2019-12-28 Live At Power House (DJ Pete, Finn Johannsen)

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2019-06-22 DJ Pete b2b Finn Johannsen live at Paloma – Part 1 & 2

“The idea behind the Power House nights at Paloma was to react to trends that we felt neglected the vibe of the house nights we grew up with. We wanted to offer an alternative to what we call shoegaze house music, and we wanted to bring back the focus to the party. There is no strict musical old school policy, but the feeling is. Even if we do not try to reproduce experiences from the past too nostalgically and too authentically, we like to achieve a collective enthusiasm on the floor that in our opinion is sometimes missing nowadays. To achieve that we play a direct, pumping kind of house music that goes back and forth between anthems and obscure gems from our extensive vinyl collections. DJ Pete and me are the core personnel of the events, and when we team up we like to play topically, shining a light on certain sounds, styles and local scenes that we think should be represented more entirely. We play the records like we have heard them being played when they originally came out (and played by ourselves too) and we often accompany the sets with live beats programming by Pete on a 909, and a special effects unit. For these recordings the topic was acid house. Obviously.”

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DJ Pete And Finn Johannsen – Live At Power House, November 24th 2018

DJ Pete & Finn Johannsen – Live At Power House, September 22nd 2018

 

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DJ Pete & Finn Johannsen – Live At Power House, July 7th 2018

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DJ Pete & Finn Johannsen – Live At Power House, September 22nd 2017

There were different things that led to my Power House residency. First of all was working with DJ Pete for eight years at Hard Wax. There was a special kind of house music he called Power House. It was mostly pumping, bottom heavy. With good floor credentials. It had to have some originality, but it had to work. After a while the term stuck. Shed used it for his label and I, for the time being, as description. But around that time I was not happy with a lot of club nights in Berlin and beyond, and the kind of house music played there. It seemed theoretical to me, overladen with virtual knowledge, but lacking in experience how to make a night fun, and not even interested in it. Often I stood in a club and the headliner played like a warm up. In a highly unfair moment we called it shoegaze house music. And I actually like shoegaze music. But we thought it would be great to just do a night where the music pumps right in your face and having a good time is the goal, but it had to be reached with some flair. A kind of extrovert counter-reaction. And at that time I was missing a regualr night where I could just do whatever I wanted to do.

I always like to put ideas into action so I told Pete why not do a night with a sound that more represents our idea of a good night out. And not only one sound, several sounds. But not necessarily in one night. I asked my friend Philip Marshall if he would take care of an instantly recognizeable artwork, and gladly he agreed.

And so we stood at Paloma, playing some known and relatively unknown house, and we did not even run a big PR to make it work. It just worked. The floor was rammed for 8 hours and dancers were screaming in our face. It was just wonderful. At that time we saw the potential that it might work once more. And soon enough I had a monthly residency, did Power Disco too with the same attitude, and it is still going strong.

Over time the concept became quite elastic, we explored many styles in our archives. We were never so rigid to begin with. We just had way too many records and used them. And we invited other DJs who liked the idea as well. At the time I am writing this the residency is going for 8 years, and it is still successful. Sometimes I curse it too. It became a kind of impromptu mission statement I am strongly associated with, and it became a profitable night for Paloma. But I am sure I will let it go before it is not fun anymore. Because that it what is was always about.