In Berlin, A Beat That Bloomed From Rubble
Just after 10 on a Saturday morning, at a defunct power station in central Berlin, revelers reluctantly leave a club buried in its basement. One of them asks, "Hey man, you there, you know a good place to party?" as he stumbles into the sunlight.
Standing at a sober distance from the adrenaline and substance-fueled partygoers is 60-year-old Dimitri Hegemann, the owner of the club. Clutching a cup of coffee and the morning newspaper, he leads me away from the entrance and up some stairs into a dark, cavernous chamber.
Hegemann calls himself a space pioneer. He uses this immense space for pop-up art projects, but he also rents it out as a venue for commercial events, providing him with the funds for further renovation.
"My mission is to transfer industrial ruins into cultural spaces," he says.
It's in disused buildings like this that Berlin's techno scene emerged 25 years ago. When the Berlin Wall fell, it left vast, empty spaces in its wake. The no-man's land of what was called the "death strip" — where armed border guards once roamed along the city's concrete border — had suddenly become accessible.
"Gorbachev is guilty for the techno movement," Hegemann jokes. "When the wall came down, there was an incredible euphoria and optimism in the city."
For the next few years, the authorities paid little attention to parts of East Berlin. It became an adventure playground for artists, punks and squatters who all saw the potential in abandoned buildings.
Hegemann was among them. He opened his first club in the underground vaults of a bombed-out department store directly on the East-West border; they'd remained untouched since World War II.
"It was so dark. Old air touched us; it was a bit scary," Hegemann remembers. "It was like opening a pyramid, you know? It was magic."
DJ Tanith is another one of the city's founding techno fathers. Standing outside his old studio, now a boutique hotel, he says the spaces were key.
"Techno blossoms in the right architecture. You have to experience it there to understand it, and then you can take it home with you," Tanith says. "It starts with boom-boom-boom, it goes to boom-chuck. For me it's like jazz: It spreads out in so many colors, perceptions, even ideologies."
The city spawned its own sound, says music producer Sven von Thuelen, who recently wrote a book, The Sound of Family, about the scene. "Berlin was always known for hard, raw, muscular techno. Not so much for house music," he says.
Von Thuelen says the techno imported from Chicago and Detroit in the late '80s evolved into a bigger, less refined sound that reflects the size, acoustics and aesthetic of Berlin's unorthodox club venues.
"The spaces became the stars of the whole thing," he says. "It wasn't about the DJ, at least not at the beginning. It was about all these crazy locations you could find."
Techno saw East and West Berliners reunite well before the rest of Germany. Forget The Scorpions' power ballad "Wind of Change"; forget David Hasselhoff's Schlager-inspired "Looking for Freedom." While the Hoff was gyrating at the Brandenburg Gate, the real party was happening on ad hoc dance floors in derelict factories, bunkers, squats, subway stations, even in public lavatories. The sound of freedom was techno.
Journalist Felix Denk is von Thuelen's co-author. Denk believes techno fostered a feeling of togetherness, epitomized by the 3 Phase track "Der Klang Der Familie," featuring Dr. Motte.
"We belonged together — although some were from the East and some from the West, although some were gay, some were football hooligans, although some were squatters, some were English soldiers or American expats," Denk says. "It was an incredibly strange mix of people who came to these first parties. But they saw themselves as a family, at least for a certain while."
The all-embracing ethos of this big, happy techno family reached its zenith with the first Loveparade after the fall of the wall. The massive, all-day, outdoor party saw clubbers emerge from underground bunkers and take to the streets.
For DJ Tanith, the peaceful revolution that brought down the Berlin Wall immediately cranked up the volume: "It was like the wall crushed and the sounds crushed." He says, "it was the perfect soundtrack for it and we were lucky that it all came together."
A quarter of a century later, the techno beat goes on. Like its founders, the club scene has matured. It's no longer a subculture, but a fully fledged commercial industry. Today the clubs are listed in tourist guidebooks; the inclusive family it once was now practices a selective door policy.
But some, like Dimitri Hegemann, hold on to the spirit of the early '90s, when anything was possible. Hegemann is in Detroit right now, where he hopes to revive that city's ailing economy and some of its abandoned spaces.
It's his way of saying thank you. After all, he says, had it not been for those early techno records from Detroit, Berlin's post-wall spaces might have sounded quite different.
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Transcript
KAREN GRIGSBY BATES: Today, Germany remembered the day 25 years ago that the Berlin Wall came down. Berlin now is known for its thriving electronic music and club scene. Young professionals from Rome, Paris and London fly in on a Friday night, hit world-renowned party venues and don't see the light of day until Sunday afternoon. Then they return to their perfectly respectable jobs on Monday morning.
As Esme Nicholson reports, this scene has its roots in the days that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall and in the spaces where techno boomed across makeshift dance floors.
ESME NICHOLSON, BYLINE: It's just after 10 on a Saturday morning and at a defunct power station here in central Berlin, revelers reluctantly leave a club buried in its basement.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Hey man, you there, you know a good place to party now?
NICHOLSON: Standing in the morning sunshine at a sober distance from the adrenaline and substance-fueled clubbers is 60-year-old Dimitri Hegemann, the owner of the club. Clutching a cup of coffee and the morning paper, he leads me to a dark, cavernous chamber above the club. Hegemann calls himself a space pioneer.
DIMITRI HEGEMANN: You know, my mission is to transfer industrial ruins into cultural spaces.
NICHOLSON: Hegemann uses this space for pop-up art projects. But he also rents it out as a venue for commercial events that provide the funds for renovation.
It's in disused buildings like this that Berlin's techno scene emerged 25 years ago.
(SOUNDBITE OF TECHNO MUSIC)
NICHOLSON: When the Wall fell, it left vast, empty spaces in its wake. The no-man's land of what was called the "death strip," where armed guards roamed along the city's concrete border, had suddenly become accessible.
HEGEMANN: Gorbachev is guilty for the techno movement, you know. When the Wall came down, there was an incredible euphoria in the city and optimism.
(SOUNDBITE OF TECHNO MUSIC)
NICHOLSON: Hegemann was among artists, punks and squatters who saw the potential in abandoned buildings. He opened his first club in the vaults of a bombed-out department store directly on the East-West border. It had remained untouched since World War II.
HEGEMANN: It was so dark. Old air, you know - it was a bit, you know, scary. It was like opening a pyramid, you know? It was magic.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAFFIC)
NICHOLSON: The spaces were key, says DJ Tanith, another one of the city's founding techno fathers, as he stands outside the building that used to be his studio. It's now a boutique hotel.
DJ TANITH: It blossoms in the right architecture. You have to experience it there to understand it, and then you can take it home with you. For me it's like jazz. It starts with boom-boom-boom. It goes to boom-chuck. It spreads out in so many colors and perceptions and even ideologies.
NICHOLSON: The city spawned its own sound, says music producer Sven von Thuelen, who's just written a book about the techno scene.
SVEN VON THUELEN: Berlin was always known for kind of hard, raw, muscular techno, basically, you know, and not so much, for instance, for house music.
(SOUNDBITE OF TECHNO MUSIC)
NICHOLSON: Would you say that the architect plays - and the spaces play - a role in the development of the sound in Berlin?
VON THUELEN: The spaces were kind of - became the stars of the whole thing, you know? It wasn't about the DJ, at least not at the beginning. It was about all these crazy locations you could find.
(SOUNDBITE OF TECHNO MUSIC)
NICHOLSON: Techno saw East and West Berliners reunite well before the rest of Germany. Forget The Scorpions' power ballad "Wind Of Change." Forget David Hasselhoff's Schlager-inspired "Looking For Freedom." While the Hoff was gyrating at the Brandenburg gate, the real party was happening on ad hoc dance floors in derelict factories, bunkers, squats, subway stations, even in public lavatories. The real sound of freedom was techno.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DER KLANG DER FAMILIE")
NICHOLSON: The track "Der Klang Der Familie," meaning the sound of the family, became an anthem for the times. Journalist Felix Denk is von Thuelen's co-author.
FELIX DENK: This was the spirit of the time, you know? It's this sort of feeling of togetherness. We belonged together, although we are from the East and from the West, although some are gay, some are football hooligans, although some are squatters, some are English soldiers or American expats. It was an incredibly strange mix of people who came together to these first parties. But they saw themselves as a family, at least for a certain while.
NICHOLSON: The colors and ethos of this big, happy techno family reached its zenith with the first Loveparade after the fall of the Wall. The massive, all-day, outdoor party saw clubbers emerging from underground bunkers and taking to the streets, says DJ Tanith.
TANITH: It was like the Wall crashed and the sounds crashed. And it was like the perfect soundtrack for it. And we were lucky that it all came together.
NICHOLSON: A quarter of a century on, techno is still going strong. Like its founders, the club scene has matured. It's no longer a subculture, but a fully-fledged commercial industry. Today, the clubs are listed in tourist guidebooks. The inclusive family it once was now practices a selective door policy.
But some, like Dimitri Hegemann, hold on to the spirit of the early '90s, when anything was possible. Hegemann is in Detroit right now, where he hopes to revive that city's ailing economy and some of its abandoned spaces.
For NPR News, I'm Esme Nicholson in Berlin.
(SOUNDBITE OF TECHNO MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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