@ Paloma im Pudel

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Anthems: Unit, Hamburg (1989-1999)

When the first Unit club opened in Hamburg in 1989, it was embraced as an alternative to other places that ran on tighter curfews and were often in less central locations. Unlike Front, the pioneering club that introduced house music to Germany—and arguably continental dance floors—, the first Unit at Talstrasse was right in the middle of one of one of Europe’s biggest entertainment areas, notorious red light district around Reeperbahn, and because of this its parties could last longer.

At first, the music at Unit was no different to what was played elsewhere around town—a typical post-acid house boom mix. Soon though, the resident DJs like Gary D, Tobias Lampe and Henry, and the booked national and international guest DJs, shifted towards techno and later trance, and Unit became a leading light in establishing and pushing these sounds further alongside other national mainstays in Berlin and Frankfurt.

The first Unit space had to close in 1994 due to increased crime in the area, but it reopened the same year as Unit II in a temporary location also close to Reeperbahn, before Unit III settled in an old factory space in another district. But as the club grew bigger in size and ambition, the crowds did not follow suit, and Unit closed for good in 1999. We asked DJ Tobias Lampe for a list of records that made the first Unit incarnation and his and Henry’s residency, called Pure Energy, such a lasting memory.

A Homeboy, A Hippie & A Funki Dredd, “Total Confusion (Heavenly Mix)” (Tam Tam Records 1990)

“This is one of the early anthems at the club, which I think was also already heavily played by the first Unit DJs Pari D and Double UMF. The early years were actually very open minded. They played a mixture of house, hip hop, techno, even downtempo beats and a style called hip house. And it mirrors pretty much how it was working in the UK as well, this period when nobody at the rave had bad feelings about having 808 State, Snap, Frankie Bones, Orbital and Guru Josh all on the same stage.”

Foremost Poets, “Extended Sight Version (Foresight Version)” (Nu Groove 1990)

“I guess I first heard this magic piece when Boris Dlugosch played it at the Front club. Hard to explain why, but it certainly always created this magical, intense atmosphere, both at Front and at Pure Energy on Fridays, where Henry and me played this track nearly every week. Few other tracks can capture the feeling of the time so intensely—back then it was led by house and techno music from London, New York City, Chicago and Detroit. Front club was immensely influential, as well as the Friday shopping trip to the Container Records store, which imported all the music directly. As Boris Dlugosch played less and less techno at Front, we tried to play and represent all facets of it at Pure Energy, and especially techno from Detroit.”

Mental Mayhem, “Joey’s Riot” (Atmosphere Records 1990)

“Particularly in New York City, labels like Nu Groove and others were releasing music that sounded like both house and techno. We celebrated exactly these hybrid sounds and in hindsight this may have been what Hamburg was always about. Always open-minded and somehow in between. We were obviously trying out all kinds of sounds at that time. We played pretty hard banging techno and early trance, but at the core of what we played was always what we called tech-house. This prime goose bump example of the tech-house sound we loved was produced by Joey Beltram, who for us was one of the leading New York producers in this field.”

Format, “Solid Session” (ESP Records 1991)

“This Orlando Voorn one was a what we called a Voll-Brett. Brett means plank, it’s a term used for particularly efficient floor fillers—we adopted this language from the Frankfurt scene. It’s a sure shot that always makes happy faces in the club. It was one of the obvious anthems, at least for our nights.”

The Hypnotist, “Pioneers Of The Warped Groove” (Rising High 1991)

“We organized bus trips from Hamburg to the first Mayday festival and Love Parades. I still remember we spent three days setting up the first Break The Limits Rave at Kasematten/Deichtorhallen in Hamburg, and after we were done partying, we took down everything and then headed towards Berlin for Mayday in a bus packed with Hamburg ravers.

Henry and I were so exhausted that we had to cancel our Pure Energy gig there, and instead we partied on as best as we still could. And then, at some point, The Hypnotist got on stage, and they threw hundreds of green glow sticks into the crowd. The lights and fog did the rest.

The scenery at Halle Weissensee was magical, and then the music came on. It simply blew me away how many musical influences they could bring together. Trance was not a musical term for us then, but if you apply it to a state of mind The Hypnotist probably was the act that nailed it down best, particularly at that gig. Of course, we couldn’t help it, and felt the urge to celebrate these tracks at Unit, ideally from 4 a.m. onwards.”

Ramirez, “La Musika Tremenda (La Tormenta Mix)” (DFC 1991)

“Ramirez produced at least two masterpieces of early tech-trance (which is what we later called this style), and this is one of them. I do not know how to describe it precisely, but the track had this subliminal dirty touch, and when I hear it, I will forever think of sweat-drenched ravers, flickering strobe lights, thick fog and the experience of walking out into broad daylight after partying. This track was always the one to mobilize the last reserves.”

Golden Girls, “Kinetic (Frank De Wulf Remix)” (R&S Records 1992)

“In this list, I’m also trying to illustrate how a lot of different scenes and circles from different parts of the world created this magical universe of sound we enjoyed at that time. This is a perfect example of the influence of the Belgian sound. I still think that Belgian and Dutch music’s influence has always been under rated. This one was a huge and surefire banger at Unit.”

Vainqueur, “Lyot (Maurizio Mix)” (Maurizio 1992)

“This track is emblematic of the influences of Berlin and Detroit to our sound. The Berlin/Detroit axis was in early progress at that time, and we took pilgrimages to Berlin to find this sound at Hard Wax and Delirium. We partied to it at Tresor, Teknozid and Planet, but also at Hamburg’s Front club, before the first Unit opened. For us, Basic Channel’s discography offered the first serious releases from Berlin, even in terms of techno. I think we also believed Maurizio was someone from Detroit. The minimalistic, dubbed out and darker aspects of techno, tinged with some references to EBM, played an important role at Unit. Actually my first night at Unit was on a Wednesday and it was called Tekkno Club, with two k, of course. It was more dedicated to EBM, Dark Wave and Acid, and then it opened up to the influences from over the pond, UK, Berlin and Frankfurt.

Vapourspace, “Gravitational Arch Of 10” (Plus 8 Records 1993)

“I cannot recall where I first heard this, but I remember how blown away I was. Since then, I wanted to share this feeling, and it was played at least twice a night. I also remember we played around with switching out the lights out and blasting the fog machine before the kick drum came in, and it always led to incredible screams from the dance floor. Not much later, Henry and I promoted the Plus 8 night with Vapourspace live alongside DJ sets by Richie Hawtin and John Acquaviva. We were pretty amazed by his analogue live set extravaganza.”

Marmion, “Schöneberg“ (Superstition 1993)

“Henry and I were doing the Pure Energy night every Friday at Unit. We hosted probably all the relevant names at that time, from Derrick May to Sven Väth. It was such a small scene in a few German cities in those days that we all felt a bit like family. Early friends from our rave travels to Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich were, for example, Mijk van Dijk and Marcos Lopez, who gave me this Berlin production as a demo a few days after a gig at Unit. This EP and track actually became one of the milestones of Superstition Recordings, the label I just had founded three releases ago. Especially this fourth release earned the label and both producers a huge international following. And the track is what I call a perfect combination of house and techno elements; it’s a real techno house classic.

Electronic Beats 11/19

Liner Notes: Various Artists – Hamburg Soul Weekender

The weekender is a very British thing, particularly combined with that other very British subculture: northern soul. When the first National Soul Weekender took place in Caister in 1979, some ways of celebrating the rare soul music scoring the scene had already been well established: sweaty all-nighters happened all over the country, where dedicated dancers and collectors met and kept the fire burning. And all-dayers came into being, allowing the people to indulge in their passion in different places, with less strict licensing obligations. The clues were all there. British people liked the idea to escape their urban working lives to the seaside on weekends. And the mod culture, always strongly related to soul music, followed suit, partying (and sometimes fighting) on coastal promenades, beaches and clubs, as immortalized by tabloid headlines, and a certain rock concept album plus movie. The brilliant idea in Caister, however, was to combine all-nighters and all-dayers, and given the unreliability of the British weather, the concept was due for success. If it rained, you just danced in a club, and other places. If not, you had fun at sea, and then danced, day and night, the whole weekend.

Across the North Sea in Germany, it seemed like only matter of time that all this would catch on. And indeed, when the British mod revival of the late 1970s hit continental shores, it ran through open doors, and the soul part established itself as a subculture as stubborn and ardent. The German weekenders followed a different path though. Starting in 1990 in Berlin and then led by annual events in Nürnberg and later Bamberg, Dresden, Leipzig, Bremen, München, Aachen and more, the locations were in cities. Hamburg is located very near to the UK and accordingly anglophile, and came fully equipped with a sizeable harbour and airport, and so what happened in the UK arguably left a quicker and bigger mark there than elsewhere in Germany. The city also had a long tradition of dancing to soul music to rely on, and a vital club culture, with a long string of cherished soul nights like the Soul Allnighter at Kir, Shelter Club, For Dancers Only and more recently The Soul Seven, Motte Allnighter, Cole Slaw Club, Cool Cat Club and 45 Degrees, just to name a few. But, strangely enough, it had no soul weekender.

In 2007 this changed, when Ralf Mehnert and Jan Drews Tarazi established the Hamburg Soul Weekender, with Tolbert taking care of the all-dayer part. As the three of them were longtime respected DJs and collectors, the weekender had notable line-ups right from the start, and every year a thousand international, national and local soul enthusiasts gather in the storied venue Gruenspan in the seminal Reeperbahn area, to dance and party to the finest 60s and 70s northern soul, modern soul, funk, r&b and other related trends within the scene that were always spotted early on, and with a keen eye. The music has been played by over 120 top of the league DJs from all over the globe so far, and it was always spread across a long weekend of two all-nighters, one all-dayer, a boat cruise through the harbour and an after party.

This schedule surely gives leeway to play a whole lot of music, and this compilation can only offer a mere glimpse of all the tunes that got the loyal crowds moving, but it is a heartfelt thank-you to all the dancers who have attended so far, however often they return. And for those who have not witnessed the magic of the Hamburg Soul Weekender yet, please consider this an invitation.

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Hamburg Soul Weekender

Finn Johannsen & RVDS Live At Golden Pudel Club, Hamburg, June 29th 2018

@ Golden Pudel

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Anthems: Front, Hamburg (1982-1997)

Down in a raw basement near Hamburg’s Berliner Tor station, Willi Prange and his partner Phillip Clarke opened the mostly gay oriented club Front in 1983. The majority of nights at Front were not played by guests, but by the main resident DJs Klaus Stockhausen and his successor Boris Dlugosch, who steered the club through the most cutting edge music the disco aftermath had to offer, until it eventually became one of the first clubs in Continental Europe to embrace house music and the styles that followed suit. The club’s intense nights were built on a wildly hedonistic and loyal crowd, a fierce quadrophonic sound system, a secluded DJ booth that seemed to antagonize the cult of personality of the years to come, and thus created a legacy that lasted well beyond the club’s closure in 1997. We asked Boris Dlugosch to guide us through the sound of the pivotal years of Front.

Shirley Lites – Heat You Up (West End, 1983)

This was one of my first lasting musical impressions at the club. Klaus Stockhausen played it nearly every Saturday then. It was more of an after hours record and it fitted perfectly.

Syncbeat – Music (Streetwave, 1984)

Klaus played this record when it came out, and when I started as a DJ in 1986 it had a small revival because I rediscovered it for myself. It was one of the most formative records for me. I did not know until then what this record was. I found it by chance in the club’s own record inventory. I loved this track very much and one day I could get a hold of it in a grab bag at Hamburg’s Tractor store for import records, where I was working at the time. Those bags were sealed and contained 10 records. I actually flicked through several other bags until I had two copies of it.

Connie – Funky Little Beat (Sunnyview, 1985)

This kind of Electro was the sound of Front from 1983 to 1984. I was not going to other clubs much, I was still too young and could not get in, but I heard this record on old tapes recorded live at the club (https://hearthis.at/front/). When I started going to Front from 1985 on this sound slowly faded away and was replaced by early house music.

Harlequin Four’s – Set it Off (Jus Born, 1985)

For me this was a quintessential Freestyle and Electro record. Klaus Stockhausen used to play it mostly as a break, often mixed with „Operattack“ by Grace Jones, or with space effects records. This and the Grace Jones album were milestones for my musical socialisation and they always worked on the floor.

Adonis – No Way Back (Trax, 1986)

This record and Farley Jackmaster Funk’s „Love Can’t Turn Around“ came out in 1986, shortly before I started playing at the club myself. At Front club changes in pace and style were elementary and the according setting was sometimes prepared over the course of hours, and sometimes just introduced by a quick break. House music brought along a different structure, and there was a steady beat for hours. At that time this was the defining new feature of the genre. Music was mixed seamlessly throughout the night at Front in all the years before, but with house music the rhythm became more homogeneous.

@ Druffaloma Disco & Garage House Allnighter

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2017-09-30 Live at Headshell, Golem, Hamburg

Another great night in Golem’s basement. Played a lot of early 90s Techno/House hybrids.

@ Headshell

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Finn Johannsen – Live At Life And Death On The NY Dancefloor, PAL, Hamburg, December 11 2016

DJ set a after a lecture of Tim Lawrence on his book “Live At Life And Death On The NY Dancefloor”

Picture by Katja Ruge