Away again, away to NBK. Ich kenne nicht dieses kietz. After a stroll in the kalte clare luft, we joked about titty bars and getting laid and music and movies and found ourselves funny and smart and happy. And then that song.
Banishing thoughts of remembered mühe we get a taxi to a dance club on Alexanderplatz and on the 12th floor of a tower block near the Park Inn I remain agnostic about the music.
An elaborate bank of 80’s lights are synced to a server large enough to execute a moon landing. Periodicaly they strafe the crowd with a pulse which travels from one end of the room to the other. Petra kisses Tom and Andreas smiles.
I drink a Campari wearily at the edge of the dancefloor, experimenting with the glazed aeorbic dancers, the out of rhythm shufflers, the networkers, the hustlers, the girls night out, the hooded freaks. I throw some shapes but its not doing it for me. I guess that this music, much beloved here and in London just never really did do it for me.
In the summer of love I had my head in a book. This music, which we heard on the radio, made no sense if you didn’t have a car, if you didn’t have the money to buy (or have a clue about) ecstasy. We were innocent, provincial. Dope and mushrooms and Thunderbird and long late night arguments about structuralist film and music, always music – but not this, somehow this eluded us.
The server delivers another sequance of 1’s and 0’s and the bank of lights flares again. The dancers are abruptly plunged into darkness for a blissful second in which their eyes are closed.
Later, much later, I learned to fake an enthusiasm for it. Nod along, perfecting the bored gaze into the middle distance. Ecstasy helped of course but I always got home feeling like I’d been dancing all night to a dripping tap.
I drink a bottle of water and smile. Understanding that although for me this music evokes nothing, that for Tom and Petra and Andreas it insists on their participation as much as Iggy Pop insists on mine.
We went our separate ways with promises to call and I looped around Alexanderplatz looking for cigarettes.