Dialectrique's digest #9
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Notes:
1, It's been a while now but here we are back in town
with an exclusive digest on the Love Parade.
2, Dialectrique's web site will soon be announced to you
with all necessary details. Stay e-tuned.
3, Never mind the bollocks.
4, Enjoy!
"Love und Peace"
11 AM
Berlin, 8th june 1995. The time is 11 AM and it's already hot. Very
hot. You can see people slowly flocking together along the
Wittenbergplatz and the Kurfurstendamm. Young people all in colors,
contrasting somewhat with the grayness inherent to the streets of
Berlin. The scattered flocks of people become noticeably thicker and
larger. Soon, they will merge in one huge crowd, for today is the
seventh edition of the Love Parade.
A big event. You can smell it in the air. The scent of a coming
thrill, a hidden euphoria preparing to build itself up and explode in
the open. You know there will be dancing and cheering, waving and
fussing. You can feel the magnitude shaping beyond the horizon, a
huge ever-growing pulsating turmoil coming from nowhere. Smells like
teen spirit. On acid.
This year, like in the past, the figures will outgrow themselves.
Strange to know this beforehand. The parade hasn't begun yet, and
still you know for sure that this year it will be bigger, crazier and
trippier. In 1989, there were 150 love paraders. The next year,
attendants reached the number of 2000. Last year, 120.000 people were
reported present, and this year, the statistics will double at least.
Yes, the '95 edition of the Love Parade will be more momentous and
memorable than ever. Besides, isn't this the way these sort of things
always go?
1 PM
The crowd has finished uniting. It's one long human chain extending
several kilometres into the heart of Berlin. Everybody is here. The
party can begin. The floats won't be long to pull in, we'd like to
believe, but as strange as it may seem, we can't detect the slightest
note above the roar of the gathering.
So what you get is this: hundred thousands of people waiting in
silence for a celebration under a burning sun. A startling sight.
Officially, the Love Parade is a demonstration, exactly like, say, a
union march. The application to demonstrate submitted to the local
authorities on march 13th contained the following statement: "With
this Love Parade we wish to demonstrate for peace in the world.
Specifically, we demand a cease-fire in Bosnia, Tschetscheny and
Mexico".
Note: there are no banners, no barricades, no slogans.
Second note: They aren't really missing, not inasmuch as there never
have been any in the past neither.
This is also the reason why the police weren't too cheerful about the
permits. As a matter of fact, earlier this year, police has refused
to license the event. When the promoters asked for clearance, they
just got a plain 'no' as repartee. The police standpoint was this:
"Our experience from the past showed us that the Love Parade is
absolutely deprived of any collective or politically relevant
statement." In other words, the Love Parade is nothing but a loud
techno party disturbing the public peace of the municipality. A
"Schnickschnack".
They are right, of course. The Love Parade really is nothing
but a loud techno party.
So what?
3 PM
The floats are nearing. You can hear the beat. The crowd is stirring
up, excited by the upcoming rhythms. People are running in opposite
directions - you can hear the beat, but you can't tell where it's
coming from. Conflicting streams of human motion are wrenching the
previously homogeneous mass. But the atmosphere is positive. There
isn't any turbulence, just currents and waves and a hint of techno.
The heat is at its peak. People are throwing water at each other.
Others carry water-guns. Can't hold back an eerie vision about
Germans carrying guns. But there is more: futuristic designed
water-shooting devices. Supply bottles mounted on the back, flexible
tubes reaching in and surfacing back into shooting gloves or headsets
(!).Where the hell do you get these from? Anyway, the resulting
sprays are powerful and target-reaching. People get wet by the
snipers and laugh.
In 1989, the first Paraders danced around a clapped out VW bus for
"Peace, Love and Pancakes". The initiator of the Love Parade, DJ
Dr.Motte aka Matthias Roenigh, explained the statement as such, "Peace
stands for disarmament, Love stands for better understanding between
people through music and Pancakes for the fair distribution of food
throughout the world."
It's easy to be cynical about the Love Parade, and at the same time,
it's hard not to be.
5 PM
A major kick-ass party is going on in the streets of Berlin. Tens of
different colourful floats are parading along the Kudamm. People
follow the trucks while dancing to the sounds dispatched by mighty
boxes mounted on the back of the vehicles. Dancing while you're
walking is a difficult exercise. Besides the swing and the bodily
beat-claps, one has to hop along to catch up with the procession. An
alternative is to jump on one of the passing floats and party on the
driven platform.
Note: jumping on the bandwagon never got such a literal meaning.
The floats are varied and they all play different music. Depending on
your taste, you can choose to stick to one of them, or else, if you
don't care, just stay where you are, and you'll get to see the floats
passing one by one. All the floats represent a label, club or party
promoter. The Belgian Bonza label, very popular in Germany,
broadcasts their jumpy hardcore while the prestigious E-werk club is
exposing a wide selection of quality dance music. There is also a
deep/happy house cart, a jungle lorry (very good), and lots of German
trance vans. The one we like the most is the Relief wagon, with live
DJ's working it out on the front of the car. If dancing while
parading is difficult, how fastidious must their task be -
beatmatching tunes on a riding vessel?!
Relief is a label operating in Chicago, established and maintained by
black artists. Like most experimental house labels from the US, they
are mainly appreciated and acknowledged in Europe. The recent hype
that has emerged around the label has convinced the artist members to
go out on a European tour. And so they were hosted by E-werk in
Berlin, by Crammed Discs in Brussels and by the Ministry Of Sound in
the UK.
Black musicians getting almost exclusive recognition across the ocean
is a paradox contained in the so-called house movement.
There are many others.
7 PM
The sun is declining. The party isn't, though. German youth is
celebrating a new music that has produced its own fashion, attitude
and consciousness. It's an adapted version of the Peace and Love
thang. A variation on the theme of universal harmony. People of all
nations uniting under one groove. There is nothing more to that. No
ideology, no strategy, no leadership. Nothing more, but nothing less.
How does a four hundred thousand meter square dancefloor sound to you
as a political argument?
The particularity of the house movement relies in its portability.
House can replicate itself everywhere. It doesn't need to sustain
itself. A sound system, a DJ and people in a certain state of mind -
whether chemically enhanced or not - and let there be House.
You can find raves and ravers on the most remote places on earth. But
in Europe, the phenomenon has been brought one step further: techno
has become a market-place. A trade with its own blend of
shareholders, stocks and exchange rates. A trade modulated and
defined by financial, social and - no matter how shallow
they might appear - political forces. A trade targeted by
major corporations.
One of the biggest rave organisation in Germany is Low Spirit. Besides
supporting one of the most popular raves in Europe, Mayday, they
manage their own label and sub-labels with signings like Raver's
Nature, Hard Sequencer, Marusha and Westbam. Low Spirit is a branch
of Urban, which in turn relies on Polydor's management. From here,
you might trace the connection further to Polygram's head-office, and,
ultimately, you'll land in the middle of a Phillips' board of trustees
meeting.
This is not to say they'll be discussing the latest Black Dog remixes.
9 PM
The party is officially over. But of course, people are still filling
up the streets and, although scarcer, floats continue to draw
enthusiasts. Soon, 330 trash terminators will start their duty:
cleaning up the mess. For six hours, they will gather thousands of
cans, flyers and miscellaneous trash. The heaps of waste left behind
last year was, after all, the main issue in the public debate on the
Love Parade. The cleaning-up action would normally have had to be
paid for from tax money. But tonight, two competing waste disposal
companies, ALBA and BSR, are joining forces to get the job done for
free.
The Camel people, who have provided to public cigarettes and water in
returnable beakers, are joining their booths in order to pack the
remaining merchandise.
Senator Dieter Heckelman on the Love Parade: "The opinion of the
Senate is that the Love Parade creates a very good picture of Berlin
as a modern city, open-minded towards the young and happy to receive
all the tourists that the event attracts. Definitely, a positive
media image."
Just wondering: did the same apply for the folding of
the Reichstag?
11 PM
The Love Parade has ended. The boulevard is cleaned up at
light-speed. Now is the time for the parties, after-parties and
after-after parties. Special leaflets enlighten the occasional
tourist about tonight's program: more than 60 gigs to pick up from.
You can go dancing at clubs (E-werk, Bunker, Tresor), festivals
(Interference festival), boats (Kiss99's Love party, non-stop from
Friday till Sunday) or raving in seas of foam at the park. All the
famous DJ's and artists are here, somewhere: Sven Vath, DJ Pierre,
Armand van Helden, George Morel, Laurent Garnier, Ritchie Hawtin, Josh
Wink, Joey Beltram, Christian Vogel, Dan Curtin....
It's dark now. Neon lights illuminate central skyscrapers and malls.
Party people, latecomers and citizens hang out on the avenues. On
some corner, a man unfolds his knapsack: a gas mask, aerosol and
white paper. He wears the mask, hides a part of his canvas with an
old paper, and starts atomising with the spray. In one minute time,
he finishes the first drawing. Then he starts the next one. And the
next. He's a street artist. A small group of curious people circle
around, warily. They look at the drawings. Starscapes.
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