Tagged “clubs”

Glad I accepted the invite from Jason and Tom to attend their in-store event. After some free beer and pizza, Luke introduced Jordan from Tough Luck, an Instagram account spotlighting up-and-coming youth culture photographers. He interviewed Glasgow photographer Selina Paton (@glesgaonfilm). I ended up sat next to Selina’s Dad for that part!

A book entitled Tough Luck: You out tonight? is out now on Velocity Press. I got a lovely sense of enthusiasm for clubs and club culture from the guests, and enjoyed their analogy about film versus digital photography being a bit like vinyl versus digital audio – it’s just different and you can’t recreate the feel retrospectively.

Aside from Tom and Jason it was also nice to see and chat to folks like Lydia (and her friendly crew of edgelord neighbours), Dom C and Hayley.

I was recently sorting through some old stuff when I found a tatty old poster I used to love and that brought back good memories. It shows the gated basement vault of the original Tresor nightclub at Potsdamer Platz, Berlin. Smoke is billowing out of the room dramatically and it includes the text The Extremist. I bought or otherwise acquired this poster on a night in 2005 when me and friends Davie and Tom visited the famous club during a trip to Berlin.

That was a great trip. While Davie wasn’t in the best of health at the time, we still got up to a variety of high jinks, including a memorable drinking session with techno legend Dan Curtin who was releasing music on Tom’s label at the time. (I think that was my introduction to strong Belgian beer, and I remember being mightily impressed when Dan cycled off at the end.) I also remember we stayed in Prenzlauer Berg, at Transit Loft if I recall rightly.

Anyway while reminiscing I embarked on a little bit of internet spelunking. It turns out that there is some interesting video and audio footage from the time we were at Tresor.

I remember that the DJs/acts playing in the Globus upstairs area of the club that night included Blake Baxter and Abe Duque. And guess what, here’s a cool video Abe Duque made that very night. It shows him walking through Berlin, arriving at the club (you see that striking Tresor logo projected on the building) then entering. There’s also some cool footage of the vibe in Globus.

One of my strongest memories of the night was hearing Vainqueur’s Lyot while we were downstairs in the basement. The track is a Basic Channel classic and, while on the harder end of their output, it feels to me like it was tailor-made for environs such as the one we were in. What a moment! So imagine my delight when I found a live recording of that set by DJs Julien & Gonzague with Lyot at 46 minutes. So good to be able to relive the moment!

Lastly, here are some excellent articles (with photos) I found on my internet travels which are worth a look.

• Tresor by BLDGBLOG
• Tresor: A History of Berlin’s Iconic Music Venues on the Love from Berlin blog