“New York’s hottest club is: Booooooooof. Located at an abandoned orphanage on the lower Lower East Side of Chelsea, this round-the-clock puke party is creation of narcoleptic club owner Snoozin’ Lucci. This place has everything.”
So begins Stefon, a special correspondent for SNL’s Weekend Update, when asked by Seth Meyers for insider recommendations on attractions and events for visitors to New York. The character, played by Bill Hader, is a twitchy, hyper-queer party fiend, and his vivid descriptions of the best of Manhattan nightlife rank among the most popular segments in the show’s history. The clubs–which include “Oooontz,” “SPICY,” and “Huh?”–always, in his words, have “everything,” from “sand worms, geishas, rock-eaters, and a seven level course in adult education” to “a special showing of the African holiday classic A Fish Called Kwanza.”
On the other side of the pond, Berlin, Germany is popularly regarded as one of the best destinations in the world for urban nightlife. Its fraught history has provided ripe ground for the development of an all-out, all-hours party scene that, over the years, has proved itself to be nothing less than ‘legendary.’ I’d heard of several epic venues when I chose to study abroad here. What I didn’t expect were the outlandish descriptions–nearly verbatim echoes of Stefon–that often accompany them. What follows is the product of every English major’s dream job: the promotional literature that attempts to match the characteristic eccentricity of the spaces. I present here descriptions for seven clubs, carefully curated from a semester’s collection of the city’s thrilling, catastrophic flotsam–the writing that, in my opinion, best embodies what novelist Chris Isherwood calls “the flash of that hysteria which flickers always in Berlin.”
Cookies (via Lonely Planet Berlin)
Heinz Gindullis, aka Cookies, has done it again: for the eighth time he’s reinvented his club, this time creating an indoor playground complete with wicked little theme rooms like a mirror cabinet, a “toy” shop and even a wedding chapel. Upstairs, top local and international electro DJs heat up the sexy crowd on the mosaic dance floor that segues smoothly into the Drayton Bar.
Futuristic Porn at Loftus Hall (via ResidentAdvisor.net)
For the next in a line of increasingly fabulous parties, Pornceptual invite you to a fantastical future—the year is 2069 and we want to ask: how will the sex of the future be? Hyper-realistic 3D porn, computer-mediated sex or robot prostitutes? Will we implant electronic circuits in our skin to achieve another level of pleasure? Or maybe masturbation will be an experience perfectly enhanced by technology, better than intercourse itself? Will telepathic sex be possible, with biological sensors and wearable electronics? Press Ctrl-Shift-O for an orgasm. The future of sex is now. Expect: erotic art performances, interactive installations and futuristic screenings. Line UP: Pornceptual DJs Crew. Entrance: Free before 23:30 / 5 EUR (with Costume/Metallic Clothers/Nude) / 8 EUR
Ken Berlin (via 60by80.com)
Life in plastic really is fantastic, especially when you’re flinging your muscular appendages in the air with gay abandon – and no Barbie to wreck the night. Home to lots of different themed events (making Ken-style outfit choices a must), it could be Studio 54 one night, and Porno Pop the next. There’s house on the main floor and RnB and pop in the back, with a smoking lounge and darkroom for those who just have to find out what’s really up with that ‘smooth area’.
Kosmonaut (via EXBERLINER magazine)
BEST CLUB for spacing out – You know you’re committed to clubbing when you see the Lichtenberg sign and pedal bravely forth. And the caravans of party pilgrims that form hours’ worth of sweaty queues into the Far East’s latest club prove that you’re not alone. Since opening its doors at the end of October 2012, KOSMONAUT has already garnered a large and refreshingly mixed following, drawn by solid line-ups (shout-out to the likes of Tim Xavier, Fabian Reichelt and Dirty Doerig) good sound and the relaxed post-carnival, pre-reality atmosphere. Employing the laissez-faire interior decoration endemic to Berlin, a wooden plank-flanked entrance leads into a warren of indoor rooms including a small but serviceable dance floor, bar and, behind a sly curtain, a cozy, couch-filled nook for those moments of repose. Heading outside – where you may or may not be greeted by some zealous nouveau-Berliner who will smear your face with silver glitter slime and confetti – you enter a spacious sprawl of whimsical party ground, with high ranked wooden seating overlooking a sail-covered second dance-floor and bar. A row of stalls, occasionally used to house makeshift shops and curiosities, snake around the corner leading to another dusty and bunting-clad stage area in the eclectic constellation of spaces that they intend to transform into a cultural complex. With easy strides of Frankfurter Allee and Ostkreuz, the new – if only – kid on the block looks to stand its ground on the club scene, and is at least worthy refuge while you bide your time till the next Sisyphos messiness.
Peristal Signum (via Karmanoia.org)
Peristal Signum is a combination of Alice in Wonderland, a playground for grownups and a creepy cabinet with amusement factor. By virtue of particular arts and materials, free organic interior design and extraordinary setting, people intuitively sharpen their senses and intensely perceive entities around them, as well as the ones that reside inside of them. The journey thorough this genuinely strange construction unveils secrets to ones who are willing to hark, question and take on challenges. As a result, each person passes through one truthful, remarkable and authentic experience. For some, Peristal Signum provides opportunity for intrinsic reflection with one self and surrounding environment. For other, it is simply an amusing experience of something different. The one who is open for a change will find it in here.
Sisyphos (via Berlin-Fever.com)
Greek mythology tells the story of Sisyphus, who got punished for his misdeeds, and condemned to the eternal task of rolling a large stone to the top of a hill. And he does it over and over again without success. Maybe this is the way you are supposed to party in this club: endlessly! Sisyphos is located in an old dog cookie factory on the Hauptstraße, in the district of Lichtenberg. The decoration consists of odd objects hanging on the walls or from the ceiling like dolls, artificial flowers, peculiar lamp shades, together with the essential disco balls, kitsch as usual. Outside you can sit down on a sofa, eat a vegetarian pizza, or go and have a ride on one of the playground animals.
Salon Zur Wilden Renate (via BangBangBerlin.com)
Situated in the cool crusty side of Friedrichschain, Wilde Renate is hugely popular with arty students and old ravers who don’t wanna grow up. Spread across a few floors of an ‘altbau’ the club looks like your grandmother’s living room on acid. Antlers, grand pianos, dodgy lampshades, patterned wallpaper and heavy curtains all add to the feel, the only tell-tale sign you’re in Berlin (not Kansas) is the kicking soundsystem which has played host to many a techno and house DJ, such as Tini, M.A.N.D.Y and Nicholas Jaar.
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