well-established dance school, and has quite a good reputation. The decor has been done with great taste and subtlety - chic, very smart and yet utterly unpretentious. The teachers are all brilliant (with, I must say, one exception: also coincidentally by far the least camp one. Strange...); but the rest are highly professional, relaxed and very friendly. Through the summer they seem not to have fixed courses (I could be wrong on this) and we went instead (yes, it was my girlfriend's idea) to open Salsa classes: Great! You feel completely sexy! Who cares what you look like!
They also hire the place out for weddings and suchlike, and they have Balls and Dances pretty much every week. We attended one and it was a great night out - all very chic and everyone dressed to the hilt, and performances by some of the teachers that looked absolutely wonderful. And really not very expensive.
Also what you notice is that it is, I'm told, quite unnusual among most of the dance studios in Berlin in terms of its relaxed informality, and there's a preponderance of homosexual couples. Which I find makes for a very relaxed vibe. Also when the "men" and "women" split into two lines, they say instead the "leaders" and the "followers". And yes, a couple of times we got confused and ended with my girlfriend leading me around the floor. Until we realised. Ah well. Hardly anyone laughed.
All in all, I thoroughly recommend it, whether you're a more serious dancer or just want to do a couple of casual classes, or you fancy simply turning up to one of the balls: Go!

If I was twentyish, just moved to the big city and in my first year at university, I would think An Einem Sonntag Im August was the coolest place on earth. It’s trashy, the staff are all students too, the music is loud and generally indie, the toilets are a mess and their walls covered in outdated concert posters and old newspaper articles, there’s a very cheap and standard breakfast buffet every day until twelve, and all the kids hang out there.
If you’re that student that I described above then go, you’ll love it there. If you’re in your mid-30s and you’re slowly turning into your mum / dad then don’t, you won’t. Although the ceiling fresco does actually look pretty cool.

Schwarz Sauer is one of those bars that's been there forever and has kept a reputation throughout for being a place where the local "Scene" people hang out. Kastanien Allee, where it's situated, has become a bit of a tourist hotspot in the last couple of years with the result that the place is occasionally crowded with people who really want to be cool and intend to do that by sitting in Schwarz Sauer with the right haircut and clothes and sipping on their latte macchiatios while talking into their mobile phones...I mean it's always worked before...However having said that the bar has managed to retain a kind of unspoken claim to being epicentre of the scene here...you still get an eclectic mix of all sorts coming in for their morning coffee (the place is open from 8!) and the bar staff is always relaxed and professional and friendly. Oh, and did I mention that they tend to be highly attractive?
It's small so gets filled up easily which can be a problem in the colder months, but it's definitely worth popping into for a drink or two and the open plan and curved bar make it easy to fall into casual conversation with fellow seekers. Or you could sit and sip a latte macchiato and chat on your mobile, it's completely up to you...