First off, a little history.
So the Fuckparade. Basically, way back in 1989, right before the wall came down, a man named Matthias Roeingh was sitting down at a plate of pancakes when he thought, "My god, these pancakes are so good they're downright political." He decided to throw himself a birthday party with the motto Friede, Freude, Eierkuchen, or Peace, Joy, Pancakes. Revisionist historians later decided that the motto was to be taken figuratively, with Peace standing for disarmament, Joy for music and Pancakes for food production. This, obviously, is quite silly, and even a casual examination of the record makes it perfectly clear that the original Loveparade was very much a celebration of breakfast.
Anyway, Loveparade grew and grew, ultimately becoming the largest breakfast-themed electronic music festival in history. Party-goers would follow a caravan of trucks equipped with water-cooled sound systems, enabling the concert to get quite audible indeed. In 2001 the parade was so loud that it caused widespread diarrhea among animals at the nearby Berlin Zoo. Obviously, the zoo had to be declared a Superfund site and in 2010 was destroyed from orbit by a laser satellite designed specifically for the purpose. After demolishing the zoo, the laser misfired, hitting a flour factory in southern Berlin. Millions were killed, but among their remains were several metric tonnes of perfectly cooked laser pancakes.
Then disaster struck. In 2010 the Loveparade found itself with 1.4 million attendees, well eclipsing the 400,000 believed present by the Berlin police. In an attempt both to celebrate shared history and to feed the tremendous crowd, the American restaurant chain IHOP elected to airlift in a 40 ton pancake made from high protein flax seed and anodized steel. High winds over Berlin and poor communication caused the pancake to collide with a 6000 gallon drum of Canadian maple syrup. At least 20 people were crushed in the resulting catastrophe, thousands more were fed. Out of respect for the dead the event has been cancelled ever since.
Loveparade changed dramatically between its inception in 1989 and its closure in 2010, most notably by way of a growing corporate influence. The sonic-terror trucks at the heart of the event were originally forbidden from displaying anything other than advertisement for local electronic music, but the tremendous cost of fitting every truck with both a water-cooled sound system and a working grill forced truck owners to seek more lucrative sources of ad revenue. This increasing corporate involvement ultimately led to the genesis of a counter-love parade, Fuckparade.
First, possibly the most important video on the internet, techno viking.
Basically, Joshua and I made our way back to the hotel after yet another extremely excessive breakfast only to discover our path blocked by an army column of ear-inverting techno. You might well be wondering, "What a feat of engineering that all those trucks could play at the same time and yet still remain intelligible." If so, you're an idiot. Standing in the middle of all those trucks was like being digested by a rusty metal whale. I could actually feel my forehead pulsing in and out like the lid of a jar of marmalade. From what I could gather this particular event had an extra shot of juice owing to political motivations. Pussy Riot had just been sentenced, for one, and several trucks called for both the peaceful liberation of the imprisoned protesters and the not at all peaceful doing of very unpleasant things to Mr. Putin.
The other political grievance lay at the feet of GEMA, a German music rights organization that solicits royalty fees on behalf of musicians. In other words, dickheads. Recently GEMA has sought and won legislation that changes the measure used to determine how much money a music venue must pay in royalty fees. The fee used to be determined by actual number of club patrons, whereas the new law would require clubs to pay a fee proportional to how many people could possibly be in attendance. This number, though made of speculation and cotton candy, is apparently easier to calculate than the actual number of countable people that actually, physically show up. GEMA's new law is especially rough on small and underground clubs, many of which occupy unused, light industrial space, which is huge but sparsely attended. Ten people dancing in a warehouse are expected to pay prices comparable to a giant club, and people objecting to the new legislation rightly point out that if the law remains in effect then soon giant clubs will be the only ones left.
But, much as we would have liked to spend the day dancing with vikings in a breathable atmosphere of head-crushing techno, Joshua and I had to make our way back to the Cave for some intensive coding. Although the Fuckparade was still in full effect when we emerged, several hours later, to look for dinner at a cozy vegetarian food garden.
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| What is this, some kind of fucking parade? Oh. |
Anyway, Loveparade grew and grew, ultimately becoming the largest breakfast-themed electronic music festival in history. Party-goers would follow a caravan of trucks equipped with water-cooled sound systems, enabling the concert to get quite audible indeed. In 2001 the parade was so loud that it caused widespread diarrhea among animals at the nearby Berlin Zoo. Obviously, the zoo had to be declared a Superfund site and in 2010 was destroyed from orbit by a laser satellite designed specifically for the purpose. After demolishing the zoo, the laser misfired, hitting a flour factory in southern Berlin. Millions were killed, but among their remains were several metric tonnes of perfectly cooked laser pancakes.
Then disaster struck. In 2010 the Loveparade found itself with 1.4 million attendees, well eclipsing the 400,000 believed present by the Berlin police. In an attempt both to celebrate shared history and to feed the tremendous crowd, the American restaurant chain IHOP elected to airlift in a 40 ton pancake made from high protein flax seed and anodized steel. High winds over Berlin and poor communication caused the pancake to collide with a 6000 gallon drum of Canadian maple syrup. At least 20 people were crushed in the resulting catastrophe, thousands more were fed. Out of respect for the dead the event has been cancelled ever since.
Loveparade changed dramatically between its inception in 1989 and its closure in 2010, most notably by way of a growing corporate influence. The sonic-terror trucks at the heart of the event were originally forbidden from displaying anything other than advertisement for local electronic music, but the tremendous cost of fitting every truck with both a water-cooled sound system and a working grill forced truck owners to seek more lucrative sources of ad revenue. This increasing corporate involvement ultimately led to the genesis of a counter-love parade, Fuckparade.
First, possibly the most important video on the internet, techno viking.
Basically, Joshua and I made our way back to the hotel after yet another extremely excessive breakfast only to discover our path blocked by an army column of ear-inverting techno. You might well be wondering, "What a feat of engineering that all those trucks could play at the same time and yet still remain intelligible." If so, you're an idiot. Standing in the middle of all those trucks was like being digested by a rusty metal whale. I could actually feel my forehead pulsing in and out like the lid of a jar of marmalade. From what I could gather this particular event had an extra shot of juice owing to political motivations. Pussy Riot had just been sentenced, for one, and several trucks called for both the peaceful liberation of the imprisoned protesters and the not at all peaceful doing of very unpleasant things to Mr. Putin.
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| What a likeness! |
But, much as we would have liked to spend the day dancing with vikings in a breathable atmosphere of head-crushing techno, Joshua and I had to make our way back to the Cave for some intensive coding. Although the Fuckparade was still in full effect when we emerged, several hours later, to look for dinner at a cozy vegetarian food garden.
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| Fuckparade über alles |
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