Flashback: Beaner's Bar25 Memories

Since we dropped Beaner’s amalgamation of house and techno sounds on the blog the other week we just haven’t been able to stop listening to it. The relentless grooves and fresh selection of tracks from Fudge Fingas, Midland and Mike Huckaby, who is himself soon to be landing in Room One this Saturday, have swept us along into our second weekend of rave in June when Beaner himself will showing us his larger than life personality in the melodic touches of his late night DJ set next to The Pushamann and Owen Howells for the N.o.N Music takeover in Room Three. As a former resident at Berlin's now inoperative Bar25, we asked Beaner to share some of his stand out memories and music from his wild and unrestrained times at Bar25, so here on the blog, you can get a rare glimpse through the lens of the legendary club that once stood in this enjoyable read from Beaner below. When fabric asked me to write a little something about my recollections of my time at Bar25, I was a little hesitant (to say the least). Many would tell you that having specific memories of Bar25 is a sign that you probably weren’t at the Studio 54 of the sexting generation. Despite this, I was able to come up with a few instances that I thought might be of interest and some songs to go with them. Before I was a resident at Bar25, I was a regular there. One of my first times there I (and my partner in War Vs. Sleep, C.L.A.W.S.) were in awe of 12 hours of Matt John playing the weirdest, greatest music we had heard. Matt was playing when we arrived and when we left the next day too. Among the songs were many of his own unreleased gems. It was the first time I heard “IO” and some song we named “techno duck” which I have still never found. Also before being a resident, C.L.A.W.S. and I decided to take a day with our friend Alison to film a video for an unreleased War Vs. Sleep song. Our “treatment” ended with us at Bar25 at daybreak. Only one problem, I got kicked out of the club (don’t ask what for). As I was being walked out, Steffi (the infamous doorperson) said “See you next week, Pablo!”. Also, the bouncer who kicked me out ended up working for me 4 months later and we are still friends. Here is the War Vs. Sleep video that didn’t get us kicked out. My friend Jana is like the entire Berlin techno scene’s cool mom. The moment I knew I had gone from shitty DJ who people tolerate, to tolerable DJ that people love to get shitty to was on a Monday when I played both sides of this Audio Werner record and Jana came running and did her “I’m fucking feeling this” dance. I ran a party called “Beaners Backyard BBQ” for several years at the bar. The idea was 4/5 hours of barbecue with non-house/techno and then booking people who didn’t have the opportunity to play at Bar25, but should for the night portion. The first one I did I booked my friend Function for a NY stomping house set. He showed up with none other than Frankie Bones, who asked if it would be cool if he played a bit with Dave’s records! Needless to say, I stuttered “yes.” Back in the days of Myspace, I contacted one of my (now) best friends just to tell him I liked his music. Our digital convos led me to book Jin Choi at one of my barbecues. We hung out for 3 days and I hope this led to his decision to take a job in and move to Berlin. Thanks to Bar25, Jin takes me out to lunch or dinner on a regular basis. People think that the repeated closing parties for Bar25 were a marketing gimmick. It is not true. Every year they said “we are done for”, that was what we thought. Court cases, last minute petitions, protracted negotiations, and political pressure each helped bring “one more year” over and over. At one of the closing parties, Nadia (the Bar25 booking agency booker) and I danced behind the bar to Danny Faber playing the last set. The only moment I remember is him playing a looped version of this for what felt like 20 minutes. It was incredible. My favourite BBQ I ever did was a goldgoldgold themed BBQ w/ Maayan Nidam, Dewalta, Katou, Frieder Klaris, Dandy Digital and me. The gold thing was Maayan’s idea, and I went all out, buying the sluttiest gold lame women's blouse I could find. Dandy Digital accidentally took my Traktor Scratch records home with him and I only had about 15 regular records with me. I back to backed with Maayan by using the tap function to mix. Thank god I stopped playing with the computer. This song has nothing to do with that party, except maybe the laid back mood. My last memory is the most embarrassing and one I do not actually quite remember. At our very last closing party, every DJ, every worker, every Bar25 family member got a wristband for free drinks. And they got put to use. You couldn’t walk 5 meters without someone asking if you wanted to take a shot. When the wolf+lamb crew were supposed to start their extended 12 hour set in our “nü club” I staggered over to say hi and check it out. When Deniz started playing I couldn’t find my girlfriend and was so drunk I decided to climb one of the 5 meter tall shipping crate speaker stacks to see if I could see her. While up there, I decided it was super comfortable to lie down on, and promptly fell asleep. The security guys had to get me down when they closed that room, and apparently I tried to sneak back in and climb up there again. “Beaner fell asleep on top of the club” became something I heard people saying for the next 24 hours. N.o.N Music land in Room Three this Saturday. For more info and tickets go: here.