Solaris goes Berlin

If there is a city with similar hype levels than London then it surely must be Berlin. One could even say that Berlin is actually taking over London as the most hyped city in Europe and maybe the world! If Bowie loved it then it can’t be all that bad right?

Now, my dear reader, please don’t expect a deep meditation about life in Berlin. I never lived in this great city myself and have been only visiting as a tourist. But I’d like to share some impressions from my last trip and some thoughts that go along with it…

Day 1

It’s not a secret how great Berlins music scene is. But on this trip I wasn’t keen on sampling the local DJ talent: One of my fave bands skipped Hamburg on their tour schedule so that I had to jump on the train to attend their gig at the Columbia Halle! Talking about trains: The connection between Hamburg and Berlin is ace and instead of gruelling 3-hour bus journey one can now be in Berlin within less than 90min. Awesome! 

 Not the set of Bladerunner
Not the set of Bladerunner

With nearly 3.5 Million inhabitants it’s easy for Berlin to feel futuristic and derelict at the same time. So from the spaceport interior of the Berlin Main Train station, I effortlessly stumbled into the shabby chic of Soho House Berlin. A friend invited me for a catch-up and some food and once I walked past the big copper doors I got instant flashbacks to the Shoreditch House in London. They do run a franchise here after all and it looks like each House has a similar vibe to it. Not that I am complaining tho!

Soho House Berlin and London have another thing in common: A pimp pool on the roof. PLAYA! So yeah… it’s advisable to make friends with memberships. They are just the nicer people anyway… right Sascha? 😉

 Tropical plant vs Grey Berlin sky
Tropical plant vs Grey Berlin sky

After applying some fragrant Cowshed hand moisturiser I waved the In-Crowd goodbye to meet my sister for the main event: The Berlin concert of my beloved band Justice!

There are very few musicians I really obsess over, but they all have one thing in common: Great style and a theatric demeanor! Being it Björk, Deee-Lite or Justice… the attitude levels are cranked up alongside the volume.

With their satin jackets, unkempt hair and vintage Genesis T-Shirts Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay just ooze 70ties porn style and could have been rebellious heartthrobs in 80ties movies like La Boum. As you can see… I am having a massive man crush on these dudes! Stylish French fuckers…

After we stood half an hour outside the wrong venue wondering why all these Goths wanted to attend a Justice concert we ended up in the right spot. What can I say, they fucking killed it! A perfect blend between rowdy Techno and Electro served with a massive slice of melodic French cheese. Fantastic. If you have never witnessed their stage show I can recommend their great Tour Documentary Across the Universe or the many live recordings of their shows on YouTube.

To round the amazing evening off the whole Ed Banger Squad was in town, playing at the Prince Charles Bar a thoroughly enjoyable eclectic set consisting of House, Electro and some heavy Rave classics. Especially seeing the legendary Cassius open a bottle of Vodka with their teeth whilst dropping 1999 was a joy to behold…

 Too many men too many many men
Too many men too many many men

So yeah… it’s a no brainer that Berlin really is a global party capital. And NO, I haven’t been rejected by Berghains bouncers yet. That will be an adventure for my next trip!

Day 2

Time to hit the stores! Although Hamburg has some great stores, Berlin of cause presents a wider variety for the indulging fashionista. As I purchased some pretty awesome and limited Levis x Justice patches at the concert I needed some vintage garms to put them on. So off I went on a tour of Berlins vintage shops…

After being blessed by the thrift gods in the first shop with a ferocious vintage college jacket for 45€ I still had some time left to check out further Berlin Hypebeast stores like Overkill, Firmament, WoodWood and more. So yes, Berlin is a fantastic place to upgrade you wardrobe and I would recommend the area around the tube stations Hackischer Markt, Weinmeister Strasse and Schlesisches Tor.

 Literally... shoe overkill
Literally… shoe overkill

And off I went towards Friedrichshain to check out HHV. The physical store of the virtual record store Hip Hop Vinyl has everything to kit out any aspiring Rapper: Shoes, garms, magazines and, of cause, vinyl. Loads of it!

On route, I met my good friend Peter. As to prove my point about Berlin snatching Londons crown, cool cat Peter swapped London for Berlin this autumn and has apparently never been happier!

Check out his great design work here: http://www.petercrnokrak.com

So yeah, the bottom line is: Shopping is great in Berlin. And if you don’t believe me you are either boring, badly dressed or BOTH!

 Spoiler warning: ME!
Spoiler warning: ME!

Day 3

After having had my music, party and shopping cravings satisfied it was time to tick off the last box of any respectable Solaris100 City Break: Street Art.

Basically the whole East of Berlin has been covered in tags, throw-ups, pieces, stickers, paste-ups and any other form of color based artistic expression so it’s great fun to just have a walk and go on an art hunt like an art c**t. Of cause, the odd Solaris sticker might have been applied at various places around town as well.

The big Street Art related thing in Berlin is the recently opened Urban Nation Gallery at Nollendorfplatz bang in the centre of town.

Actually, I shall dedicate a fresh new blog post about this magical place in the future. Just be assured it’s worth the journey. From Ben Eine to Faile, Ben Frost and Banksy… the show is incredibly well curated and has the who is who of the current urban art scene hanging on the walls.

And no, there is no gift shop YET! 😉

Seeing all this amazing art really inspired and motivated me to go back to my studio and start painting again! But first I had to catch up with a good friend and fellow artist for a tasty Currywurst and a chat: Rainer Bornowski has been an inspiration to me since I started to dabble in Vector illustration and we both share a love for bold colours and applying our designs to physical products like record covers, T-Shirts and Postcards.

Check out the world of Bonito here: https://www.boronowski.com

What I really love about Berlin is the derelict vibe of it all. There is really no other city in Germany comparable with this sense of freedom you have in the German capital. I really hope that London will realize that aggressive gentrification will extinguish any creative spirit that made the city so amazing in the first place.

A city without any space to roam and get lost will loose it’s artists, so let’s hope Berlin stays fun, funky and the right amount of dirty!

So bye-bye Berlin, you have been great! Oh, and by the way, I prefer the Currywurst at Curry 36 over the offering at Konnopke’s Imbiss. Go for the spicy one!

Solaris over and out!

Bladerunner 2049 and the curse of the dissapointing sequel

When reading reviews of the sequel to Ridley Scotts Masterpiece from 1982, Bladerunner 2049 is getting heaps of praise. It’s 5 stars all around and even hard to please movie buffs like Mark Kermode called it “a future classic”. And I really wonder why.

Don’t worry this post is *SPOILER FREE*

Having just watched the movie I am compelled to (unfortunately) strongly disagree. After the visual dust settled and the epic soundtrack died down, nothing much of substance really stuck with me. Don’t get me wrong: The production design is fantastic and the soundtrack immense. Plus you have to applaud the filmmaker to ape the slow pace of the original. Yet the question has to be: Was all this effort warranted? Did Bladerunner even need a sequel?

Without going into any spoiler territory I felt the story was very bland and obvious, the villains very cookie cutter and the set up for a sequel felt forced. I have no idea why so many reviewers praised the movie for being a standalone story whilst it’s a pretty obvious attempt at creating a franchise. Bladerunner 2049 just has nothing new to add to the conversation apart from getting Harrison Ford back into the role of Deckard. Especially the last part of the movie was so formulaic that I felt I am watching a bad direct to DVD sequel. Harsh but true.

Plus: Can we please stop with all these prequel story mini-movies? Like Alien Covenant, Bladerunner 2049 has accompanying short movies on YouTube that supposed to fill in some additional info about the storyline. I really feel this added content cheapens the movie experience as it feels like crutches the screenwriters needed because they didn’t find a way to flesh out the story in the actual movie.

Although the cast is full of talented actors, Leto and Ford don’t actually have much to do in the film and I found the rest of the cast pretty bland as well. Even Ryan Gosling starts to grate on me, always playing the same type of brooding loner since his movie Drive from 2012. The more I think about it, the more I am disappointed that they didn’t find a way to really add something new and worthwhile to the Bladerunner universe.

So why are so few sequels great? And why do so many sequels suck? Don’t get me wrong… I have nothing against sequels generally. There are actually a lot of sequels I absolutely LOVE! I just feel most sequels try to fake it without actually making it.

So let’s have a look at some of my favorite sequels and why they work.

Expanding the storyline: The Empire Strikes Back

Let’s get the elephant out of the room first: Empire is just a fantastic sequel! After Star Wars told a pretty standard space story about good vs evil, Empire just added so many great characters, iconic moments and story twists that nothing felt like a tired rehash or simple cash grab. Yodas training, Hoth, Bespin, Boba Fett, that meteroid chase plus space slugs… fantastic! Plus it had the balls to end on a pretty bleak cliffhanger. Still the best sequel to this day. 

Go BIG in a good way: Aliens

The classic sequel concept: Just go BIGGER and LOUDER! But where lesser directors fail and fail again, James Cameron gloriously succeeded.

Doing a 180-degree on the first Alien movie and turning a claustrophobic horror piece into a full-blown war movie was just a stroke of genius that totally could have backfired. Just it didn’t!

I recently rewatched Aliens and it’s as tense, nailbiting and effective as back in 1986.

Again, it added so much new and great material to the Alien lore that it never felt boring: The space marines, the alien queen, the power loader battle… just fantastic! Even if the final end boss gets blasted into space yet again.

Have a standout performance: The Dark Knight

Although I feel that Christopher Nolan could have trimmed the runtime of The Dark Knight a little, this was basically the Batman movie I always wanted: Dark, gritty and more of a crime drama than a campy comic book movie. And most of the praise for making this an awesome flick just has to go to Heath Ledger for his portrayal of The Joker.

There is a reason why The Joker is the best villain ever to grace the pages of a comic book: Although he is a colorful jester with a variety of bold outfits, he always was a dangerous and twisted villain that should never be underestimated. This violent, psychotic and dangerous side of the character was never played before this such relish as by Heath Ledger who deservedly won a posthumous Oscar for this performance.

So to come back to Bladerunner 2049, Alien: Covenant, James Bond Spectre and the many other sequels that totally disappointed me: Without adding new, exciting and iconic material to the foundation laid by the original, there is not much merit in doing a sequel. And that’s why Bladerunner 2049 really disappointed me, despite its beautiful visuals and booming soundtrack. It just didn’t add anything fresh to the formula, just really well regurgitated the style of the first.

To wrap this blog post up… let’s talk about the only sequel that TRULY matters this year: Star Wars The Last Jedi! Let’s keep the fingers crossed that The Last Jedi will not fall into the same pitfalls I just mentioned and just rehash what came before. I really hope the film will be able to create new and exciting Star Wars moments… May finally a good sequel be with us!