How Snow Didn't Stop Me! - Defining Early Techno - No One Else than THE ADVENT
Many years ago, a couple of days before Xmas, I decided to jump into my car and drive all the way to Frankfurt am Main (Germany) to get to a party at the - at that time - famous underground techno club U60311, or in short U60. That club is closed by now, but back then, it was the place to be after Omen closed years before. It was the place where amongst others Chris Liebing had its events. An old tube station, converted into maybe the best techno environment Frankfurt ever had. Ok, I may not have experienced all the clubs in Frankfurt, but I think I'm not far from the truth with such statement.
Anyway, this particular day/evening, just before Xmas, the reason to go to Frankfurt, to this U60 club, was The Advent. A Portuguese electronic producer, live performer and DJ living in the UK, was booked for a live act. This was the first time I would hear him in real life, and a four hour drive was something that didn't stop me.
Half way enroute on the Germany Autobahn (highway) snow started to come down and very quickly the Autobahn was completely white and the cars came to an almost complete stop! I remember I already started to think I would never make it to Frankfurt in time. In a split second I decided to take the upcoming exit, just hoping I would not slip of the road. As it turned out, I took a great decision! The Autobahn was a couple of hundreds of meters above ground level, and the temperatures lower to ground level was above zero, hence the snow was instantly turned into water with clear roads. Although it took me at least an hour more due to the roads being small country roads, I was able to make it all the way to U60 and not miss anything of the performance of The Advent.
I was soooo lucky since some of my party friends where travelling to U60 as well, but they took some kind of party tour bus. They made it to Frankfurt almost 12 hours later, just at the time U60 closed it doors and everybody was finding their ways home again.
I had a great time at U60, I remember quite vividly. The Advent was just Super Super Super! The sound of this guy back in the days (I think it must be sometime 1999 or 2000) I truly liked! I tried to find some recording on Soundcloud that represents this guys sound I fell in love with, but it was quite hard. At that time Soundcloud didn't exist, and anyway, those days recordings were not made often. The digital recording devices and smartphones didn't really exist. But with some searching, I found this recording from a gig at Tresor Berlin that gives a kinda ok flavour of what I was hearing at U60.
This will for SURE move your FEET from the FLOOR
I Hope You'll Like It!
Artist: The Advent
Set: Tresor
Year: 2008
Country: Portugal
(source)
Music
Discography
Gigs
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Hilarious story my friend! I can imagine if one is doing such crazy thing - must be you or @mammasitta - U60 was cool but I preferred Omen. Thanks for this personal story and journey of your Techno Life - have to resteem this!
Thanks so much :) Yep Yep, I have even more crazy stories than this one. One of the most crazy ones involves: Munich, car and a time span of less than 24hrs. And another one involves also a car and party, and Maribor (Slovenia) and 2 days. Thinking of all these, brings back many memories I must say and I may have more stories than I thought I have. Not sure if they are all interesting, but it are at least stories of non standard events in my life :)
I never made it to Omen, and that is a pity, since I can imagine, Omen was the real deal!
Hell - write up this stories for us, wanna read all o it and listen to the sounds you had in the car and the clubs / events there!
I'll consider it! :)
Yes !!!
'It One Jah' - Surgeon remix - was one of my favorite tracks back in the day!
Wait for the real bass @ 1:50 :)
Owww YEH, this is an example how the REAL minimal techno sounded, not the stuff defined later on and referred to as minimal. Playing with this effects and distances of the sounds, I real really like that. Back then, and still today. Absolutely a great track! Getting goosebumps while listening and writing this comment.
I heard some of my older friends talking about this club. It is a shame clubs always open and close so quick. I'm glad that some of my favorite venues aren't that likely to close down anytime soon. But there will be a day.
Yeh, it is always a come and go of clubs. But I think this is actually a must! We have some clubs in Amsterdam for instance that are open for more than 20 years, but to be honest, they became tourist places. They became places for commercial parties and music and all. They simply don't attract the right public anymore, not for me at least. U60 was fantastic indeed. In Berlin the old Tresor was super, the new one is different, but also ok. BUT, maybe the long existence of Tresor gave room for other opportunities, and one of the best clubs ever in the whole wide world emerged, Berghain/Panoramabar. Will they still be there in 10 years? Maybe, and when so, I truly hope the atmosphere didn't change for the worse. But that is so difficult to achieve. But lets see. Time will tell. Back to Amsterdam. I always liked Mazzo very much, and also Club 11. Mazzo is gone. Club 11 is gone. But the owners of Club 11 started Trouw. That one I liked even better than Club 11. And then Trouw was closed, and the owners started De School. And I must say; They created yet another BETTER club than they ever had done before. Maybe this is the best club I have ever experienced in Amsterdam, maybe even in our little country.
What are your favourite venues?
Interesting experience. Great story. Thanks for sharing
Thanks for reading and your support.
Damn. A delay in my browser made me think I didn't follow you... but since I did it did instead unfollow and now I can't seem to follow again. Hopefully I will be able to follow you again soon since I really like the stuff you provide.
Cheers!
Follow button should work, I guess? :) Thanks anyway :)
It did, just had to be a bit patient :) Not my best character but I made it ;)
:)
hi!, i just come here to say hello :)
Thanks for stopping by. Hi :)
I just leave my favorite set from the advent here:
Aaaand:
Thanks for your article! 😎
I added it to the #worldoftechno map !
You can find the map here
And the related article here