a day in May

Yesterday was May Day - a public holiday here. 27ºC, Sunny.

Having hauled my gear across town to Neukölln - to live with four interesting young Berliners for a few days - it was time to hunt down an open bottle-o (more like a milk-bar, in Melbourne terms - except they sell beer as well as milk... and like milk bars, are usually closed on public holidays).

With most of the others off to a private bbq, one of the housemates and I - an artist of New York/Italian descent  - headed to Gorlitzer park. Traditionally, this particular park - situated right in the heart of Kreuzberg - ends up as a riot-zone between the Polizei and Berlin's anarchists and political activists. However, prior to this seemingly-inevitable meltdown, the area hosts a stack of outdoor PA systems.

view from window in Neukölln - scaffolding included

With roadblocks, large crowds (1000s?) and plenty of riot police standing around looking bored, it was pretty mental getting in, but super peaceful half-way through the park... sat down and chatted, completely forgetting about the impending riot outside the park walls.

An interesting conversation with the housemate, Gian-Paolo. He hasn't worked in over a year and has been getting-by from selling his paintings... chatted about art and living in Berlin, and life and girls... and how ridiculously long German mobile numbers are (12 digits..?!)... that kind of thing.



Next up was to tackle the bedlam outside the park and see what sounds were being beamed out into the city. Crammed into the single block of Kreuzberg that Kleine Reise is in, there were at least half-a-dozen PAs.  if you weren't directly front & centre of a speaker stack, leakage from one stage to another was obvious - but some decent grooves were cranking.

Gianni's flyer - his work can be seen at :www.artgianpaolo.com/

As the vibe between the police and the crowd was getting uglier (riot squads were starting to close in), it was time to make tracks. In doing so, I was stopped & searched by an officer. Pretty friendly, really... (even so, at the time, I had been here less than a week!) ... was interesting explaining that my helmet was for my bike, not for causing a ruckus...

("...bass from those high definition speakers...
givin' us the boom boom boom..." - R.Clarke)

Not sure if riots actually broke-out, but at 5:35pm, the forecast was looking something like:
thunder storm; possible  riot; probable.


It seems as though having that many riot police and road blocks is kind of self-fulfilling in terms of developing a recipe for a riot - there was a tense feeling in the air.

("Woop, woop! That's the sound of da police..." KRS-One. They
actually sound more like "eyooore-eyooore" in Europe)

In other news, had a mildly productive day today. Here's this loose & live recording of a bass-line I was working on: