The Berlin Diary, day four

Day four

Sunday December 5

Maja:

I am making a homesite for our musician friend Alex who we stayed with when we were in London recently, and who Mark has done session work for. He’s helping me with some production tips and tricks to help me be our producer and general sound engineer. It’s a great friend collaboration, where I do my part and he does his and we both get something we want out of it. Kinda like when I first met Mark and built his homesite as he mentored me through a few bass projects. And of course, both me and Ales love helping each other out since we’re friends. I’ve been quite busy recently with preparing for the tour, but we planned a little phone call this morning. Apart from talking about those projects, we also talk a little bit about us playing together in maybe March/April. We’ve not completely worked out in what way we’ll play together yet, but that’ll inevitably mean that me and Mark will take The Diaries to London as a continuation of our European tour. I can’t wait.

Mark:

Oh dear. We go out to get supplied up and maybe bring back something for breakfast, only to discover today that all shops in Berlin are closed on Sundays. We do subsequently learn that a few do open a little later in the day but for now we have no idea of that. All we encounter is locked doors and dark premises. The bizarrest part of all this is when we get to the shopping centre near our hostel and it’s totally open. But when we go in and walk around, we discover everything inside is closed. So it’s off to a cafe to pick up a few sandwiches for breakfast to take back to the hostel kitchen. Once there, we find all our new friends hanging out. Mattheus from Poland, Cintia from Croatia, Katia from Modova, and Didier. We join them and get stuck into our chicken, mozzarella and tomato wraps. Which turn out to contain just mozzarella and a single slice of tomato. Oh well. Someone made a mistake somewhere. They’re still quite good and we’re really too hungry to care. While we’re there, a guy we’ve never met called Eric turns up and is enthusiastically called over by our new friends. He’s from Ireland, seems really cool and gently spoken, and our little nascent crew has now grown a little. The guys ask what we’re up to tonight and we tell them we’ve decided to start having a look at the open mic scene. I used to run an open mic myself, have been to many more, and I know what great networking opportunities they can be. Especially to introduce yourself to a new scene; the general audience, of course, but also other songwriters and musicians you could end up doing stuff with and becoming friends with, and the people themselves who run the things. Open mics can be where so many people, connected to so many facets across a city, come together. Put on a good display and be a good hang at enough of them and you really can start to make inroads into the musical fabric of a place. Apart from anything else, throw yourself around enough and talk to enough people and you start to get to know what’s going on around a place as well. Mondays and Tuesdays are particularly good for them as not much else is going on generally, but Sundays too, and sometimes into Wednesdays. We’ve had an internet look around and have decided on a place called Madame Claude’s tonight. We’ve also identified places to go tomorrow and Tuesday, with all sign up times at 7pm. I did email Madame Claude’s before leaving Ireland but got no reply. Well, an automated reply with some info about the venue, but nothing from an actual person. So now we’re just going to go.

We take it easy for the rest of the day and then later catch up with Cintia, Matheus and Eric in the common room again and tell them our plans. We’re all going to leave around 6:30 but when that time comes they’re not quite ready. They understand that we can’t hang around as we can’t miss sign up, and say that they’ll follow along about ten minutes behind us. Cool. We head off across the river and into the dark side streets of Berlin’s Kreuzberg district. Tourists tramping the beaten path are not going to find a place like this. It belongs to Berliners. And maybe some of your more intrepid explorers. As we approach the address, the darkness of the street does not abate. Closer and closer. No lights, no sound. We even walk past it without realising. Then back again. There it is. Kinda. It looks more like a wall of flyers and posters than the entrance to a venue. But no. Definitely nothing happening here tonight. Oh. We stand there not really knowing what to do. Our friends will be on their way, we think. Or maybe not. Who knows? We have no way of contacting them. We stare at the locked, dark door for probably longer than anyone really should, but the truth is we have no idea of our next move. Then we hear, ‘It’s closed tonight.’ We turn round and see a tall figure silhouetted in the glare of a streetlight. Some kind of maintenance work we believe. ‘I saw you guys probably loitering a bit too much and thought I’d just let you know,’ he continues. OK. ‘I’m going to a gig a little way from here,’ he says somewhat cryptically. He’s not making any sign of moving away. Are we in conversation now? ‘What gig?’ I ask. ‘A friend of mine is in a band opening up for the main act. I’m walking down there now.’ That really does sound like an invitation without being an invitation. I step right into it. ‘As you can see,’ I begin, indicating to the guitar case on my back, ‘we were hoping to play the open mic here tonight but, you know. It would be cool if we could follow along to your thing. If you’re cool with that.’ ‘Yeah cool.’ ‘Great. I’m Mark and this is Maja.’ ‘Joel. Pleased to meet you.’ Introductions done, he sets off and we just fall in step with him. ‘The first thing we have to do,’ he says, ‘is go and get tested. It’s a new thing. You can’t get in anywhere without a negative test first.’ OK. We’re just following his lead. We walk for five minutes or so and come across a locked portakabin type thing. ‘Oh. I was going to do it here,’ he says. ‘I know another place.’ And off we go in a totally different direction. This time, after another ten minutes or so, we come to what looks like a teeny tiny mini tented field hospital with a desk at the open front of it and a medical type of person, who must be freezing by the way, standing behind it. There’s only one person getting tested as we arrive, and no-one waiting. That person is taking a while with their admin or whatever so we wait patiently. Joel says he has to go home and get something he forgot so we carry on here. After a few minutes, we hear from behind us, ‘Are you guys playing somewhere tonight?’ We turn around to see a guy and a girl we have never seen before and the guy is pointing at the guitar on my back. ‘Well, we were.’ I say, and mention the open mic that isn’t happening. ‘We’re out here checking out different bands,’ he says. ‘Well, this is us.’ And I give him our card. ‘Oh!’ he exclaims. ‘You guys are The Diaries? It’s you we were coming out to see tonight.’

‘What now?’ He introduces himself as Liam and his partner as Maddie and I introduce myself and Maja. Liam then says, ‘Yeah, we got talking to those guys over there at the hostel and they said they were coming out to see you and, here we are.’ I look and, sitting ‘over there’ are Cintia, Mattheus and Eric. Oh cool. We’ve managed to find each other out here, when me and Maja had already started wandering all different directions. 

Maja:

I’ve been really anxious about getting separated from our newfound friends coming out to see us play, so I get incredibly relieved as soon as we find them again. And meeting Liam and Maddie is just over the top amazing. 

Mark:

We get ourselves tested and go over and say hi, then announce to them, and our new friends, that the place we were going to is closed, and that we have new plans if they want to come along. Of course they do. When Joel gets back, I introduce everyone to him and he’s only too happy to have a few more tag-alongers. Well, happy is probably too strong a word. Willing would be more like it. As we walk, he and I chat about Berlin and things in general and he says he’s a casual sculpture. Cool. We also talk about the possible lockdowns here and if things are likely to close around us. ‘I think you guys will be fine,’ he says. ‘If you’ve already played and have anything booked in, I’d say it’s all going to continue and you’ll probably be able to play a little more.’ This is really great to hear from an actual Berliner that we should more or less be able to continue as we are, at least for the period we intend to be here for, and as long as we continue with the testing thing anytime we intend to go anywhere. Yes, it’s only one person’s view and things could change but hey, we’ve already played two shows and proved we can come here, sight unseen and make things happen. If it all closes down tomorrow, we’ll take that.

It’s quite a long walk to wherever this venue is and full of twists and turns as we feel we’re being taken deeper and deeper into local knowledge Berlin. Past a whole bunch of traffic works and onto yet another dark street. Nothing happening here. We keep walking. Then, he announces we’re here. It’s a large, graffiti covered door that you could easily walk past. But he goes through it and we follow. First, there’s still nothing. Just a thick curtain. But the boom bass of music is evident. Through the curtain and we enter what looks like a pirate ship room with soft chairs scattered all about, all filled with people huddled round in circles in casual conversation. Across the room to the right is the bar, and directly ahead of us is another large curtain, from behind which the music is clearly coming. The attendant does the corona check thing and invites me to leave the guitar in a safe space behind her. Cool. Then she says that the band we’ve essentially come to see are only on their first song. Brilliant. And we’re in. Across the room and through the large curtain. Into…a real gig venue. Totally full and packed. Of course. Everyone’s been tested tonight and been given a negative result. So the venue can be safe that everyone’s fine. No masks and no social distancing. This feels. Well, normal. Or rather, not normal at all because, for me at least, I haven’t been to a gig venue where people can pack in like this for almost two years. In fact, I can actually tell you the last time. It was The Blues Kitchen in Camden, Sunday March 8, 2020. Shortly after, March 20 to be exact, bars in the UK were ordered to close by the government, and since then they’ve only been able to operate – when they’ve been able to open – under social distancing rules, to various levels of strictness, but there’s certainly been no bands playing with audiences all rubbing shoulders with each other. So yeah, this is the first time I’ve seen or experienced anything like this for almost two years. Did I say it looks like normal? Well no, it doesn’t look like normal. Because for all that time, this has ceased to be a thing. And now, it’s wonderful to see and to be a part of.

Maja:

Well lucky you. I haven’t been to a proper gig venue since… Well I don’t really know. When I was a teenager following the ‘big bands’ around as a little fangirl. Maybe 2008, who remembers exactly? Or I actually went to a little gig in Japan because I really wanted to see ‘Sore Demo Sekai Ga Tsuzuku Nara’, that was maybe 2015, but the feeling of that was nowhere like this. This is more, to the miniscule experience I’ve had, like the gigs I went to in Sweden. Where people actually headbang and the musicians scream/shout/sing their hearts out. It feels great. And I can’t help bouncing around to the German metal we have here and now that really moves the room. 

The band is called No Romance, Joel’s friend is on bass, and Loophole describes them as one of their favourites. You can check them out yourself here: https://noromancepls.bandcamp.com/

Mark:

For all this up to now, Joel has left us to go and hang out with someone he’s come here to specifically meet and we all hang at the back and take it all in, totally disbelieving at the turn the evening has taken from what was supposed to be a gentle singer-songwriter night somewhere in the vicinity of our neighbourhood. 

They finish and our guys are on me and Maja. ‘Hey,’ says Cintia. ‘Why don’t you try to play in this period now between the two bands? It’s only the two of you. It shouldn’t be too hard.’ I’m really not sure but they all become quite insistent, especially Liam and Maddie, who we will learn are huge live music fans and regular gig goers with a really good knowledge of venues and music scenes all across America. They manage to persuade me to at least try and I head off into the lobby area to see who I should talk to. First stop is the attendant at the door to try to find out who the promoter is. She points me towards a tall guy wearing a slightly floppy hat. I go over and introduce myself to him. He’s warm and welcoming and brightens up even more when I tell him I’m with a band on tour here and give him a card. This is when Maja turns up to hear him say, ‘There’s something I’ve got to take care of right now. Let me go and do that because I want to give you a real minute or two.’ Fair enough and quite brilliant. He runs down some mysterious stairs, then returns and says, ‘I’m all yours.’ He now introduces himself as Mikey from America. I introduce him to Maja, briefly tell him who we are and what we’ve been doing, and then say, I know it’s a cheeky ask, but would we be able to play a song or two right now in the break. He very politely and reasonably says that won’t be possible because the schedule tonight is too tight, but he gives me his email address and says to get in touch with our links and stuff and he’ll gladly see if he could arrange a slot for us in here sometime in the near future. Wow. Contact and brief, impromptu meeting with an actual Berlin promoter who’s clearly really got things going on. This is beginning to feel like deep infiltration into the scene on only our third real day exploring it. With that, we thank him very much for his time and let him go about his busy evening while we go and return to our friends. 

They’ve all piled out into the bar area and we tell them what’s just happened, then me and Maja chat a little more to Liam and Maddie who we didn’t get to talk to much on the way here. 

Maja:

Liam and Maddie are a couple from America and they have a lot of friends and contacts in the music scene in America. They live on the road with a campervan, so they often change locations. And they’re really excited about inviting us over, maybe to stay with them in their van for a while, but also helping us get in contact with some of their friends to organise gigs. Which is absolutely wonderful and beyond helpful in every way. We’re completely blown back by their open-heartedness and kindness and their engagement and positivity towards what we’re doing. I’m finding it hard to put the excitement and gratefulness we feel to words on a paper. Words just don’t do the feelings justice. It’s a bit sad that we won’t be able to play live for them while they’re here though. They really seem to want to see us play. I wonder if we’ll be able to fix that in any way?

Mark:

Like Mikey, they’re also from America and become particularly interested in our story. As it unfolds, they love it more and more and start to open up to us about their contacts in America. Without having heard us play, they’re happy to take us seriously purely by the fact that we’re out here and doing it. They tell us about venues they know across the States who they could introduce us to and where they could possibly plug us in. New York, LA, Nashville, and a few more places in between. They want to talk seriously to us sometime about how they could help us to really get across the venues if we want to go to America. Then, when they tell us they’re leaving Berlin tomorrow, we realise they really should at least have a real idea of what we are, so we offer to play a song or two for them when we get back tonight. They love that idea and so do the other guys. We also make sure to reciprocate their invitation, telling them they’re welcome to come and visit us in Ireland anytime. They love the idea of Ireland and of having a place to stay right in the centre of the country in real, out of the way town like Clara.

I leave them for a little while now to go and say hi to our de facto host for the evening Joel. He’s with his friends and this is the first time I’ve had the chance to really chat to him since we arrived. I really just want to say thankyou very much again for bringing us here and to tell him how much we love the place. And also to tell him that we’ve just hooked up with Mikey. He’s very pleased to hear all this. He introduces me around his little circle a little and tells me that himself and one or two others work at Madame Claudes and that we should pop in sometime and say hello. Wow. Another hit. We now know the bar staff of one of the cooler venues in town which also looks like it could be a really good place for us to play sometime should an opening become available. At the very least, this could be a great social connection to have. I know this very well from my time working in bars in London – to know the bar staff in a place is to have a shortcut to be able to easily talk to and get to know just about everybody else in there, at least the regulars. It really just makes going into a particular bar a lot more fun as you’re walking in as some kind of known entity, not an anonymous face off the street wondering what you’re doing there as you try to gain some kind of footing.

Maja:

Opening up the thick curtains to the stage room, and I once again get blown back with heavy metal screaming through the speakers. It’s an experience in itself just to be here. The music is pumping and I really like this one song that the second band, Groa, does when the singer starts playing drums with the drummer and then the bassist and singer go into the audience singing and dancing really intently with each other. I have no idea what the song is about but the feeling is incredible. It’s been a while since I’ve experienced music like this, and the metal lover in my heart is getting fed some really nice metal vibes. 

You can check Groa out here: 

https://post-dreifing.bandcamp.com/album/what-i-like-to-do-3

Mark:

Totally exhilarated, spent and all very happy, it’s time to head out and start the walk back to the hostel and the seven of us all set off together through the newly falling snow which greatly helps to cool us down after the white hot intensity of what we’ve just experienced. Myself and Liam slightly fall back from the main group and start to chat about the basics of playing. Which means – the two of us in unison – ‘You have to be on the ground.’ ‘Yes, totally,’ he says. We now enter full flow of one of my favourite topics related to this; that you can sit at home and record and Youtube and social media and stream all you want. But if you’re not getting out and playing live, or going to gigs and meeting people, you won’t make the real world connections where people can really see you, talk to you, get to know you, and decide whether or not you’re someone they really want to help either directly or by making introductions or recommendations. He continues, ‘Getting out there and really doing it is exactly what you guys are doing and it’s really cool to see.’ Absolutely fair enough. He adds: ‘We will hear you play tonight and that’s great, but I don’t think we even need to. We can just see it in you and feel your energy and attitudes and we just know you have something to say that’s going to be worth hearing. We have a really strong feeling that we’re totally going to love your music.’ Whether it all materialises or not, his and Maddie’s willingness to open doors for us in America has only come about because we’re out here and doing it from Ireland. If they were just meeting a local band, and had even just seen them play, no matter how much they liked them and their music, it’s highly unlikely they’d be talking about Stateside possibilities. But with us, they can see someone who has already made the leap, and so can be confident we would have no problem making more.

On that thing materialising or not, in the early days of Mark’s Diaries I wrote about every such conversation and possibility and time and time again nothing was ever heard from such utterances again, so I totally stopped writing about them, only returning to those subjects if and when things did start to come about. Then I could write about where those ideas came from and when the conversations first started. But right now, in the first days of our tour and, by definition, our first days in Berlin, I think it’s really cool that these kinds of conversations are even happening.

We return to the hostel well supplied with beers via an outdoor tabletop burger/kebab visit and all seven of us head up to the cavernous function room on the third floor. It’s now approaching 3am so we can in no way be loud. We set ourselves up, the guys in a small semi circle around us, looking on expectantly. Me and Maja have already decided what songs we’re going to do, and what songs could have the most impact in such a quiet setting. We’ve decided we could do a chilled out version of I Like You (Better When You’re Naked) and the new song, Insanity. The quietness and gentle natural reverb provided by this vast hall lend a new epic quality to the songs and everyone listens in complete captivated silence, not least Liam who looks totally, totally immersed in what he’s hearing. When we finish, it’s not quite to applause because, well, it’s late, but Liam and Maddie come over with huge hugs and fist bumps. Liam in particular looks stunned. ‘I had every confidence in you guys,’ he begins, ‘But this really is something special. Yes, we really hope we’ll be able to do something for you two.’ Brilliant. Just brilliant. With that, they say they have to excuse themselves as they’re up and out first thing in the morning. We have a big goodbye with them and the rest of us hang out a little longer. Here, Eric has a little suggestion and a request. Why don’t we set up and do a full rehearsal up here tomorrow that they and anyone else could come to? What a wonderful idea. We immediately agree, and come up with a rough time of 2pm. With that new plan in place, it’s time for us all to head off to bed now.

When we get back to our room, the light is out but Didier is awake in his top bunk and deep in conversation with someone in the other top bunk. As soon as we enter the room, both of them say an enthusiastic hi and we suddenly realise who the other person is. It’s Katia. Of all the rooms. We now have the two coolest room mates we could possibly wish for, although we’re a little disappointed when we discover that Katia is only here for this one night.

Maja:

Oh yay! Katia! I’m so happy she is here, I’ve really wanted to get to know her better and I really like her! Hello Katia!!!

Mark:

We ask if we can turn the light on to get ourselves sorted out, and they say, please do. They then ask how it all went and we really don’t know where to begin. ‘You guys are tired I’m sure,’ I say. ‘Let’s wait and we’ll tell you in the morning.’ ‘No, tell us now,’ Didier insists. Katia voices her agreement. They both really want to hear. What happened that we went out to an open mic at 6:30 that kept us out till way past 3am?

Well…

Day three of our European tour and we’ve been offered a bunch of potential dates in London, which could then be followed by America as we’ve spoken to some people who’ve said they could really get us started with a toe hold there. We’ve made personal contact with a promoter in Berlin and we’ve hung out with some of the bar staff of a venue that we’d already identified as a great place to get known and play at.

To that you can add that we have a very positive lead with Lenny at Fargo who we’ll be going to see in the next few days to hopefully arrange something, and we have two more open mics identified. One tomorrow and one Tuesday. Oh, and we’re going to be doing an open rehearsal for anyone who wants to come tomorrow on the third floor.