Hamburg Hangover Tours
“Did you write the book of love?”
Paul Young, Come Back and Stay
What a great disaster. What a beautiful mess. Skint and optimistic. 2 days of beer diet (Jever, Becks, Raven, Tegernseer, Augustiner, Astra, some private breweries at Alstervergnügen) with the Druffalo Recreational Fund For Teenage-Minded Men.
Friday afternoon . First Stop. Berlin / Cologne Main Station. Editors 5 and 2 board trains in Berlin. Editor 4 boards train in Cologne. He is joined by a famous Clochard who opened a branch office on Hamburg Main Station. Uneventful train rides. Editors 5 and 2 read Marvel comics on the ipad and discuss the advantages of the 616 Universe.
Meeting point Hamburg. All three Editors need a beer, badly. Next stop Empire Döner on Lange Reihe, St. Georg. Raven Pils. Then: A place to dump 180 kg of vinyl. Editors 4 and 5 need a beer with our friend Jan Boche on the Reeperbahn. Editor 2 checks out Thailia thaeter, where Erobique is playing a big revue show tonight with the Whitest Boy Alive, Schorch, Kamerun, Andreas Dorau, Das Bo and many more. The show is magic and great at the same time. Erbobique announces the DJ’s but Editors 4 and 5 are still in Schnaps mode in Sankt Pauli. Editor 2 starts playing at the bar upstairs Thalia. One CD player crashes mid warm up set. Puzzled looks. The room gets packed like a sardine can. Finally, Editors 4 and 5 arrive with Jan Boche, sharing a fair blood alcohol concentration. The host (Erobique) arrives. The ladies start dancing. Boche drops some 7″ of magic. The night turns into something special. It just refueses to end. Boche gets a heart attack, he is missing some valuable pieces of his audio equipment. He gets another one: Editor 2 plays 2 records in a row. Big foul. The beer keeps coming. Editor 4 gets Schnaps. Somebody gets an Imbissplatte with Gummibärchen. Bizarre northern customs. The night ends in a big black blot of blackness.
Next day: Shopping, drinking, hair cut at Tony & Guy. Drinking. This Hamburg Urban Outfitters is so lame. Editor 2 meets Erobique at Alstervergnügen. Casey claims he just picked up some stuff at Thalia and gives Editor 2 a ride to Betalounge. Our boys drop a set of average magic. Editor 2 tries out some Rockabilly. More beer, sun downers and a nice chat with the Betalounge guys, our Hamburg manager Heiko and DJ DSL. 22 h: We gotta run: Another set – this one at Thier. The Schanze looks like Ballermann without the tanned people in Badehosen. This Saturday night scene is just the worst condensate of Oranienburger Strasse without the hookers. The bar is nice. We play some disco and two-step and meet the dancing professor. After we are finished we send some people to a Sauna Club in Harburg. Then it is bed time. Finally.
Thanks guys, see you next September.
Here, Heiko!
Heiko complained that we did not do another picture for this year’s Hamburg thingy. We did a brand new one (Druffzilla at Jungfernstieg). So there is no reason whatsoever to complain.
Hamburg slowly wakes up to the shadow of druffzilla. But Betalounge displays a teaser for us:
SUMMERBREAK IS OVER!
The weekly Beta Lounge Broadcast returns on September the 3rd 18.00H CET, featuring the D*RUFFALO HIT SQUAD from Berlin!
The D*ruffalo Crisiswatch
As so many people are leaving FaceSpace at the moment, we thought Stefan’s post in reaction to Steve’s (actually Stefan, too) post should be told:
“In a recent discussion Steve Bug asked why he (and many other producers) should spend multiple hours in the studio working, when afterwards everyone shared their work without paying? Steve suggested a release strike – or people finally thinking about paying for files.
my 2 cents today:
- this is not an issue of awareness. mass payment for house/techno releases in the form of vinyl or files is never going to come back. nobody will pay us on an “hourly rate” (i.e. because we spend time in the studio), but because of results – if at all. actually it becomes convincing to me that the “market” is clearly showing that certain productions and distribution channels are not overly needed nor desired anymore. i guess the reason is not piracy , but the overabundance of tracks already available (nobody would recognize that strike) and the lack of a noticable difference between a worth-zero product and an assumed worth-something product (if the market continuously indicates worth zero, it eventually becomes a fact).
i can’t help thinking producers in their secondary role as DJs and label makers actually helped create the environment in which their own output turned worthless – by granting presety / idea-free music the same space as their own and other people’s great tracks in their DJ sets, mixes, charts. how many DJs can claim they never played an epigonic track? or how many labels kept their catalogue free of redundancy? the very concept of functionality or fitting a predetermined DJ’s “style” first and above all was the fallacy that gave people the signal of “anything goes” / “nothing is of worth.” very few clean hands here… (or as Stacey Pullen put it recently: “We didn’t use to release a record just because another month was over.”).
- the strike idea is not wide off the mark though. but not to go back to releasing in the usual way again afterwards. if we own something we don’t feel we can get sufficient respect for, we shouldn’t give it away. it’s that easy. again: it’s not piracy that much. people DO pay: when some superstar dj earns 1000s of euros an hour from playing our productions without passing anything on, we just should keep them to ourselves instead. (i admit that my own dj fees for one night often surpass what i earn from a record with 6 weeks+ of production time).
my own policies this year changed with two major things: superstars who can spend their money on spas in India and Botega Veneta apparel, but can’t bother to spend money on a license, simply don’t get one. i am rather willing to keep a track totally unreleased and play it exclusively – or create commissioned works, i.e. being paid to create exclusive material for special events, than doing regular releases that enrich only people who didn’t contribute much. both moves add value to my own performances (for the audience, because they won’t hear stuff anyone can find on filestube). and take away value from those who otherwise capitalize on my work. don’t get me wrong – i will do enough releases in the future even for my own pleasure of getting a vinyl cut or proper wav master. and i do get some enjoy ment out of seeing fedde le grand playing “the maze” at some megafestivals my friends at GEMA have problems in identifying… but if anybody’s problem is not being paid, continuing to feed the same channel and hoping for miracles clearly won’t work.”
Ah, we just love the crisis. New entertaining announcements to the spirits cited every day. In the meantime we stick to playing cheapo bin nuggets only a few would book us for, and have a Grand Kru to it all.
The D*ruffalo Beerwatch
It’s ok, we suppose. But apparently we grand kru’d our taste buds a bridge too far. Ay Ay Ay.
A new inspiration from Synthiefrau
The Old Berlin (Alt Berlin) school of synths!
The D*ruffalo Launchwatch
D*ruffalo loves the recently launched German issue of ye olde DJ Mag. A top 100 of international clubs for a readership that is most likely to skip any information about any club that is not German or at least within measurable reach, or in Spain (BUT we get to know that Hamburg’s Baalsaal is now located above Neidklub, and that Solomun rates Ego among his personal top three clubs)? A guide to UK festivals that includes several German festivals, followed by festivals in “the rest of the world”? Several photos of Chris Liebing not grinning from ear to ear? A cover story about a performer from Naples, who looks like someone only very outsourced agencies would invent for the really “freaky” ads? Announcing an exhausting review section, painstakingly balanced on UK-based market research, and then reviewing maybe one third of any competitor in the land (including Vice), and only records likely to be sold out by publishing date? The “performings arts” special about Cocoon’s dancing girls? A feature about the hottest topic ever, vinyl or digital, followed by several features about digital mixing devices, totally not sponsored? A feature about a trend back to vinyl that only comes up with seven international record stores (BUT we get to know that Hard Wax has a pressing plant)? Giving the mysterious DJ Mocca (aka Puresque, if this is of any help) not only the chance to heat up the above mentioned hottest topic ever by being controversially pro-vinyl, but also to come up with the definite 24 hours Berlin travel guide that is buzzing with info that is strictly druid’s mouth to druid’s ear (Trabisafari! Space Hall has the nicest staff in town! Kreuzberg has cheap food! Ricardo plays at Club der Visionäre, always! Trabisafari!!)? DJ charts by hardcore cognoscenti DJs (apart from, yes, DJ Mocca)? A several pages feature about Lux 11, totally not sponsored, for a readership more likely to put their vomit in hostels?
Seriously, if D*ruffalo ever makes it to print, we would be proud if it would even barely scratch the surface of this. Bring on the next issue!
