I just got back to Portland from Berlin via Frankfurt. Ended up not making it to any clubs, actually. I tried to get in at Week-End around 1 am but got the "are you on the invite list" rejection. Which I thought was standard door-ese for "scram" but apparently was because the club was full. In any event that gave me a chance to wander through Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg at peak hour on a Saturday night. There is a kind of up-beat attitude in Berlin which I really enjoyed. I didn't want to go all the way out to Berghain and get a second rejection the same evening so that never came to pass.
I was actually in Berlin for an ecology conference at the Freie Universitat so I didn't get to join in with the 313ers at Hardwax on Saturday but I did go on Monday and very glad I did, what a great store. Not deep in everything but deep in a lot of things I like. I ended up with an original-issue LP of U Roy version tracks, a live EU go go album I didn't have (and I thought I had all their stuff), an acid house thing from Detroit (!) around 1990 by "M$.V" called "Out of Your Mind" that Art Forest produced, the repress of Josh Wink's "Meditation Will Manifest" (the only record I've ever lost, about 8 years ago, one of the few Wink tracks I really like, and one I haven't been able to find), and, coincidentally enough, Henrik Schwarz's new "Leave My Head Alone Brain" which they were playing on the store system and is just mental-as-anything. Not only that but I had a beer and a fine lunch at the cafe on the corner. That seals it - Hardwax is one of maybe four or five top DJ stores I've ever been to :) fh
