Let's hear it for Berlin!
 

Okey,

I'm returning to Berlin tonight, and I thought I'd tap into the wisdom and knowledge of the board to guide me while I'm there...

Where should I go to find obscure/fun/noisy/weird vinyl and CDs?

Any live venues in a similar vein I should track down?

Thanks...

EDIT this shouldn't really be in Sonic Gossip, sorry...

riding on the metroooooooo

On sundays there is flea market in Prenzlauer Berg in the end (or the beginning) of the Topstrasse (between the tennis field and stadium). Also there's a couple of good record stores in Prenzlauer Berg but I can't remember exactly where they were. Last time I was in Berlin in november 2007.

Festsaal Kreuzberg might be that kind of venue you're looking for. I went there with my friends to see gigs of Circle (finnish krautrock/experimental rock band) and Pregnant Testicles (some german noise band). There were also third band, but I don't remember name of it.

i don't know any topstrasse in Prenzlauer Berg, but I believe you are thinking of th flea market in Mauerpark, between Bernauer Strasse and Falkplatz (metro: U2 Eberswalderstrasse).

unless you mean torstrasse, but then I'm confused as to what stadium you could be referring to...

Festsaal Kreuzberg has had a lot of nice concerts, there is also West Germany close to it, another venue which had good concerts...

anyway, i'm not too sure what you are looking for, but here are two record stores which you might find interesting:

Dense Record Shop
Petersburger Strasse 81 / Friedriechshain (used to be in Prenzl. Berg)
U-Bahn: U5 Frankfurter Tor

Staalplaat Records
Flughafenstrasse 38 / Neukölln (used to be in Mitte)
U-Bahn: U7 Rathaus Neukölln or U8 Boddinstrasse

best record shop is probably dense on dangig strasse. festsaal, chokoladen and west germany are all good venues. prenzlauer berg, kreuzberg and friedrichshain are all pretty cool ares and in kreuzberg on bergman strasse and around there are numerous record shops.

he means torstrasse, which is more like mitte.

haha :-D

I mean this:

I have been in Berlin only once, so I don't know the places very well. I think it was this place where the flea market was.

Ah there is indeed a Topsstrasse there...

The flea market is in Mauerpark, which is exactly west of the stadium. Here is a view from the Mauerpark - you can see the lights from the football stadium right behind the hill:




To make it simple, the flea market is about 100 metres (?) behind where this picture was taken (that is in the opposite direction! i'm not sure i'm very clear here).

that brings back a lot of memories. that flea maret was always really busy though, at least as far as i remember.

the path down the middle is actually the old death strip in between the wall. there are a number of tree's there, each one to remember a person who was killed trying to cross at that point.

Yeah, that's the place I meant.

I'm not sure but I think there was also quite good record store on danziger strasse somewhere between schönhauser allee and prenzlauer allee...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UXtort76gY

Also, a surprisingly awesome cover by system of a down:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NucicclOd9E

That would be Dense Record Store, but they have moved to Friedrichshain now (see address above).

i thought everyone was going to neukolln nowadays?

That sounds a hell of a lot more exciting than where I am right now.

Make the most of it, boss.

Heh.