In conversation with .. 7!

Tyreece 

Gegen Berlin 

Bambi Mercury 

Twat Butcher 

Purrja 

ArtKB48 

Maricas

2

www.24bottles.com

premiata.it 

4

FOLLOW US @HOMO_LONDON 

5

Meet The Team 

@marcel_schlutt @naikee_simoneau @nicphilf 

@nico_sutor_ 

@slaterkarl 

Editor-in-Chief 

Fashion Editor 

Art Director 

Art Editor 

Music Editor 

Fashion Editors 

Marcel Schlutt 

mschlutt@kaltblut-magazine.com 

Naikee Simoneau 

nsimoneau@kaltblut-magazine.com 

Nicola Phillips 

nphillips@kaltblut-magazine.com 

Nico Sutor 

nsutor@kaltblut-magazine.com 

Karl Slater 

kslater@kaltblut-magazine.com 

Contributors 

Manuel Moncayo, Lewis Robert Cameron, Johanna Urbancik 

Staff Writer A. Susurration 

On The Cover 

Tyreece photographed by Karl Slater 

Styling by Lewis Robert Cameron 

MUA Martina Derosa using DEPIXYM 

Full Look - Selfhood 

Shoes - Tom Ford 

6 

Full story > p.40 

All Copyright at KALTBLUT www.kaltblut-magazine.com @kaltblut_magazine 

KALTBLUT MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED BY MARCEL SCHLUTT AND NAIKEE SIMONEAU 

All of KALTBLUT´s contributors are responsible and retain the reproduction rights of their own words and images. 

Reproductions of any kind are prohibited without the permission of the magazine, editor and each contributor.

Club Matryoshka > p.52 ArtKB48 > p.60 

Purrja & Twat Butcher > p.66 Bambi Mercury > p.106 

Gegen Berlin > p.126 Ten Cities > p.152 

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Note from the editor 

In the last year, many of us have had to redefine our realities. 

The COVID pandemic not only took lives, it took away the veneer 

of routine we’ve constructed over millennia to make our world 

functional. As we begin to approach what many regard as a 

‘return to normalcy’, a rising number of voices have questioned 

that approach. The pandemic and subsequent series of lockdowns 

have been a horrorshow, no doubt; yet this has also been 

a time of self-reflection, of refocusing and recentering the will 

toward greater and more meaningful pathways outside of the 

capitalistic, Work-Is-Life framework that is slowly killing us all. 

Particularly within the queer community, where outsider status is 

the norm, this idea of forging new paths resonates intensely. It’s 

a baked-in truth that we make our own families; our own bloodkin 

are oftentimes unable or unwilling to connect with us on our 

level. So we gather like minded folks around us, folks who make 

us feel human and loved, who build us up to a place where we can 

create worlds within worlds. When that gets taken away, it can be 

like watching reality disintegrate. 

If one good thing has emerged from this last year, it’s the greater 

focus and willingness to talk about mental health, self-care, 

and community care. Around the world, the queer community are 

channeling this moment and finding new ways to create and connect 

with their chosen families. Like many artists who once plied 

their trade in clubs and festivals, Barcelona’s MARICAS and Manila’s 

Jorge Juan B. Wieneke V found the momentum of continuance 

by creating digital clublands to get lost in. Queer cultural icon 

Alan T, true to his larger than life spirit, has barely slowed down, 

using his sudden acquisition of time to finally kick off a long-gestating 

project with fellow nightlife legend Nicole Moudaber. 

8

New York family Seks 5th 

Ave, Siren Starlite and Dick 

Van Dick have found a tighter 

connection and deeper sense 

of self-peace, while in Taiwan, 

ARTKB48’s Betty Apple 

and Wang Ping-Hsiang stand 

in a unique position of having 

almost no cases of COVID in 

their country at all, due to their 

government’s rapid border closures. 

Thank you for your continued 

work and contribution. To the 

many more grassroots organisers 

out there who have tirelessly 

fought tooth and nail to 

hold onto the spaces that we 

hold so dear, and that we all 

so look forward to returning to 

once this nightmare is over. 

We see you. We’re rooting for 

you. We will dance together 

again. 

In the meantime, come hang 

with me on Second Life under 

the name nicphilf. 

Nicola Phillips, 

Music Editor 

Background image provided by Club Matryoshka 

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10

Elo, Peach, Gina 

ISAbella & Saoirse 

MARICAS 

Photos by PINUSFLASH @freepinusflash 

Interview by Nicola Phillips @nicphilf 

Elo: We founded Maricas in 2018 because we saw a need for 

a queer space in the Barcelona nightlife scene. Most parties 

here are either typical gay parties run by CIS white men, 

with mainstream, uninteresting music, or straight parties 

with even more mainstream, uninteresting music. All of the 

techno events were run by straight men as well; we really 

wanted a space that was ours, where we could have fun and 

hear music that we love. The first midnight event we held, 

it was raining—and when we showed up at 11 there was a 

massive queue stretching around the corner! We knew then 

that this was something bigger than us. As for how we met—I 

went on a Tinder date with her, we went to see her play and 

loved it, we had a crush on her... just lesbians doing lesbian 

stuff. I’m now the grand manager of the collective, from 

Uruguay. 

ISAbella: I’m the resident DJ and booker, from Colombia. 

Gina: I’m the art director and designer, and I’m from 

Barcelona. 

Saoirse: I’m a Maricas resident, producer and promoter as 

well as a radio host, from Ireland and living in London. 

Serena: I’m Serena, I DJ as Peach and I’m also a resident, 

DJ producer and radio host, from Canada but also living in 

London. 

Nicola: So how did you get involved with the collective? 

Saoirse: I’d been following Maricas for a while, as well as 

ISAbella DJing, and I reached out to them to play, which 

ended up happening in Stockholm, I believe… 

ISAbella: We were having a Pride party there, and we’d seen 

her play Boiler Room and she just killed it. We knew we had 

to invite her. 

Elo: We’d actually booked her for Barcelona, but then we got 

this Stockholm thing and we just asked her to come play for 

us. 

Saoirse: It was like three days before I was supposed to play 

Sonar, and I was just like…”Okay!” 

11

Elo: That’s how we met, and I think we both had a big crush 

on each other’s music and personality. When she came to 

play for us in September, it was one of our best parties. 

Gina: One of the best for sure. 

Saoirse: Definitely one of my favorite gigs in the last years. 

Elo: Then we met Serena when we invited her to play one of 

our last parties here... 

Serena: Actually we met before that, at Primavera! 

ISAbella: That’s right, we saw you playing and we went to 

you like, ahhh, how are you, we’re from Maricas! And she 

didn’t know us yet [laughs] 

Serena: But then Saoirse was like, no you definitely have to 

play for them. We both ended up playing the anniversary 

party, pre-pandemic January. 

Nicola: So, how have you shifted during the pandemic? 

Has the lockdown put a damper on your creativity? 

Elo: In the beginning, when the first lockdown happened 

we started this online platform called House of Maricas; 

there was a lot of momentum actually, we started super 

high with this and we did a lot of diverse content, from 

music to exhibitions to performances. The idea behind the 

platform was to raise funds for the artists who had been 

most heavily affected, especially the queer community in 

Barcelona. I think we were happy to realize that we could 

kind of coexist within this world. That lasted two months 

and then we kind of came back down. Once the restrictions 

were eased back, it didn’t make much sense to have so 

much content all the time. 

ISAbella: Once you realize you have so much free time for 

yourself, it’s hard to keep inspiration or productivity all of 

the time. For me personally, I found myself making a lot of 

ambient music as opposed to music for the dance floor. 

Elo: I’m super into ambient music at the moment; I can’t 

really hear beats, nothing like this. 

Nicola: It’s very reflective of the mood, I think. 

Saoirse: I locked myself in the studio for the last year, 

which I’ve never been able to do before, really. That’s one 

benefit, but I actually did it to help with my anxiety and 

mental health. I’ve found that this is one of the only things 

that can take me away from my worry and feeling anxious 

all the time. The second I would get home from the studio, 

all of that anxiety would come rushing back. 

Serena: You’ve made so much amazing music in the last 

year! Meanwhile I’ve been sitting at home doing absolutely 

nothing! I’m just trying to survive! 

Saoirse: I’m so lucky that I was able to get into that 

headspace; I think that if I hadn’t had that chance to 

be creative, I’d have lost my fucking mind. It was my 

meditation. 

Serena: Now I’m feeling better and able to go into the 

studio; maybe it’s feeling more hopeful but also feeling 

more centered and needing to be productive. 

Elo: We also started our label Maricas Records, launching 

it in October of last year, and we’ve done a few stream 

performances, this 3D DJ set for Boiler Room, CTM, some 

other things. 

Nicola: I remember seeing your name listed for CTM, 

which I follow every year. It can get a bit anxious trying 

to see everything there, which I always want to do. So 

for me, seeing that everything was streaming online 

was excellent. How have you felt about this shift in 

digitalization of everything? 

Elo: In the beginning, it was an unknown scene for us; 

we’ve gotten more used to it but it has been a heavy change 

for us. It’s affected our mental health a lot, and we talk 

about this frequently. When we have a party like ours, the 

biggest thing is actually being there, seeing each other and 

supporting each other. In isolation this family feeling has 

broken a bit; even though you can communicate online, 

it’s not the same. 

Nicola: You see the same people every week, at every 

party, and suddenly you’re trapped at home and this 

energy exchange is completely cut off. Have you found 

this affecting friendships? 

Elo: I feel like our close circle, we’re like a family; we take 

care of each other. But on the larger scale of friendships, 

some have gotten lost. It’s a huge change from doing 

events and seeing everyone, and suddenly this input is 

just not in your life anymore. 

Saoirse: A positive that has come out of it is that, because 

a lot of queer collectives have moved online, it’s been 

more accessible for people who live in more isolated 

areas. Having more access to events and content means 

that they’ve maybe been able to forge new friendships that 

way, and I think that should continue even when physical 

events come back. It’s an important resource for people 

who might not live in big cities or be able to go to parties. 

Nicola: That accessibility aspect is very important. Do 

you think that there will be a balance of the two, online 

and offline? 

Serena: I think when events do come back….I don’t really 

see the streaming thing carrying on, at least not in such a 

heavy capacity, but I do think some events will continue 

the practice. Like Club Quarantine has been running out 

of Toronto every Friday, and that’s a fantastic event that I 

think will continue. 

Saoirse: Queer House Party is another event here in 

London doing online events, and sometimes this will 

draw over 2,000 people. They’ve realized that a lot of 

those people aren’t even based in London, they’re based 

everywhere; so I think they’ll want to continue streaming 

their events even when they go live, so that audience has 

this access. 

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13

14

Gina: When everything goes back to normal, we’ll have to take it step-by-step because we have no idea how we’ll be 

affected once things are open again. You go to a space that’s full of people, a massive festival, after so long in isolation; 

we don’t know how this will affect our mental health, how we will react. Merging both online and offline worlds seems 

like the best place to start. 

Nicola: Hypothetically, following a return to normality, what do you think the next steps would be? 

Elo: One of the first things we want to do is to ask our community what they want from us, and how we can change and 

be better. A lot has changed over this year, so we need to know what our community needs in response to this. From 

there we can build events again, but we have to take all of these opinions into account. I think after this, we want to 

build that momentum up again. 

Gina: One thing we want to do, after our 3D experiment, is to turn Maricas into a video game. You can download it and 

it will be like a virtual world, with an avatar you can create and enter our party. We really liked how the Boiler Room 

event went, so we’re talking about this. 

Nicola: Peaches just did a similar thing with Pussykrew; 

I feel like when we do go back to live events, just seeing 

someone DJ won’t be enough because there’s so much 

crazy digital things happening. We’ll want an even more 

immersive experience! But going back to what we were 

talking about before, how can we keep expanding this 

idea of queer accessibility for the future? 

Saoirse: More intersectionality; in London, even though 

there are loads of gay parties and you have SoHo and these 

sort of districts...they’re all very much white CIS mancentric. 

Any sort of intersectional events tend to be very 

ad hoc, in various venues. There’s no space where people 

can go that feels more inclusive, and especially for a city 

as big and multicultural as London that’s something that 

really needs to improve. 

Serena: Also a wider focus on not only parties but 

workshops, art spaces, having various levels that are 

all-encompassing; that’s something that I really want to 

focus on, opening up conversations. And when talking 

about making safe spaces, making sure those straight 

white men are in the room for those conversations so they 

understand. Saoirse is working on a festival right now 

with a concept that I think is very important, that offers 

these different levels: maybe you don’t want to go to a club 

night, but you want to be a part of the conversation, part 

of a panel or workshop without any party aspects. 

Saoirse: One thing that really stuck out for me was that 

there are quite a lot of queer collectives in the UK and 

throughout Europe, but there hasn’t really been anything 

here that’s to scale, that is bringing these collectives 

together and giving them a much bigger platform, as well 

as bringing in local queer talent. All of these UK festivals, 

they all have similar lineups, they’re very dominated by 

the white and the straight. So I’m working on a festival 

with my partner from Little Gay Brother, bringing all 

the collectives like Maricas together and giving them 

their own stage where they can book their residents and 

artists. Aside from being a big rave, I want it to be full of 

workshops, panels, access to skill sharing that many in the 

queer community might not have had access to before. And 

I want to make sure that it’s representative of the actual 

queer scene, as diverse as possible and representing each 

intersection. You look at Pride; it’s been so gentrified and 

commodified. You’re walking in Pride with like...prison 

officers, cops...everything is sponsored— 

15

Nicola: Rainbow flags brought to you by 

McDonalds. 

Saoirse: Exactly, it takes away from it. 

I want this to be Pride, but with every 

intersection represented and actual 

quality, underground music. I’d love to 

see more of that; bringing more collective 

together, the more powerful you become, 

and the more visible. 

Nicola: Do you have a name for it yet? 

Saoirse: Body Movements. 

Elo: We’re all very excited about this 

festival. 

Nicola: When are you hoping for it to take 

place? 

Saoirse: It was supposed to take place last 

year, actually; then we moved it to July of 

this year but we think that’s still too risky, 

as it’s a multi-venue festival that’s mostly 

indoors. So now it’s planned for the 9th of 

October, and it will be an all-day festival 

with afterparties, and in the weeks leading 

up, there will be workshops, skill-sharing 

events, panels. Big project, very daunting. 

Nicola: Very necessary as well. 

Saoirse: I hope that people take inspiration 

from it, and we start to see more things like 

this dotted around the world in different 

cities. 

Serena: I think one of the big things that 

we need to be aware of, that needs to come 

down the pipeline for us in the next few 

years, is being conscious of this co-opting 

of queer culture and politics, people using 

it as a way to promote their brand. I have 

had positive conversations with clubs in 

London where they are doing the work, 

where they want to change their crowd 

and get more queer parties in these bigger 

spaces, which I think is really positive. But 

then it can go the other way, where they 

use queer bookings to say, Look at us we’ve 

gotten all the boxes ticked. 

Elo: And when you have your own crowd 

already in a non-queer space, it’s hard 

to shift that. From our experience, we’ve 

been through several venues in Barcelona 

and we chose the one we’ve used for a 

while now specifically because it didn’t 

have a crowd associated with it. No one 

goes there randomly on a Saturday night, 

because it could be a metal concert, a trap 

party or Maricas. That versatility means 

you never get a random crowd in. 

16

17

Before we found that place, we had 

an offer for our party from one of the 

popular, bigger venues here. We did a 

party there, but they didn’t have the 

experience, team or staff to care for the 

necessities that our crowd needs. For us 

in Barcelona, we have a responsibility to 

give a safe space to our audience, and in 

one sense it is nice to come into these 

bigger venues because you’re invading 

a space that is straight, is CIS, and it’s 

fun to shock a different kind of crowd 

and to show that you exist. But that can 

also go in a bad direction as well. It’s a 

delicate matter, and we try to be careful 

and cautious. 

Saoirse: That’s why there is a need for 

a dedicated queer space, that exists for 

this purpose only. 

Nicola: Even here in Berlin, you have 

these issues with bouncers who 

aren’t trained in these environments 

or situations. I’ve been to one of the 

biggest gay clubs here and was attacked 

by a white CIS male because he was so 

high... long story short, it wasn’t a safe 

space as they claimed to be. 

Elo: The thing is that safe spaces don’t 

really exist. You cannot label something 

as safe; it’s just safer. You can do your 

best, and we do everything that is in 

our power to make it safe, but what 

you really need is a team that is alert 

to what is happening, to have all the 

tools that you can to fix problems if 

they happen, and to create a deep and 

close community. In the end, it is the 

community that comes that creates the 

safe space. 

Serena: Education is one of the most 

important things we can focus on right 

now. I was doing a residency in Leeds, 

which is very young, lots of students, and 

very straight white male-driven. I was 

working with this local queer collective 

Love Muscle, and we were meant to do 

a workshop on understanding safer 

spaces, with an emphasis on educating 

the men in the room. 

Nicola: It’s important to give time to 

people who actually want to learn. 

Being at home and online all the time, 

everything is so under a microscope. 

Cancel culture is out of control; 

as soon as someone says anything 

‘incorrect’ they just get a parade of 

people jumping down their throats. It’s 

an attack as opposed to conversation 

or education. 

18

Serena: It’s difficult; anyone would 

have trouble if they’re not educated 

on something. You have to learn this 

kind of language; if you didn’t go to 

school or studied this, you’re not going 

to understand why people use certain 

words. You need to educate people 

because not everyone is on the same 

page. But also giving time to people who 

do want to learn. 

Nicola: What has this last year taught 

you? 

Saoirse: The past year has really shone a 

light on a lot of the injustices people go 

through; I feel like, at least with us, that’s 

made us a lot more self-reflective. I’ve 

made a point to educate myself more on 

that side of things, and obviously Black 

Lives Matter has been an extra kick up 

the arse in making me more mindful 

of how I move through the world, and 

making sure that what I’m involved with 

is caring for Black lives and for people 

of color. 

Elo: This is very important. I’ve been on 

a loop reading about self-care, caring 

and kindness, which has inspired me to 

leave this city for a new job and path. 

Serena: We all live in these big cities 

that are crazy busy, and reflecting on 

them when they’re standing still is like, 

“Hmm, do I want to live in a big city 

anymore?” But I could never live in the 

countryside [laughs] so… 

Gina: A big farm, all our cats together, 

come on! We’ll have a huge family. I’m 

totally ready. 

@maricxsmxricxs 

@eloblitzer 

@bellasalmonella 

@saoirse_music 

@itspeach_ 

@ginaguaschteam 

19

Seks 5th 

Avenue, 

Dick Van 

Dick & 

Siren 

Starlite 


Will: What’s everyone wearing? 

Nicola: You really want to know what I’m wearing? 

Will: I have my Bruce LaBruce shirt on, because Berlin. If you’ve never seen the movie Hustler White, 

you should see it! 

Nicola: It’s very appropriate, I love it. 

Original photos provided by the artists 

Will: First of all, I’m so happy that we’re able to do this with both of our best friends. It’s really nice to 

be able to work with people that you really care about and who you know what they do, which makes it 

easier to talk with each other about our experiences and where we’re at. Abel and I are Seks 5th Avenue, 

a brand we share together. He does the designing and hands-on work, and I handle everything else. I 

also produce and MC, which was a big part of my life before we started this brand. 

Siren: I’m Siren; I do drag—sometimes—and I’m a designer as well. I met Abel when we were both 

designers for The Blondes, and we just kind of instantly connected annnnd we’re really good friends 

annnnd he’s the best—even when he’s not, sometimes he’s not, but most of the time he is! 

20

21

Dick Van Dick: I’m Dick. Most people know me as sort of a 

club rapper, but I also make clothes, accessories, and these 

sort of costume pieces. I love to help my friends style their 

photoshoots as well. In general, I’m just a bon vivant, I love 

to live well, eat well, play well. 

Nicola: So, obviously a lot has changed over the past year. 

I’m wondering how all of you have been coping with it; 

how has it affected your day-to-day and your work? 

Siren: I used to have a weekly live show on Sundays where I 

would perform, which has not only stopped, clearly, but the 

bar it was at has shut down. It’s sad; I did this party weekly 

for almost two years, but my design work has actually 

picked up during the same time. So I was blessed to have 

that, but it’s so weird to have something that you do every 

week for so long just not be a thing anymore. Now I just do 

it in my apartment—which honestly, I kind of like because 

I get in full face and then just stay home. It’s easier than 

going to a bar. But the idea of that bar not even existing 

anymore is strange. 

Nicola: Had that bar been around for a long time? 

Siren: Not a long time, and it also wasn’t the best location. 

It was really far from the train, actually. One of the reasons 

the party was there was that the owners wanted to make 

the bar more of a thing, and Sunday nights actually became 

a really cool thing. I made them so much money. That space 

was always kind of on the brink, and our one party kept it 

going. 

Nicola: Are you doing drag online as well, like with a 

streaming setup? 

Siren: Because I work full-time as a designer too, drag was 

more...I just do it for fun. It’s always been more of an escape 

for me, and it was a lot of work doing it every week when 

you’re working full-time as well. I’m really grateful for that, 

but now I’ve gotten to the point where I just do it because 

I want to. I’m loving that even more because it’s made me 

remember why I started doing it in the first place. It’s taking 

me back to that more creative space, and in a weird way, the 

last year has been a blessing in disguise. 

Before the pandemic, I was just going going going, no 

brakes, always working, and this was a chance to slow 

down. So I have had more time to seek out people and call 

them, but that chance to just breathe by myself and just 

chill—I don’t think I realized how much I need that until it 

happened, and then I went, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m exhausted!’ 

Nicola: It’s been like a reset button for some, hasn’t it? 

When did you start getting in to drag? 

Siren: I think it was three years ago. I was really good from 

the beginning, and Abel was— 

Abel: I was there the first night you were in drag. 

Siren: With those horrible eyebrows. 

Abel: Yeah… 

22

Siren: I had the worst eyebrows ever. 

Dick: We all had bad eyebrows in the 

beginning, don’t worry. 

Siren: That’s why I make them as small as 

I can! They’re still the hardest part for me. 

Dick: I’ve definitely had the blessing in 

disguise as well, in just having free time 

to do what I want and do it at a pace that 

feels appropriate, instead of having to rush. 

I have a day job as a bartender, I run a bar 

at the top of a restaurant, so I’m usually so 

busy that I don’t have all the time to do what 

I want to do. In the past year I’ve recorded a 

mixtape and half of an album, written most 

of a book...I’ve definitely been able to put 

myself first for a while. I don’t take it easy; I 

need things to do. I feel grateful; it’s a global 

tragedy, but somewhere—at least inside of 

me—was able to improve. I have to try to see 

the good in that. 

Will: I’ve been reading part of that book, and 

it’s like...how do you write a whole fucking 

book?? [laughs] But, yeah. We’ve definitely 

had a much harder time over here. We were 

four months away from the brand launch 

of our business that we just started right 

before the pandemic. Things started really 

excitedly; right away, we connected with 

Patricia Field, and we were supposed to do 

our first meet-and-greet at her showroom. 

We almost had an event with SoHo House 

here in New York. We really felt that all of 

the energy and momentum was cut short, 

and not just for our business. 

Our plan when we started was to be very 

involved with the community; we didn’t want 

to be just, ‘Oh, here’s some clothes you can 

buy’. We didn’t want that at all, we wanted 

to bring people together, bring music into 

it and create a safe space for everyone and 

encourage others to create—’Bring your old 

clothes and we’ll upcycle it together’, all of 

our ideas that we had, suddenly we couldn’t 

do any of them. The connection that we had 

in mind when we made this brand, what 

we wanted it to reflect...we felt like that 

was lost, and we suddenly didn’t have this 

option to present this brand the way that 

we really wanted to. We wanted to have 

Dick and Siren performing, then bringing 

in this DJ or that performer, and really have 

people come together. I’m sure all of us can 

attest to the fact that we’re doing what we’re 

doing because of the community. We’ve all 

connected with people who have inspired 

our art and brought us forward, and now 

we feel isolated from that. 

23

Nicola: Have you considered more online options? 

Will: Not any I like. Like, an online Zoom party… 

Dick: No. 

Will: It wouldn’t be how we wanted to start, because we 

never had our first in-person party. Creating a community 

online is doable, and I believe in that. I’m thankful for 

the internet for allowing people to connect, but we really 

wanted that live space, bitches in drag vogueing next to us. 

It’s hard to recreate that online. As a fashion brand, it’s easy 

to be shallow, and even easier without in-person events. 

Nicola: I’m sure there’s a massive Zoom fatigue at this 

point. 

Will: For sure, and we see the people who are like “the 

biggest” in-person party people in New York City, and 

their Zoom parties didn’t translate. So if even the biggest 

people and the best club nights didn’t translate on Zoom, I 

feel like our things would be like... this interview right now. 

Nicola: How do you think the communities have shifted? 

Are you still in touch with a lot of people? When all of this 

started, everyone was constantly messaging each other 

and checking in, and now I feel like people are giving 

each other more space. 

Will: I personally, Abel and I both, have really lost touch 

with a lot of our friends that we would see and clubs and 

events, even people that I considered close friends that 

we would see all the time. I’m actually very bad at text 

messaging; I think the only person I was really able to 

keep in regular touch with was Dick, Abel, Siren; very few 

others. I lost a few people who I really wish I didn’t, and 

who I think about, and if the club scene was still around 

and we could connect in person, that would never have 

happened. 

Siren: I’m actually really good at talking to people if I want 

to talk to them. I know Abel won’t reach out, that’s just who 

he is so I almost harass him until he answers my phone 

calls. ‘Answer me’. ‘I miss you’. ‘Let’s talk.’ I do feel that with 

my parties, it was a place for all my friends to come hang 

out. And they did, and I’m really grateful for that. But, you 

know, it’s harder when it’s not in person. There’s definitely 

people I don’t talk to as much, but I’m so grateful when, 

for example, Abel answers my calls. When you’re stuck at 

home in isolation, you need these people. It’s maybe not 

the way you would like to communicate with them, but you 

still need it. If the relationship is worth it, you try to make 

it happen. And you can’t do it with everybody, which has 

kind of shown me which relationships were meant to last 

and which ones were maybe a little more frivolous. But the 

ones you can make that online transition with are, I think, 

the ones that mean the most to you and will be the ones 

that stick with you. 

Nicola: There’s definitely different levels to friendship; 

there’s the ones you drink and party with, and the ones 

you can have real in-depth conversations with when you 

feel crappy. 

24

Siren: And that’s okay too! I also learned that; you don’t 

need to put so much pressure on your friendships, it’s okay 

to have surface-level friends and deep friendships. That’s 

been very cool to realize and understand that not everyone 

is going to be the friend I thought and that’s okay too. 

Dick: I’ve managed to keep my relationships with my 

friends around the city. We kept a tight COVID pod of us 

throughout, hanging in parks, taking the ferry around; we 

really got to know a lot of outdoor spaces in that time. There 

have been a few relationships that fell by the wayside, and 

that just had to be okay. I couldn’t be stressing out about 

which relationships were going to maintain themselves 

and which would not. I think we’ve all had time to learn 

what we really need from ourselves and each other, and 

sometimes that means space from people. Trying to create 

an online relationship without a physical onces? It doesn’t 

always work. And that’s okay sometimes. Self-involvement 

is paramount to everything, and I’m not ashamed of that. 

I can only really know myself, and I can only really care 

for myself. If you can do that first, then you can have really 

good interactions with other people. 

Abel: I agree. My experience was a little different from my 

friends and COVID experience. I lost my mother through 

this, and it really makes me see who are the friends who 

will be by my side in difficult times. Especially when you 

can not hug a friend, or be close to them makes it much 

more difficult to stay in touch. 

Nicola: I lost my dad during this whole thing as well, at 

the beginning; I couldn’t go back to the UK, we couldn’t 

have a funeral, so it’s been a very long, hard process. But 

having those friends around me, ones I didn’t even know 

I could count on appearing out of nowhere, sending 

flowers or messages...friends from Manchester even sent 

loads of bagels, which in Berlin are very hard to find in 

good quality. So it’s been a very surreal experience. 

Dick: Self-care is the word of the day. 

Siren: I feel like this has given our introverted friends 

a chance to shine as well, since we don’t do anything in 

person anymore, and I think that’s really interesting and 

cool. It’s changed how I see a lot of my relationships. I don’t 

really have the bandwidth for everyone when I don’t see 

them in person, to set up calls and write a lot of messages 

for these relationships that were easy to maintain before. 

Self-care has actually been forced on us; like, you have to 

really think about yourself first, or you’ll just go crazy. 

Nicola: Being involved with nightlife events you’re around 

so many people all the time, but at home, you have to be 

selective. Especially now that we all work from home as 

well, and office culture has completely disappeared. 

Will: In our scenes as well, when nightlife was actively 

happening, it also brought work and business opportunities, 

connections, all of these things all of the time. You see this 

person, ‘Oh you’re working on this? Oh cute, I’ll message 

you’—that’s been eliminated, and that was a big part of all 

of our art. So now, for us at least, we have to really get every 

opportunity. We have to be focused; if we say, 

25

‘We want to do this’, we have to actively make it happen 

because now there isn’t that natural carousel of 

acquaintances and people you’re always seeing presenting 

new things. 

Nicola: Have you found it working out for you at all? 

Will: It’s interesting; I think we’re really lucky to still 

have opportunities, but it’s definitely different. I feel like 

from that bigger circle of loose acquaintances and club 

people you always say hi to, there were a lot of interesting 

collaborations still. I do feel that void, but we’re still lucky 

enough to be able to connect online. 

Nicola: Has it changed any of your perceptions about how 

you’d run your brand? 

Will: I still want to start engaging the community aspect 

of it as soon as we’re safely able to, like ASAP. I’m already 

looking into the next month or so to have our first pop-up, 

but you have to be vaccinated— 

Siren: Well, I can’t come, f-uuuck! 

Will: [laughs] But I want to start figuring out how to safely 

integrate with the community again, and once that’s more 

common we’re definitely going to get back to having a good 

time. As designers, a lot of our inspiration as well comes 

from being out in New York, being around the girls and 

that life, and imbuing those moods, those experiences into 

our clothing. So a level of our creativity was impacted by 

isolation, so we’ve changed where we found inspiration, 

but we definitely miss that aspect in our work. 

Siren: I don’t think I’d want to do a weekly party again; 

rediscovering this joy in drag, I don’t want to lose that 

again. When it becomes a job, it’s something different, and 

I honestly don’t think I’ll do this as a job ever again in that 

sense. A lot of us have realized that, what makes us happy 

and brings us joy, we do so many things in our lives that 

aren’t conducive to that or work against it, everything has 

to come down to a paycheck, always going all the time. And 

since I realized I don’t need to do that, I can do things that 

I like for myself. We’re so forced into leading one type of 

life—go here at this time, every day. When you’re free from 

that, so many more opportunities show themselves. 

Abel: It’s forced people to be more creative too. I feel like 

there are more artists making things, using whatever they 

have at home because it’s harder to get things now. 

Will: We have this custom thing we’re working on, and 

some of the materials that were readily available before we 

just can’t get right now. 

Sirene: You mean the custom thing you’re making me that 

I’ve been waiting on? 

Will: [laughs] That’s the one! 

Nicola: Being part of the queer community, we tend to 

find ourselves stumbling into a kindof “chosen family”. 

Would you say that’s accurate in your case? 

26

Will: I think all gay and queer people have 

this conversation a lot, about chosen family. 

It’s something that’s very important to queer 

people. Abel is my partner, but he’s also my 

family. When we think about brothers and 

sisters, we do think about Dick and Siren. 

Especially before the pandemic, we love 

making our house a space where people can 

come. I love having dinners and gatherings, 

especially because we’re all from different 

places. I think none of us have any blood 

family in New York. So when we do these 

things together, we are each other’s family. 

We’re everything to each other, which is 

why I have a hard time getting rid of even 

surface friends. Those quick hellos to 

people we’d see all the time, that felt like a 

big family, where you know if you go here 

at this time you’ll see 30 people you can 

give hugs to, who you’ve shared moments 

with, and that’s family to me. You can have 

a supportive blood family, but I think that 

we really are, sometimes, all we have in our 

daily lives when we really need the support 

of our queer brothers and sisters. 

Abel: For sure. 

Siren: I came here because I needed a place 

where I felt I could finally be myself. I love 

my parents, but they’re so Christian and 

conservative that I’m never going to be able 

to have this kind of relationship with them. 

Ever. So being able to have the support and 

acceptance from other people who you 

can really be yourself with, that is what’s 

so important, and needed and necessary. 

I think about Abel, he’s one of my best 

friends, he’s so important to me and such 

a necessary person in my life because he’ll 

be honest with me even when I don’t want 

it. He truly cares, and I’m so lucky to be able 

to build that relationship. That’s what New 

York is for so many people... 

Dick: We did all move to New York to be 

ourselves, for sure. 

Will: I was born and raised in Canada, Abel 

was born in Argentina— 

Abel: In Mendoza, a very small town. I 

always dreamed of having friends like Dick 

or Siren, and now they’re my family. 

Dick: Will’s mom is like my mom, I call her 

separate from calling Will! It’s just nice to 

have these relationships that don’t feel... 

forced on us, or foisted on us maybe, that we 

ourselves have reached out for. It’s a huge, 

huge difference. My family...I love ‘em, but if 

I had to choose between spending time with 

Will and Abel, or an uncle or cousin... 

27

you know, the chromosomes don’t really matter. It’s an 

obvious choice. 

Siren: You make that choice, and when you get that love 

back from that person you know it’s the right choice, that 

the trust you put in was returned. When you find that, it’s 

magical. You take that chance, you’re nervous, and when 

that person returns that trust...there’s nothing else like 

that. 

Dick: It’s like finding the perfect pair of shoes. 

Siren: That’s it, that’s the best metaphor for it. You’re like 

Robert Frost. 

Nicola: How was the New York club scene pre-pandemic? 

In places like London, there were already a lot of smaller, 

safe spaces being shut down, mostly due to gentrification. 

Will: [heavy sigh] Yeah...I feel like right before this 

happened, there were fewer things, and those were the 

bigger things—large gay parties as opposed to smaller 

artsier parties. But Dick is the resident club kid here. 

Dick: Pre-COVID, compared to 10 years ago there’s 

definitely fewer spaces in New York City that feel like ours, 

in that sense. There used to be these parties that were 

legendary, like VANDAM on Sundays. You could go and see 

literally everybody, and there used to be a lot more of these 

kinds of things. It’s like the death of the middle class. High 

production values, big parties, Susanne Bartsch. Or it’s a 

cool DIY basement in Bushwick. There’s kind of nothing in 

the middle anymore. It makes it hard to find your niche 

sometimes. 

Nicola: Did you feel there was a resurgence for 

underground parties before COVID? 

Dick: It was on its way, but now I think it has to happen, it’s 

imminent. There was that rave under the bridge, and it was 

thousands of people. Thousands. I’m not saying I went, but 

if I had—it was really fun. If I had gone, I had a great time, 

wore a mask, stayed away from people and felt totally safe. 

But nightlife is going to be a shaky place until everyone is 

vaccinated. I run a bar, so I was in the first wave of folks to 

get the vaccination. It was Moderna. 

Siren: Any side effects? 

Dick: Minimal side effects. Half of my family got Pfizer, 

half Moderna, and all of us had minimal side effects. A little 

muscle ache, little headache. Nothing crazy. Get it as soon 

as you can. 

Nicola: So what comes next, once you can go back out and 

start doing things again? What has this year taught you? 

Dick: What I’ve learned most from the last year is this— 

love yourself. I mean reeeeeallly love yourself. Actively. 

Siren: The things we’ve been so constrained by don’t 

matter. Not taking these things seriously, I think, is where 

you find your true creative side and that sort of freedom. 

I’m really trying to find ways to be that person I didn’t 

realize was buried under all that shit. I feel like Thoreau at 

Walden and whatever bullshit he brought up. 

Abel: I hope that things will go back to normal, but I’m 

cautious. I still don’t see myself in a packed indoor club 

anytime soon. 

Will: It’s going to take a while for us, but we’re really 

excited. We just got our first vaccination, and we’re really 

looking forward to how it will feel, actually going out, and 

to feel less pressure to feel safer. But the time before, we 

never imagined this at all. We were innocent, and now 

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to just hug someone as 

spontaneously. 

Siren: I’m hugging you both when I see you, sorry. 

Will: It’ll get there for everyone hopefully, but it will definitely 

take some time. I’m not even sure if masks will go away, or if 

they’ll be part of our lives forever. But I hope we can find that 

same level of freedom again, to be able to connect with the 

moment and let loose without thinking of any of this bullshit. 

The few people we have in our lives...we need to appreciate 

them and try to be conscious of every moment we can be 

with them, because moments go so quickly, and we need to 

cherish them. 

@seks_5th_avenue 

@thickrosstheboss 

@sirenstarlite 

28

29

Alan T & Nicole 

Moudaber 


Collages by ALAN T @fiercenessis 

Gecko: [ethereal honking] 

Nicola: What is that? 

Nicole: It’s a gecko. I’m in the middle of 

a jungle right now! You get used to it; I 

have two that stroll through the garden 

sometimes, and they’re massive. 

Alan: It’s beautiful here, I don’t want to 

leave. But—thank god we’re back to work! 

Alan: So you’re in London right now 

[Nicola]? 

Nicola: I’m in Berlin. 

Alan: Ahh, chasing the ‘80s again! 

Nicola: That’s why I have this mullet cut. 

Alan: Everyone’s chasing the ‘80s again; 

it’s like, guys—everyone’s dead! To be able 

to live through this amazing period and 

to still be alive to tell about it. So many 

people have died. I buried everybody; 

the more famous they were, the faster 

they went, it was terrible. There’s not 

many left, but whenever we talk it’s like, 

‘Wow...I can’t believe we made it.’ [laughs] 

Everyone wants to fist again; that’s so 

‘80s! I’m an ‘80s rat, oh my god. I went 

to school in London in the ‘80s, at the 

Architectural Association in Bedford 

Square. Best school in the world. I studied 

with Nigel Coates, a lot of big architects, 

which was the thing to do back then. Then 

I moved to Rome with my lover. 

Nicola: That’s so romantic. How long 

did you stay? 

Alan: 12 years. It was very romantic, 

but it was before cell phones. Italy’s so 

difficult with convenience, especially 

back then. To pay my loans, I used to have to go to American Express, 

get traveller’s checks, and just pray that they got to America because 

the post is also horrible in Italy. It was a lot. But it was like graduate 

school for me; it was a course on life. Every night you would meet the 

same people for dinner, and it was written in stone that you would 

meet at 9pm, no matter what you were doing. I remember ordering 

Aunt Jemima pancake mix at the Vatican! I would have these pancake 

parties, all these Italian queens would come over and be grossed out. 

Italians loved America, there was a real camaraderie there but they 

are not fans of big breakfasts. 

Nicole: Just coffee and cigarettes for me. 

Alan: God, I haven’t done a Zoom in a long time! I was doing them at 

the beginning of the lockdown, but then I just got turned off by them. 

Everyone was doing so much online, it was just like euuuch. 

Nicola: I think everyone has Zoom fatigue right now. 

Alan: Some people were losing it on camera; god, what’s that 

French DJ? Tip of my tongue...he was really losing it...dressing up 

a mannequin, it’s like dude. And he had hundreds of thousands of 

followers...Bob Sinclar! People I know who hadn’t slept in years were 

sleeping, finally living their best lives, looking and amazing, but he 

just looked so gaunt and emaciated. 

Nicola: People finally had the time to reset, to put on a real face 

filter. 

Nicole: The first three months of the pandemic, I was in a catatonic 

state. I just couldn’t believe it, especially that the rug had been pulled 

from under my feet. I knew that it wasn’t going to be finished in two 

weeks like everyone was saying, as they partied and got drunk. I 

took it quite seriously and was quite affected by it. But after, when 

I started working with Alan, that ignited my motivation again. I got 

super excited about it; it took longer than I normally do things in— 

Alan: Because you had more time to nitpick, and you thought I was a 

really critical queen so you were extra. 

Nicole: Bouncing ideas back and forth, yeah. It was the fun part of 

2020 for me; it was the best thing that could have happened in the 

state of mind I was in. I didn’t take any substances: no alcohol, nothing 

during that time. Which was amazing, giving my body and mind a 

break. But it took me six months to get to the point of creativity. 

30

Alan: Nicole, she was travelling so much; we’ve been 

talking about this project for years now, because her 

roadie-slash-manager Kevin has been a good friend 

of mine since he managed Danny Tenaglia, who’s my 

best friend. The schedule just didn’t permit it. But in 

lockdown we were having these WhatsApp conversations 

all the time, discussing all these designers like Zandra 

Rhodes and Katharine Hamnett, and then we just 

started talking about projects. In the beginning, there 

was this undivided attention; people were really more 

focused than before. 

Nicola: I think it really made people realize what’s 

important. 

Alan: And what kind of arsenals you actually have at 

hand! I was doing these collages of club photos that I’ve 

had for 30 years, and people were so nostalgic that they 

were buying them like crazy! I couldn’t make them fast 

enough. I worked at YMC Records, which all the big DJs 

used to go to back in the day. It was a really instrumental 

part of many people’s careers, such a hothouse of talent. 

I had all this promotional material and literature in my 

hands, and I would always take a piece and put it in my 

pocket. Even at clubs, I would always save the flyers. 

That whole kind of paper trail is nonexistent now, but it 

was a huge part of people’s lives and profession, of their 

success. It was how you found out about everything! We 

used to go downtown to Patricia Fields, where everyone 

used to go to get their outfits for the big New York nights, 

and the flyers would all be there. You could figure out 

who your tribe was through the literature. 

Nicola: I love the fact that people are looking back at 

this history and realizing how important these times 

were, especially for the queer movement; it reminds 

you of why Pride exists in the first place. It wasn’t 

always this big sponsored party weekend. 

Alan: I do all the Pride parties, they always book me for 

those because I have this weird...bridge with the hetero 

community and the gay community. I have this huge 

arsenal from the gay community; it’s weird, I feel like 

I’m a vehicle to merge the two, but not merge them if 

you will? To take things from each...gays dream of being 

popular in the straight world and vice versa, everyone 

wants what they don’t have. I’ve always been kind of 

non-binary in that way. 

Nicola: People sometimes forget that you don’t have to 

please everyone all of the time. 

Alan: If you stand for what you believe in both camps... 

it’s when you start to mask things and conceal them, 

where it’s not transparent that I think people get a 

little dubious. I’m very transparent. I have no filter; 

whatever’s on the top of my head I say it. People are 

alarmed by that, but they get used to it. All of my 

employees are so used to my cock jokes, and straight 

men I’ll just walk up to and go ‘Oh my god, how did that 

bitch get you?!’ and people are like whaaat?? 

31

People like that validation from 

someone from another camp. But you 

have to be consistent! If you just do it 

once in a while… 

Nicola: No, it’s true. 

Alan: People are like, ‘You’re lucky they 

don’t call HR on you.’ I’m like, ‘What 

HR?’ 

Nicola: I think people really take that 

for granted, people being honest. 

Alan: They’re so used to people just 

pussyfooting around, it’s like ughhhh. 

Nicola: I get that same feedback 

sometimes, but I’m in Germany. 

Germans don’t beat around the bush 

Alan: They don’t! I knew Helmut 

Newton, and he was brutally honest, 

but he was so matter-of-fact about it 

that it was just like if you don’t like it 

then keep going! People thought that 

he was this sex machine, that he just 

wanted tits, which came out through 

his work. But he had a wife that he 

was so dedicated to. People were like, 

‘Aren’t you appalled by your husband, 

putting Claudia Schiffer naked in high 

heels in front of an oven??’ and she was 

like, ‘No, I was right there helping him 

do it.’ She just died like a week ago, 

actually. 

Nicola: I feel like the controversy 

with Nobuyoshi Araki, he took a lot 

of Polaroids of the same woman, his 

muse basically, and she came out 

later saying that she wasn’t 100% 

comfortable being in that position… 

Alan: I mean if it’s a voyeuristic thing... 

Andy Warhol was like that. He liked 

to watch people degrate. He cast my 

penis when I was 15 years old! I was 

screwing around with a guy who was 

very good looking, Victor Hugo, who 

was this gorgeous Venezualan boy who 

happened to be a stylist, so he would 

do the windows. He became pretty 

popular because he was so loud about 

his work; he would do abortions for 

Mother’s Day on Madison Ave., all this 

crazy stuff, red paint all over everything. 

So I was screwing around with him, and 

Andy Warhol was obsessed with his penis. 

But he told Andy, ‘You should cast Alan’s 

penis!’ So he asked me if I was up for it 

and I said sure, let’s do it! In those days, 

everyone had a taste of something, you 

know? But it wasn’t sexual; it was just 

plaster, 1-2-3 let’s do it. I wish I had it, I’d 

be rich! 

Nicola: So you started off in Miami? 

Alan: I’m a native; I was born here but I 

went to New York to model before I went 

into engineering school. Then I came 

back to Miami for university before going 

to London in ‘88. Then one more year of 

school in Miami before I moved to Italy— 

and then back to New York! In ‘91 New 

York was still hot, but it wasn’t like the 

‘80s, that’s for sure. By 2000 everywhere 

here fizzled; ‘04 was I think the last of it. 

Nicola: Did you have much to do with 

the Club Kid scene? 

Alan: I just got a new book on the 

Limelight, actually! It’s beautiful. 

Nicole: That was such an incredible place. 

Alan: Getting blowjobs in the Rectory, 

oh my god. It was Disco 2000, that whole 

crew with Michael Alig, James St. James...I 

took him home one night, oh my lord. 

That was scary. 

Nicola: Why? 

Alan: Because he needed one drug to go 

up, he needed one to go down, it’s like 

pick a direction you want to go! They were 

doing heroin, MDMA, cocaine, ketamine, 

just cruising down every direction of 

the highway at once. It made no sense. I 

wasn’t so much in with the Club Kids as 

I was with the Voguing scene; that was 

more my thing. The Club Kid scene was 

32

Nicola: Would you say you found good 

friendships in the vogue scene? 

like, a lot of white people...meh. It was more 

this pre-trance... 

Nicole: You can’t really dance to that, can 

you? 

Alan: Well, they didn’t really dance, more 

just bobbed up and down. Then they got 

into this Electroclash stuff, which was more 

them… 

Nicole: Very. 

Alan: And that was more fun, like this ‘80s 

thing, always stealing from Italo or The 

Flirts with Miss Kittin or whoever on top, 

you know? It didn’t have much longevity. I 

like more of the soulful music, deep house, 

and I was very good friends with David 

Detino. So I was more in that camp before 

Madonna swept them up and hired them. 

So I would go to all the balls, lend them 

clothes to walk in... 

Nicola: So how accurate is Pose? 

Alan: It’s pretty spot-on! They had to hold 

a bit back for TV because there was some 

serious stuff, you know; some of the leading 

members of the Houses, the kids would die 

and they would mummify them. Partially 

because they were broke, and also because 

it was part of like a Santeria, keeping them 

alive type-of-thing. Angie Xtravaganza and, 

I think it was Dorian Corey, they found 

these bodies, these mummies under their 

floorboards. A friend of mine got married, 

and the wedding announcement was in 

the New York Times and on the back page 

it was this leading story about Angie dying 

and the police finding two bodies under 

the floorboards. Yeah. Crazy. But it was 

part of that whole being an outcast, plus 

the Santería...it’s underworld stuff. There’s 

a reference to it, actually, in Pose where—I 

think it’s Candy?—keeps a body in the 

house. That’s a vague reference to it. I think 

the show could have gone deeper into the 

artistry behind it, what goes into making 

these vogue tracks, but maybe that’s a little 

too deep for TV. 

Alan: Oh yeah. Which is hard because it 

was very, very...what people talk about, 

flimsy and light, but it was deep if they 

accepted you. If they accepted you it 

was a rite of passage, it was the real 

deal. They’re very, very apprehensive 

of people. I was trying to get them into 

the real world with famous designers, 

and this was way before ‘Vogue’ came 

out, and these designers were wanting 

them to participate in their shows. I was 

getting them gigs in Milan to walk for 

these famous collections, and they would 

get to the airport and not realize that you 

needed documentation! These are trans, 

non-binary kids but not having an ID of 

any sort….so I just gave up a bit because I 

looked like an idiot with these designers, 

hooking them up with people who don’t 

even have an ID. 

Nicola: But if they weren’t educated 

about that, I guess they wouldn’t have 

any idea. 

Alan: It just shows you how different 

times are; there weren’t any phones, 

although now I imagine they would still 

have problems with two-step verification. 

Nicola: So this issue is about the queer 

community, and finding your chosen 

family. Myself, I have a small, not very 

close family, and the people I would 

consider my actual family are not 

blood-related. 

Alan: That’s how I became close with 

Nicole actually. 

Nicole: We met in Miami, didn’t we? Early 

2000s... 

Alan: Exactly. We met through a lot of 

Danny Tenaglia events because of Mitch 

Clark. 

33

We would meet at these functions that were insane, 

these meetings of the minds like Art Basel where 

everyone would converge, and it was like visiting your 

family for the holidays. We’d just dance for 18 hours and 

talk about everything from what we were wearing to 

what we were eating, it was the time to spill that tea. 

From there we developed friendships that turned into 

mailing packages to each other, sending music, all the 

good stuff you do with family. 

Nicole: We kind of bonded more in 2020, I think. We 

stopped our lives, and we just connected more. 

Alan: It was undivided attention, instead of rushing 

through with luggage in one hand and a ticket in the 

other. [laughs] 

Nicola: And also just taking that time off from 

drinking and partying can be such a mental boost for 

creativity. 

Alan: Alcohol is just the worst. I don’t even drink when 

I go out. 

Nicole: I was never a drinker as such, and these days I 

do it two or three times a year. I select when I’m going 

to get completely trashed; it has to be an occasion. 

Alan: All the young hipsters now are drinking these old 

alcohols, these anise alcohols that my grandma would 

drink! I thought I’d take my first anise shot and I was like, 

oh—I had this when I was a child! [laughs] They’re out 

here drinking old lady drinks! 

Nicola: I remember when Pernod and Coke became 

a thing; when you mix them they turn gray. It’s the 

worst looking drink I’ve ever seen. 

Alan: That sounds English! ‘A little baked beans on 

toast?!’ That goes right there with that Marmite. 

Nicola: Marmite’s amazing! 

Alan: I can’t. I can’t, I can’t. When I used to have my 

Prisoner parties in London, they’d bring out that 

Marmite, I was like girl. Try the bruschetta instead. 

Nicola: Wait, what’s a Prisoner party? 

Alan: Prisoner, that Australian show? [singing] ‘He used 

to give me rooosessss…’ I used to have watching parties 

at my house on Thursdays and make all these incredible 

pestos, pasta dishes, and all these queens would come 

over—Marc Almond, Leigh Bowery, and they’d be eating 

Marmite! Like, how dare you! I’d much rather a scone. 

34

35

I used to live in this place off Marble Arch, and there 

was this East End cafe where all the cab drivers 

would go with the most insane scones. They’re the 

size of a frisbee, huge. I love ‘em. I’d go in at noon 

for crumpets, cream and tea and just make my way 

through London, eating. I’d end up on Canterbury 

Street with fish and chips wrapped in newspaper. 

In the ‘80s was a place up on Baker Street, this 

kickass vegetarian kitchen right behind the YMCA, 

and they would serve these super organic dishes 

every night. I’d always go there at the end of all that. 

All the hippies would go there, and I’d stumble in 

wearing my leather drag and long blonde hair and 

they’d go, “Where are you coming from, American?’ 

Wearing all leather while eating vegetarian. 

Nicola: That sounds like every expat Berliner 

now! 

Alan: Well, I was doing it in the ‘80s, so there. 

Nicola: Alan, how did you move from architecture 

into the music industry? 

Alan: It was funny; I was put on a record by a 

producer and famous writer who liked my voice. 

They used a sample from an answering machine on 

a Jody Watley record, and it blew up! People were 

like, ‘I love that voice, we gotta get him in a studio!’ 

and I just went off for two hours. That session 

ended up on a record called The Door that I did in 

‘96, and when it came out people were going crazy! 

Gay, straight, you name it, all of these producers 

were calling me. It was funny because the record 

was very sassy, about working the door at a club, 

and I’d never worked the door at a club the way I 

am now! I was just kind of transmitting all of the 

people I’d developed as a kid, all that sassiness, onto 

this record. It was this rapid-fire, verbose stream 

of consciousness, insulting and complimenting 

people all at once. So I started doing records for 

everybody. 

Over here, the architecture...the construction 

is meh, the craft isn’t that great. I don’t want to 

redefine how people are taking a shit without being 

paid for it, you know? The music aspect just kind 

of took over. But if you go through the rigorous 

course of studying architecture, it prepares you 

for anything. I went to school for 10 years, nonstop, 

and what got me through it was listening to 

music—live sets from Frankie Knuckles while I’m 

doing all-nighters on speed. We were so brutal on 

ourselves, wow; pouring resin and going to bed, 

not even thinking about the damage to our brains. 

Wooof. 

Nicola: What are you doing now? 

Alan: I’m the head doorman here at Club Space in 

Miami. It keeps me very busy and they pay me very 

well. 

36

Nicola: Has it closed down temporarily during the 

pandemic? 

Alan: We opened at Halloween at 20%. We’re doing 

very well; we developed these pods, and it’s become 

like a nature escape a little botanical garden, if you 

will. It’s very much about going to a jungle and feeling 

the plant life around you, all to a DJ. There’s groups 

of 10, and it’s tables only so you just get together 

with friends and have a ball. People love it more than 

mingling, and in your own pod, you can have your 

mask off. We test every week, and I’ve been vaccinated. 

The health department came to me because I’m such 

a public figure and said, ‘We’re sick of you tagging us 

every week when you test. Let’s get you the vaccine.’ 

Popularity got me a vaccine! How are things over 

there? 

Nicola: Really bad, to be honest. They just announced 

a new hard lockdown and loads of people are 

refusing to take it so they’re just throwing it away. 

It’s a complete nightmare. 

Alan: The thing I find is that nobody is on the same 

page. And that’s a big problem at this scale; Brazil is 

going through a major crisis right now, the hospitals 

are overrun. If you have a heart attack you can’t even 

get a bed. It’s insane. 

Nicola: It’s interesting to see how people and their 

governments have acted individually. 

Alan: Canada’s a mess too. Nobody can get a vaccine. 

I know people who work for big figures there with big 

money who can’t get a vaccine. It’s a major lockdown 

situation. I used to go to Canada so much in the early 

2000s, I loved it. Total debauchery. 

Nicole: I love Canada. Especially Stereo, I played there 

twice a year for a time, 14-hour sets. 

Alan: I did the opening of Stereo, and I’ll never forget 

it. It was three days long. But when the Village died 

down, Montreal got boring. 

Nicole: What happened there? Why did the gay scene 

disappear? 

Alan: In Montreal? 

Nicole: Everywhere! I mean, it completely disappeared 

in London… 

Nicola: Yeah. 

Alan: Which is so weird, there are so many powerful 

queens in London! 

Nicole: I know, Trade, honey! We started that shit way 

before places like Berghain and all that. 

Alan: Oh my god, Trade. 

37

Nicole: The best thing ever! 

Alan: Alan Thompson used to turn 

me out. Those beats were so fast, 

and they made everything work! 

They could play a mellow rock song 

over that shit, it was crazy! 

Nicola: What do you think did 

happen to the Village then? 

Nicole: I think maybe we just 

blended more, mixed together with 

the general populace. We’re not as 

segregated as we were in the past. 

Which is a good thing, because why 

would you want to be segregated all 

the time? It’s much more fun and 

more creative with other people. 

Alan: I used to dabble in all of the 

clubs—grab a guy in the straight 

one, then go over to the gay one and 

work, then maybe go grab another 

straight one...I was barrier-free. I 

never found much meaning in the 

gay clubs; it was always quick sex. 

I’d go to the straight ones to find the 

long relationships. I like the closet 

cases, actually; I can be so much 

more fertile, free, because they like 

you for those attributes. It’s like, 

well stick around and get more! 

Here I am, honey! 

Nicola: What about the scene in 

Miami? 

to work now that everything is 

opening again, but people got really 

creative again. 

Nicola: Do you think that even when 

the clubs open up again, these illegal 

raves will continue? 

Alan: I think so. People get a taste for 

an alternative, and then they want 

that. That’s why so many people 

came here, to Miami...everyone 

from LA, so many Europeans. In 

Canada they’re saying be inside by 

8pm now, and they’re fining you a 

thousand bucks or more if they catch 

you. LA is locked down indefinitely, 

everyone there is coming here. And 

now people with the vaccine are still 

catching it, and what’s that about? 

It’s like there’s no end in sight. 

Nicole: I think this is going to last at 

least five years. At least. 

Alan: That’s why I’ve been doing my 

best to support smaller businesses. 

One thing that I think is horrible: 

everything here is open, all the 

restaurants—except for the Chinese 

places. There’s such a raging 

prejudice right now that none of 

the Chinese places will even open. 

They’re just doing take-away. Every 

other faction of Asian culture is 

open, but not the Chinese. 

Nicole: Wow; that is very weird. 

Alan: Oh yeah. The beach was 

totally gay-operated. But they didn’t 

feel safe anymore so they moved 

up to Fort Lauderdale. Whenever 

gay people move into a spot, the 

straights catch on and go, ‘Oh wow, 

this spot got so nice now’ so they 

move in and push out the gays, 

or they get threatened and they 

leave. The Versaci murder really 

put the nail in the coffin. I actually 

got taken into questioning for that, 

because I had let Cunanan into the 

VIP room the night before. I knew 

a lot of people under investigation 

because they had either chatted him 

up or seen him. He had two queens 

on his murder list that I knew. It 

was horrible, and it really ended 

everything here. But since lockdown, 

people are really spreading out, 

taking over hangars, warehouse 

districts. I’m not sure how it’s going 

38

Alan: I mean I just want dim sum 

and a kiki, you know? And the cruise 

ship industry, that’s done. That’s 

just over. I know a lot of big music 

people who were in the cruise ship 

industry for 30 years, and now it’s 

just like, sorry. Find another job. 

I mean really, they were the worst 

ones for spreading disease. If you 

ever went on a gay cruise, you would 

not believe it. Those gay boats are 

insane. I did one four years ago—oh 

my god. 24 hour a day themed parties, 

5700 queens on one boat. And I was 

sober the whole time, taking craft 

classes to fix necklaces, I was such 

a queen. And they would fly in the 

entertainment by helicopter! Olivia 

Newton John, Jennifer Holiday, all 

these people being flown in. Imagine 

5000 queens T dancing to ‘Let’s Get 

Physical’! It’s atrocious on one end, 

but so camp that you have to love it. 

Nicola: So what are you working on 

next? 

Nicole: I’m playing Seismic Festival 

in May, and Skyline in Orlando. I 

can’t wait to do these shows; it’s 

been a long time since we played for 

people. 

Alan: I’ll be there as well. 

Nicola: I’ll have to come next year. 

I have a fringe leather jacket I’m 

dying to wear in the US. 

Alan: Okay, George Michael, come 

through. [singing] I won’t be your 

father figure! Although now people 

are more interested in hearing 

what you have to say, I think. The 

young kids on my Instagram are 

just like, wow. They’re all over it. I’m 

not afraid to post my age anymore 

because they’re like, ‘Wow, you’ve 

made it so far!’ You know that whole 

age-shaming thing, ‘oh you’re so 

old-fashioned’...but now people 

think it’s cool to have those notches 

on your totem. 

Nicola: People are thinking about 

their mortality more. 

Alan: I lived through the ‘80s and 

the AIDS pandemic! And when 

people see me still out there, living 

loudly they say, ‘You’re such a role 

model for me, thank you for these 

videos, these photos.’ And I’m doing 

it safely, I’m doing it responsibly. 

Nicola: You have to keep up morality. 

Alan: I’m an Aquarius! 

Nicola: And it’s Aquarius season. 

Alan: It’s always Aquarius season. 

[laughs] 

@fiercenessis 

@nicolemoudaber 

39

Total Slag: 

Tyreece 

the Next 

Destroyer 

Creative Direction + Photography Karl Slater @slaterkarl 

Styling + Interview Lewis Robert Cameron @lrcfashionstylist 

MUA Martina Derosa using DEPIXYM @martinaderosa_mua 

Talent Tyreece Nye @tyreece2.0 

40

Wish granted. KALTBLUT chats to the 

delicious bundle of energy, joy, charisma, 

uniqueness, nerve and tal-unt that is 

Tyreece Nye. A certified lewk kween, 

a TikTok trendsation, an all round 

magnetic gender non-conforming human 

being, a POC, a dancer and sex worker 

and now, the triumphant WINNER of 

one of the most talked about queer reality 

TV shows in herstory aka Slag Wars. I’m 

talking Slag royalty as the Next Cock 

Destroyer and the heir to Cock Destroyer 

dynasty. Gentlefolk, start your engines, 

and may the best Slag…win. Disclaimer, 

no slags were harmed in the making of 

this interview. 

OMG. You’re a winner baby. How did 

being on the show expand what you know 

about yourself and your queer identity? 

The show taught me that queer identity is 

special. How you choose to identify has 0% 

to do with anyone else but 100% to do with 

you. We don’t have to explain ourselves and 

make people understand who we are. We 

are not the status quo. Queer identity is 

unique. And rightly so. 

Has Slag Wars changed how you see 

yourself? 

Slag Wars hasn’t actually altered me as a 

person. Being on the show itself hasn’t 

altered me really, but knowing the outreach 

of people from my GNCPOC community 

who listened to my story and identified 

with me gave me an extra drive to be 110% 

myself. That added notion of people looking 

up to me and becoming inspired by me by 

the way I dress or how I present myself on 

social media brings a deeper meaning to 

‘I’m just Tyreece’. 

Choker - House of Pascal 

Bodysuit -The Kript 

Boots - Pleaser 

How do you think your style has 

evolved since being on the show? 

My style has become instantly 

outrageous. And I say that with 

the most amount of love I have 

for myself, which is a lot. My 

taste level has definitely received 

an upgrade in an elevated/ 

expensive perspective expressing 

the message and stamp of 

queerness that truly represents 

my personality. I honestly have 

two moods. I either have bundles 

of pink tulle garments and dresses 

with trains giving pink princess 

realness; or I have my punk buckled 

up pleather outfits which are 

much more suited to nightlife. I’m 

basically Hannah Montana. 

41

Dress - Misty Couture 

Corset - Adidas Originals 

42

Bralet - Public Desire 

Dress - Ana Ljubinkovic 

Corset - House of Namaste 

43

How did you create your online persona? 

It was only about a year ago I started really delving into my online identity. I 

basically had to start from scratch because last year my account was permanently 

deactivated so I had to make a new one. I promised myself that I would not post 

anything that didn’t promote who I truly am. We often hear people say “you don’t 

need to make being gay your whole world‘’ or you aren’t extra like most gays’’ 

etc. and that really stuck with me. So I decided I was going to make being gay my 

whole existence. It is who I am and what makes me happy, being my gay/queer/ 

non-binary bad self. It is my suit of armor. 

Your content is so fun and dripping with fierceness. Where do you get your 

ideas for your content and where does this confidence come from? 

Honestly. So many places. It comes from my love of comics, worshipping runway 

icons and striving to create the type of fashion editorials that make people stop 

and look. 

You are very empowering in expressing yourself when it comes to wearing 

clothes. Describe how you feel when you wear these looks we see you strutting 

in? 

I feel like I am the last human to ever walk a runway. I love turning a look or a 

moment and making a total spectacle on the streets of London. Showing off in 

public in an outrageous outfit is such a rush for me. It’s a feeling of G-Force, 

like a sudden flow of air into your lungs. It’s more empowering for me to be in a 

public space than in a studio because if I’m going to look this good I expect there 

to be an audience. 

What would your dream queer space look like? 

My dream queer space would probably have to be a nightclub. A nightclub or a 

festival or a queer event that everybody feels safe and empowered to dress how 

they want, to be who they want to be, to kiss who they wanna kiss with absolutely 

zero judgement. f I had my way the walls on stage would all be pink, fluorescent 

lighting all over the gig and a huge extravagant disco. I live for performing in 

nightlife settings because it is the essence of wear what you want and do what you 

want. 

What are your personal goals at this moment in time? 

I want to be in magazines, walk fashion shows, and actually be known as Tyreece. 

I want to be a household name. A brand. A superstar in my own right. 

Dream big. How have you been encouraged to be yourself throughout your life? 

My mum and boyfriend are an amazing support network to have especially my 

mum because she’s been there well since I could walk and wanted to wear her 

thigh-high boots when I was 3. She encouraged me not to hide away or to change 

and I could not be more grateful or thankful. 

What do you think is your best quality? 

My protectiveness. I will fight anyone who would cause me harm but especially if 

they came for anyone else I care about. I’m ready to attack. And protect of course. 

I’m slightly scared now. Remind me not to piss you off haha. Let’s move on lol. 

Do you have a favourite queer artist right now? 

Rina Sawayama 

Love her. Tokyo Hotel is a bop. She’s so authentic and comfortable with her 

artistry. Do you have any advice for queer people looking to feel comfortable in 

expressing who they are? 

I would say take your damn time. Go at your own pace. If it takes a week, a 

month, a couple of years. It doesn’t matter! There is no race to finding who you 

are! It’s a beautiful journey of self-discovery and I haven’t found myself fully 

yet. I’m still fully prepared for myself to develop in new ways I would never have 

known or even dreamed of becoming. We as beings are forever changing, forever 

growing, forever evolving. Just start by loving who you are and what you see and 

go from there. 

44



45

“If I’m going 

to look this 

good, I expect 

there to be an 

audience.” 

You are literally a queer prophet. Speechless. Can I get an Amen. There’s 

been a lot of hate against Lil Nas X recently, how do you deal with online 

trolls and hurtful/negative comments in your line of work? 

If someone is so pressed about me living my truth, about me enjoying my 

life, clearly they have some issues they need to work through. I usually don’t 

pay any attention, because why invest energy into something that’s not 

going to better yourself. (And on occasion I throw some witty shady back 

just cause it entertains me). 

No Tyreece no shade hunni. How do you stay positive and inspired as a 

queer individual? 

Look we’re only human, we ALL have good and bad days. It’s hard to 

see the positive when there doesn’t seem to be a light at the end of the 

tunnel sometimes. So in a lot of instances, we have to become our own 

ray of sunshine which isn’t always easy because we get inside our head a 

lot, especially creatives and queer folk. There’s always something in the 

pipeline we just have to stay focused and look to tomorrow and the next day 

and the day after that. 

You are so open and honest in your sexuality, how have you learned to 

explore this so freely? 

I was told a very important fact growing up. There would be a lot more 

queer people for younger generations to look up to if the AIDS and HIV 

epidemic had not destroyed our community. I want to be someone who 

can be looked up to as a queer non-binary person of colour who is proud of 

the culture, community and liberation found in both. Live a life happy and 

free. 

What do you enjoy most about expressing 

your non-binary position? 

Showing people that you don’t have to look 

androgynous. I don’t know why this myth 

has escalated into a fact over time that nonbinary 

people are androgynous. Someone’s 

gender identity and someone’s gender 

expression are two completely different 

things. We cannot keep on mixing them up 

and confusing the narrative. 

What is your earliest queer memory? 

My mum and I dressing myself up as puss 

in boots on Halloween when I was like 5/6 

because I just wanted to wear thigh-high 

boots. 

Kinky boots realness. We love to see it. 

Next, describe your perfect date? 

My perfect date is somewhere that does 

dirty/greasy food and beautiful cocktails. 

A burger with a zombie cocktail is heaven! 

I’m actually quite easy to impress but 

finding a restaurant that does both is 

a challenge in itself. Humour and well 

manners are the most attractive thing ever 

to me. 

46

Earrings - Thomas Sabo 

Choker - HOMO London 

Dress - Misty Couture 

47

48 

Earrings - Thomas Sabo 

Choker - HOMO London 

Dress - Misty Couture

Full Look - House of Namaste 

49

The struggle is real babes. Do 

you have any favourite queer 

characters you identify with? 

HIM from Powerpuff Girls. 

100%. In TV & FILM and 

cartoons they always try to 

demonise the queer characters 

or make the villains as queer 

as possible. This is why the 

queers love the villains. They 

have always been banished or 

cast out on a certain trait or 

characteristic. HIM is a fashion 

icon and is the moment. 



Finger snaps. What was the 

last show you streamed? 

Rewatched POSE. Iconic. 

Come through Elektra. I 

could totally see you in the 

House of Abundance. What 

was the last album you 

listened to? 

Kylie Minogue- Disco 

Queer heaven is a disco. 

Describe yourself as an 

alcoholic beverage. 

A Zombie: cute to look at but 

packs a punch. 

I have no idea what a Zombie 

is. I’ll Google it after. What 

was the last message you 

sent? 

‘Owners really do look like 

their dogs’. 

Nice and shady. What is the 

first thing you plan on doing 

when the 400th lockdown 

ends here in the UK? 

Club, bus, train, another club, 

another club, another club, 

no sleep, plane, club. I plan 

on doing the exact thing this 

country has prevented me 

from doing the past year, living 

my life. 

ALL THE FINGER SNAPS. 

Tyreece out. 

Words Lewis Robert Cameron 

@lrcfashionstylist 

Talent Tyreece @tyreece2.0 

50

Full Look - House of Namaste 

That’s all. 

51

Jorge Juan B. 

Wieneke V 

Club Matryoshka 

Jorge: Not a lot of people know that Club 

Matryoshka started pre-COVID. Some 

people find it interesting because they 

have this idea that it’s just a response to 

the pandemic. But actually, there were 

already a lot of issues that we all faced 

within the club scene in Manila that gave us 

the push to move beyond physical spaces 

and give birth to Club Matryoshka— 

though a lot of our beginnings were more 

focused on the lighter side of things. I’ve 

been organizing shows for more than 

10 years in Manila, so I have experience 

with flying people in, organizing real-life, 

physical shows, renting out and having 

residencies at clubs. 


Original photos provided by the artist 

There were always a lot of problems that 

we faced; club politics, venue politics, 

people judging you based on gender 

preferences, the way you dressed, the way 

you looked, on your streaming numbers 

and cloud followings. I run a collective 

and a community of musicians that is 

built on us being the ‘odd fit’, the odd ones 

out of the scene. In Manila, at the time 

that I was starting, it was very black-andwhite. 

If you’re making hip-hop, they’d 

find it weird that you’re also listening to 

rock or metal. 

Electronic roots aren’t that strong in 

Manila. When I was starting out, I’d be 

booed off stage for showing up to a club 

and performing a set with a GameBoy. 

The Philippines is a very young country, 

and it’s pretty much like, you know...we 

were colonized. So a lot of our culture 

is mixed, and a lot of people still sort of 

have this heavy sense of Western worship. 

We wanted to escape these definitions 

that are not ours, to begin with. All of 

my projects are these things that try 

52

53

to move away from cultures that aren’t necessarily 

ours, or trying to recontextualize things for our own 

interests and to serve the community. That’s why Club 

Matryoshka was born—it was a response to all of these 

things that we were frustrated about. 

Nicola: When you were going to clubs in Manila, did 

you find that you had to be in a particular group or 

have a specific music interest in order to get in? 

Jorge: I’ve honestly seen such a great development 

in terms of having more hybrids. People are more 

open-minded. Whenever I travelled to Berlin or other 

places on tour, I realized that people have a culture of 

listening that wasn’t so present in Manila before. The 

clubs started off as being clique-ish—only the reggae 

people showed up at the reggae show, only the metal 

people showed up at the metal show. It was only in 

the last maybe four to six years where people started 

having mixed lineups, or you’d be able to see a normal 

set up where there’s a metal band next to an electronic 

performer, or a solo artist doing live electronic stuff, or 

even having DJs mixed in with bands. That was sort of 

the model that the collective and I were trying to do in 

real life. Before we would just bootstrap art galleries; 

there weren’t any venues that would accept a bunch of 

weirdos...you know, they would always call us hipsters 

with laptops, displaying beats with visuals. That was 

part of what we were pushing against. Then later on it 

became more normalized in Manila, before becoming 

saturated with more EDM-based stuff. 

After a while, I got tired of holding events because of 

that. All the venues were doing the same thing, playing 

the same sort of future R&B, future bass and trap. It ate 

up the entire club scene in Manila; we lost a lot of our 

opportunities because the underground venues that we 

used to play at and hold events at got devoured by this 

aesthetic. Everyone just wanted to hear trap music and 

this futuristic strip club music [laughs], that’s what we 

call it. Which, the internet SoundCloud stuff, I also had 

some roots in that. We all sort of passed through that 

as well, but when we started to try to move beyond that 

‘avant-garde experimental club music’, it was so hard to 

penetrate. 

54

Nicola: What was it like when you launched your first 

Club Matryoshka? 

Jorge: That one was very rushed. Long story short, I 

stopped doing events for a while. I became uninspired 

to even make music, and I turned towards gaming, 

which I hadn’t done in years. I’m the type of person 

who’s always either making music or working, and I 

felt like gaming was a waste of time. Then suddenly I 

tried to flip it on its back and say, maybe I should. I 

reversed it and was like, let’s just play. I started getting 

into survival games; my friends and I spontaneously 

bought a Minecraft server because we got into Ark, 

we got into Rust, but we were thinking, ‘Why don’t 

we play the original game that sort of started this 

trend of survival?’, which was Minecraft. It’s like the 

grandfather of all of these other survival games that 

we love now. 

In the game, I accidentally burned my house down 

[laughs] and that night I wanted to build a club that 

was inspired by Berghain, which I’ve never been to. I 

went to Berlin in 2018, but I was too sick to even go to 

Berghain. So I was like, ah, I might as well just try to 

build one based on what I saw in another Minecraft 

map. So I made some sort of hybrid map that looked 

like the clubs in Manila, combined with a dungeon, a 

fantasy jungle, and Berghain. The day after I told my 

friends on the server, which is just a small community 

of creatives, ‘I’m going to turn this into a club. I’m 

going to call it Club Matryoshka.’ 

I made a website and an event page, just for fun. Then 

we opened it up to the public, and it flooded. We didn’t 

even think people would go! After that, we really 

started to embrace the idea. The next event was more 

serious: a fundraiser for the Amazon rainforest. We 

started inviting international acts, paying people out 

of our own pockets and then asking for donations for 

the fundraiser, and it just snowballed into all of these 

things. It just kept becoming bigger and bigger, and 

then it became this fun space. More people would start 

joining, different kinds of people that you wouldn’t 

necessarily see together in the same club and people 

that wouldn’t even go to clubs, people that had never 

even imagined themselves in a club. It was amazing for 

us. It just felt like magic. Everyone felt like things were 

hitting the right spots internally, and for our guests as 

well. 

55

Nicola: It’s like an introvert’s dream. 

Or if you’re just feeling socially 

anxious then you can go online and 

hang out with like-minded people. 

Jorge: That’s what I love about it, too. 

We have a lot of friends from the queer 

community in Manila that are rejected 

at clubs just because of how they present 

themselves, so they tell us it’s cool 

that in this space you can be whatever 

gender. You can be you. You can be an 

animal! We have a lot of people who 

want to present themselves as foxes or 

rabbits and they love it. Everyone’s just 

celebrating music together. 

Nicola: There’s definitely been an 

increase of similar events to the Club. 

Jorge: I’m not the type where I’d try 

to gatekeep this whole Minecraft 

thing. We’re not the first, there’s a lot 

of smaller Minecraft events that we’ve 

reached out to and offered to help. I 

don’t think that this sort of technology 

or DIY way of doing things should be 

just kept to ourselves. I like it when 

people reach out and ask, ‘How did you 

do this?’ That’s always been my thing. 

There’s no secrets; I’m an open book. 

If you want to know something, I’ll just 

tell you. 

Nicola: What will happen when 

COVID kind of dies down and we can 

go to events in real life again? Will 

online events still continue? 

Jorge: Yeah, definitely. To be honest, 

it’s been tiring because of the COVID 

stress. A lot of our events that we were 

supposed to do, like the ones that 

were planned once every few months, 

became almost every month. We’ve 

made friends through every one of 

the events, especially with the CTM 

collaborations—that’s been one of 

our favorite events—but it’s tiring. It 

takes us around four months to build 

something that big. Down the line, I 

do think that we would still continue 

because there are still problems In 

Manila that we feel are solved with this 

format. 

I’ve been reading a lot of these things 

about how psychologically, people are 

waiting to go to gigs. I attended a talk 

the other day and someone called it like 

‘revenge gigging’, because everyone’s 

so mad at COVID they’re going to be 

56

like, ‘I just want to go to a gig. I just want 

to go shopping. I just want to make a 

song, revenge, everything’. So I feel like 

for a while online clubs might die down, 

but there are some people that we sort of 

cater to, like our audience that really just 

doesn’t want to go clubbing physically. 

We’re also looking towards hybrid shows. 

I feel like we try as much as possible to 

be inclusive for people who actually 

can’t physically go, or people who have 

problems in social settings as well. 

Nicola: I think we are 100% in need of 

a hybrid and actually be more aware 

of the need for alternatives, especially 

when it comes to sharing something as 

universal as music. 

Jorge: I really love how these events bring 

so many types of people together. It’s like 

how there’s a stereotype that people who 

love games are geeky, they don’t listen 

to a certain type of music. The same for 

techno; here in Manila, if you’re a technohead 

you’re not really into nerdy stuff, 

but suddenly it’s like everyone’s a hybrid 

in Club Matryoshka. People that used to 

hate on Minecraft suddenly started to 

love Minecraft. 

Nicola: So what’s happening next? 

Jorge: Well, we just did our first 24-hour 

festival called Infinite Summer, and we’re 

planning to do something similar later on 

in the year. It’ll be a spiritual successor 

of Infinite Summer where we’ll be hitting 

every timezone again. I felt like that 

was one of the main reasons for Infinite 

Summer’s success. We were booking 

people from different parts of the world, 

like a whole block of all Japanese artists 

57

that we love. But I think the 

plan is to collaborate on 

a bigger scale with labels 

that focus on marginalized 

people and marginalized 

communities. 

It’s always a challenge for 

us to try to keep people 

involved for 24 hours, 

keep them entertained 

and immersed, but I think 

it’s become second nature 

for the team. We don’t 

really think about, ‘Oh, 

let’s make the best event 

ever’. We didn’t even know 

that our Minecraft builds 

were crazy until people 

checked them out on 

Twitch, because we never 

really like comparing. We 

just really have fun and get 

geeky with it. 

Nicola: How did you get to 

know everyone who works 

at the Club? 

landed on Minecraft, and some were creatives 

that joined the Minecraft server when they were 

just playing and looking for a way to destress 

from daily life. 

The team now is built primarily of a group of 

developers. Some of them are fashion designers 

or illustrators. Some of them are film scorers, 

sound practitioners, some are streamers on 

Twitch. We all do different things. It’s like a 

hybrid collective of people trying to start a 

hybrid club. We don’t really stress about many 

things; the planning is very democratic. We all 

come together in a call and just geek out. If we’re 

planning stuff, we watch movies to get inspired 

together. It’s become 

some sort of extended 

family. It’s funny—they’re 

all different varying ages, 

varying backgrounds, 

but it all just felt natural 

to work with each other 

despite not being friends 

in real life. 

I guess the common sort 

the thing is that we all 

love music. Everyone has 

different tastes, but we 

always find the similarities 

somewhere down the line; 

they intersect somehow. 

Jorge: A lot of the people 

I work with now, I never 

imagined to be working 

with them on something 

this up-close and personal. 

This project is very sacred 

to me. I’ve met a lot of them 

from gaming, a lot of them 

I would just see randomly 

in shows in real life, and 

some of them aren’t even 

in Manila. Everyone is 

from a different timezone. 

There’s some people that 

I was playing other games 

with where they eventually 

58

Nicola: Are you going to be introducing any new components to the 

Club? 

Jorge: We started a new component last time with CTM where we 

introduced game mechanics as an RPG. So the event was actually an RPG, 

but a lot of people struggled with this sort of RPG format [laughs]. We’re 

trying to refine that a bit more. We also had two cams so you could either 

watch the stream from the perspective of the main character or the ‘God 

perspective’ overhead. It helps that our camera persons and our streamers 

are actually cinematographers [laughs]. So the shots are really nice. 

Nicola: Have you thought about using 

different platforms to host the Club 

on? I’m mostly asking because I just 

reactivated my Second Life account 

to creep around goth clubs with a 

katana. 

Jorge: Oh my god. I love Second Life. 

I’ve always wanted to do something 

on Second Life prior to this, but when 

I was researching about it you have to 

rent some land, which actually costs a 

lot of money when I last checked. It was 

almost like hosting a real event in a real 

space, and the software you needed for 

the music was so clunky. But I think the 

music streaming system that we use in 

Minecraft is also applicable now for 

that platform, so we could definitely 

switch. 

Over the last year, a lot of other virtual 

clubs have been wanting to collaborate. 

I want this next event to be some sort 

of multi-platform thing if everyone is 

down for it. I’ve been hopping on VR 

clubs, like IMVU, VRChat, Second Life, 

there’s some on Mozilla Hubs. There’s 

all sorts of different virtual clubs that 

I think could be interesting if you just 

make one big event with different 

platforms. 

Prior to Second Life, when I was a kid I 

played this avatar chat thing called The 

Palace, and it opened up a world to me 

because there were online events even 

back then. I was just talking to people 

about music. Now I’m here doing my 

own version of that—and yeah, it’s 

crazy. 

I really enjoy virtual clubbing, but I’ve 

really missed physically being in a club. 

When you can feel the bass in your 

chest. 

Nicola: Me too. I’m actually quite 

excited for it again. Maybe not as much 

as the revenge gig-goers though. 

@clubmatryoshka 

@obese.dogma777 

59

Betty Apple & Ping-Hsiang 

ArtKB48 


Original photos provided by the artists 

Betty: In Taiwan, most people think of queer identity as being the 

same as regular gay culture, like drag. But my culture, my idea of 

queer identity, is focused more on sound art and performance art. I 

want to create a community which can use this to be experimental and 

provocative. In Taiwan, this idea in music and sound is quite new; with 

DJing, people understand this, but for me this kind of performance is 

also about protest. What I’m doing with my community, is to create a 

way to talk about noise, performance, and protest, so that more women 

or non-binary artists come to play. That’s why I started this group; 

it’s only been a year since then. My first topic was ASMR, because it’s 

a public artform—it is not a professional doing sound art, but maybe 

someone with professional equipment. I’m crushing on ASMR and this 

sort of public cyberculture, how people start to present their identity 

and this sort of contemporary intimacy. 

In Taiwan, not many people are doing this non-professional thing and 

this sound-based discipline. It’s such a different culture; everywhere 

there is sound, people don’t understand a need for quiet. And most 

artists here don’t go to clubs! We don’t have that many clubs anyway, 

at least for dancing; most mainstream clubs here are not for dancing 

or listening to music. There are different cultural backgrounds here, 

different layers, so the idea of a ‘safe queer space’ means something 

different. But that’s what I want to create, a space where artists will 

want to come, maybe create some dance music or experimental music, 

and want to work together with us. I want to change the idea of the 

Asian patriarchy. You know K-Pop, all the girls look like [makes chibi 

noise]? I want to use that, transform it to make people feel feminine art 

differently. 

I have to tell you, unfortunately, we didn’t close our club during COVID. 

[laughs] In Taiwan, it’s like a bubble… 

Ping-Hsiang: A parallel universe. 

Betty: We still have a lot of queer events in our club; we only closed once 

during this whole thing. A lot of clubs have closed because they didn’t 

think people would want to come—not because of government spies. 

Because we have less local cases, not over 20 until now. At first everyone 

here was so scared; you remember SARS? So suddenly all the borders 

were closed, and the government started taking measures early. That’s 

also why there aren’t as many online events taking place here—everyone 

can still go out, and a lot of my friends elsewhere can’t. When I did an 

online performance, all my friends here were in a club [laughs]. But 

here we also don’t have vaccines due to political problems, so it’s harder 

to travel abroad right now. Taiwan, we can’t really define ourselves 

right now. We are like a country, the world recognizes us, but there’s 

also pressure and propaganda from China, and there’s a lot of colonized 

culture here so Taiwanese people don’t feel strong, like, oh we have to 

be Taiwanese. Political problems are 

something I like to talk about in my music 

and art; that’s part of me and something 

I think could also be part of ArtKB48— 

although I don’t want it to be like these 

branded collective: “Oh I’m Google, I’m 

Apple”, and then you have to be loyal with 

that one brand or idea. 

Ping-Hsiang: What I’ve found most 

interesting about these communities, at 

the beginning the idea behind ArtKB48 

was not just a place for queer artists to 

join together, but also a place where we 

can learn from each other. Betty didn’t 

start as a music artist or sound artist 

but in theatre, so when she gets into 

music...there’s a lot of formula you need 

to feel yourself in, or be this level of skill 

with a machine or instrument...there’s 

a struggle that you can’t fit in to this 

mechanical world, so you have to find a 

new language to speak for yourself. That 

was the genesis; the people who join here 

are not as professional, not authoritative. 

As artists we want to channel our energy 

to break these rigid ideas—”This is a rule 

you need to follow to do this”—so when we 

started to have lots of workshops, there 

were some really heartbreaking moments. 

It’s hard to channel your own voice when 

you’re learning new pathways. But it can 

create such a powerful way to yell out, to 

escape the systematic world. I love this 

friction; oftentimes you know your own 

limitations, but when you get together 

with someone else it stretches those 

limits and makes you realize what you’re 

capable of. Apple’s style is a very rough, 

punch-in-your-face method sometimes, 

which I really enjoy. I didn’t think that 

my artistic practice could be expressed 

this way, but when I work with her you see 

this, kind of like a middle finger to this 

strong mechanical world. [Ping-Hsiang’s 

connection cuts out] 

Betty: Oh noo! China’s government must 

have heard him talking about me and cut 

60

the WiFi! [laughs] Me, I’m not really….especially in Taiwan, 

the lesbian scene here is a bit scared of me because I don’t 

conform to the idea of what is typical for them. I confuse 

them; mainstream gays as well, and this is something my 

queer friends and I talk about. But this year we had the 

first gay marriage in Taiwan; now we can get married 

here, the first country in Asia! In Taiwan, the idea of ‘queer 

identity’ has just started; gays and lesbians have decent 

communities, but queer is new for people here. 

Nicola: That’s amazing. My partner and I have been working 

on this new community for women, trans and non-binary 

folks; since everyone has been stuck inside we’ve started 

doing this ‘speed mating’, for making new friends. There’s 

a lot of admin you’re doing when you’re starting a new 

community, so that people feel comfortable with pronouns 

and everything. 

Betty: For me, my body is ‘She/Her’, but inside it’s ‘They/ 

Them’. In Chinese characters, there isn’t a lot to separate 

gender, so if you meet someone in Asia and they say 

something a certain way, it’s not necessarily out of 

disrespect. In our language we don’t separate gender, 

compared to Latin or English. 

[Ping-Hsiang returns] 

Nicola: Ping-Hsiang, you’re currently living between three 

places right now? 

Ping-Hsiang: I’m working with a Spanish theatre company 

right now, so I’m going there for rehearsals. Then we’re 

going to Serbia for a tour, and then I’m heading back to 

Germany. Which means that my nose will be penetrated 

several times. 

Betty: Oh nooo, I’m so scared of this! 

Ping-Hsiang: I feel like my brain is getting poked by the 

q-tip. 

Betty: But do you have any of the vaccines yet? 

Ping-Hsiang: Right now here it’s only open for Chinese 

citizens— 

Betty: You are Chinese to them! 

Ping-Hsiang: [laughs] 

Betty: When we Taiwanese go to Hong Kong, we always go 

to the foreigner’s line with our passports, but then they 

say, ‘No no, citizen!’ ‘Oh, but I’m Taiwanese…’ ‘Citizen!!’ 

Ehhhhhh….[laughs] So I think you should be able to get a 

vaccine! 

Nicola: So maybe you can tell me about the queer 

community in Shanghai? 

Ping-Hsiang: I still feel like a tourist here, so I’m not sure I 

could make a statement— 

Betty: But are the clubs and bars open? 

61

Ping-Hsiang: They’re open; a friend of 

mine was actually trying to organize a queer 

theatre festival here, and he knows its going 

to be like 100 times more difficult than it 

normally would be. A few years ago, people 

really tried to make Shanghai Pride happen 

but it just got shut down. Right now there’s 

only one queer event here, which is a film 

festival. The community has found a way to 

survive under the pressure; the government 

might say something is forbidden, but 

people will still find ways to do it. 

Nicola: So it’s more like an underground 

situation. 

Ping-Hsiang: Yeah. 

Betty: In Berlin, are there a lot of 

underground queer events happening now? 

Nicola: There have been; I think it’s been 

cut down a lot due to the rising COVID 

numbers here, but last year around this 

time nobody was paying attention and just 

throwing huge park raves—which is quite 

common here anyway, but when you’re not 

meant to meet in groups larger than two or 

three. I’ve been talking to other collectives, 

how they’ve spent this sudden free time 

reflecting and not focussing so much on 

work, having this sort of reset. Obviously, 

your experience is different there. 

Betty: I think that the interesting thing is 

that Taiwan has always brought a lot of 

artists and performers from abroad, and 

lots of local artists don’t have any chance 

to perform at major mainstream festivals. 

But because of the border closures, in the 

last year, we stayed inside our local artist 

bubble. At first this was a disaster; here 

there isn’t much chance for a performance 

artist like me to make money, and I had 

planned to travel and do shows. 

62

63

The pay here is very low and if I play a show 

somewhere outside Taiwan, I can make 10, 

20 times more. For a long time, people would 

only come out to parties or shows for European 

artists, American artists. But now that bars and 

clubs cannot hire outside DJs and artists, there’s 

been more of a local resurgence. Now if someone 

asks me to give a talk or a performance, I can 

bring in friends to play, and this gives us more 

of a chance to be seen. I think now is a good 

time to make the audiences here understand 

us. Local artists actually have more of a chance 

now than before; that’s kind of weird! 

Ping-Hsiang: I think that, when it comes 

to visibility, what I appreciate most about 

working with Betty is that she shares her 

platform with the community. How do we 

make queer art approachable for people, for a 

mass audience? It’s changed for the better, but 

the old institutions in Taiwan were controlled 

by the CIS person, the straight person. You’re 

never presented with queer art as a serious art 

form, as the center of an exhibition or idea. 

Betty is an important person right now in 

the art community, and she really shares her 

platform with young queer folx. And it isn’t the 

fame aspect; she wants to give these people a 

voice, a platform to become more visible with 

their art, to have a strong impact. It’s important 

to help young artists be seen. 

Betty: In Taiwan, it’s not that easy. Most young 

artists, there thing is not...quality? [laughs] 

I’m a little bit old at 35, but for me...I think that 

because there is such a patriarchal structure 

here, Asia-style, especially female artists don’t 

have someone to encourage them, and if you 

break from the mainstream, ‘“sexy” way of 

doing things people get confused—”Why would 

you do that if you want to be a DJ, if you want to be famous??’ 

But if you get a lot of people breaking these codes together, 

that can be very powerful. Ping-Hsiang is younger than me, 

and he’s so talented. If we had more people like us, maybe we 

could finally start to help artists in Taiwan. 

Ping-Hsiang: In our performance, we try to use the idea of 

‘sexiness’ as a weapon, as a tool to shock people—if one person 

shows skin, that’s shocking. But if a group of people show that 

skin, it makes a stronger impact. I think that’s much more 

interesting, going beyond ‘acting weird’ and just normalizing 

it, to encourage people that their appearance is not wrong. 

That’s a beautiful thing, to be a part of such a family. And now 

I show more skin when I go clubbing! 

Betty: In Taiwan, if we talk about a queer music event, in my 

opinion...I play, for example, the kind of music they would 

play at Gegen, in Berlin. Not many people here understand it; 

most queer event music here is softer, more subtle. For me 

there is not much punch to it, and some people might hear 

what I play and find it too patriarchal, too hard, although I 

don’t feel that. There are different ways of expressing ideas 

of queer identity. Right now I’m just trying to brainwash my 

crew [laughs]...with these kinds of things! 

Ping-Hsiang: [laughs] 

Betty: Taiwan is very inspired by America, so when people 

here think of music they think of hip-hop, of EDM. They don’t 

really understand this Berlin style. If they’re sound artists 

they can make the most amazing noise, but to apply the same 

sound to clubbing...they don’t understand that, because 

they’re oftentimes rather nerdy and anti-club. For them I’m 

so weird, so when I say this, this or this is queer...for me it’s 

not just about gender, but what you do, what you create and 

how you open yourself to influences. Queer, for me, is open. 

More flavor, more layers, for me this is a beautiful thing. It’s 

art. 

[Note: this interview took place March, 2021.] 

@ping_hsiang 

@lovebettyapple 

@artsmr.art 

64

65

Purrja & Twat 

BUTCHER 

Photographer Manuel Moncayo @manuelmoncayo.eu 

Purrja: Tell us a bit about yourself. I don’t know anything about you! 

Twat Butcher: My name is Ruby, but my other name is Twat Butcher which I 

think goes over the head of a lot of people that are not from the UK, sadly. 

Purrja: It’s a good name. 

66

67

Twat Butcher: It’s a great name, but 

it’s a play on Pat Butcher for those that 

don’t know. I’m a Berlin-based AFAB, 

CIS-identifying, drag performer, 

dancer, stylist, and one-third of the 

Flaming Gogos. Before Ms. Corona 

came along, I performed a lot in the 

nightlife scene. I tend to go by she/her 

but my drag is sometimes male and 

sometimes female. What about you? 

Purrja: My name is Yusuf, also known 

as Purrja. Basically, my pronouns 

are he/him when I’m out of drag and 

she/her/they/them when I’m in drag. 

I’m also based here in Berlin, but I’m 

actually from Ireland. I moved here 

four years ago now, and I started 

performing drag since I’ve been here. 

Since the pandemic started, I moved 

into doing makeup artistry on a more 

professional level; As someone who 

isn’t formally trained in makeup, 

I self-taught myself everything. 

It’s been a bit slower to get into the 

industry, but since last year I’ve been 

doing more makeup jobs, working on 

shoots, editorials and advertisements. 

Twat Butcher: That’s how it’s been 

for me and styling as well. I think it’s 

really nice to have a job that you can 

make commercial money off of and 

which is linked to your art as well. I 

feel very lucky to do something that 

isn’t completely removed from the 

things I’m passionate about in my 

creative outlet. 

Purrja: Totally. I think both of them 

inform each other in a way, you know, 

my drag plays into my makeup work, 

and the things that I learned from that 

also play into—and feeds back from— 

my life as a drag artist as well. So I’m 

constantly learning in both fields. 

I guess for both of us, it was quite 

difficult moving from working and 

performing so often in nightlife and 

in clubs to then have that all taken 

away from us. In a sense we’ve been 

able to continue to work creatively 

during the Pandemic; it’s not as much 

work as I would personally have liked 

for myself, but I guess expanding 

horizons, branching out and doing 

new things has been beneficial in a 

way. 

Twat Butcher: Yeah, and the fact 

that we can still work through the 

pandemic, doing things we enjoy. 

Commercial shoots, fashion shoots, 

68

all that shit hasn’t stopped because it was easy to work the Corona restrictions around them. It’s been pretty 

great to be able to keep doing that. So what drove you to create your platform? 

Purrja: Before I started doing drag, I had no performance experience whatsoever. I didn’t come from a 

very creative background; I went to school, and when I finished I studied science because chemistry was 

the only thing I was interested in at the time. This is the thing about growing up in Ireland, and maybe you 

understand this from growing up in the UK as well—you just go through the stages of schooling and it’s just, 

next milestone, next milestone, next milestone. During that process, there’s no real time where someone 

sits you down and says, ‘Hey, what are you interested in? What are you passionate about?’ I remember when 

I was telling my mother that I was studying science, she didn’t care. She couldn’t have given two shits while 

I was studying. Do you know what I mean? She’s like, ‘As long as you’re happy’. 

Twat Butcher: Yeah. As long as you’re happy, it’s fine. 

Purrja: I’d come home and be , ‘Oh, I just failed that exam’. ‘That’s grand. Don’t worry. As long as you’re 

happy and healthy’, you know? So I never had that conversation with my mother about what I wanted to do, 

and I guess because of that, I just went and studied something that I was interested in, which ended up being 

horrible. I hated it. During this time I ended up taking two years off and started working in a wine bar, and I 

realized that actually I’m way more interested in alcohol, food and gastronomy. I did that for two years and I 

really loved it. I started working up the ranks; I was almost a Sommelier at one point in Dublin. 

Twat Butcher: I remember when you first told me you were a Sommelier; I’m all about wine. 

69

Purrja: In the first 

year that I moved 

to Berlin, I was 

working in service 

gastronomy. It was 

very intense; I had 

a very stressful 

year of long hours, 

neglecting myself 

and my body and 

my interests. When 

I finally found the 

courage to leave, I 

said to myself that 

I was going to do 

something for me. 

I’m not sure how 

exactly drag was 

that thing, but I 

had saved up some 

money and I just 

spent 600 euros that 

week on wigs and 

makeup and a basic 

drag case. 

I spent the following two months at 

home, painting my face over and over 

again, watching YouTube tutorials 

and photographs and Drag Race, 

really submerging myself into the art 

form that is drag and trying to learn 

as much as possible about makeup. 

After about two months, I performed 

for the first time in August of 2018. It 

was at Judy Lavina Dragaholic; that 

was where you performed for the first 

time as well, right? 

Twat Butcher: It was indeed, either 

the month before you or after. I hadn’t 

realized that you quitting your job 

coincided with this shift toward doing 

something new for yourself. 

Purrja: At that point, all I knew was 

gastronomy and being a waiter. I’d 

done it for 10 years at that point. I 

still continued to work in service, but 

I knew then that I was not my main 

thing, couldn’t be my main thing. 

I needed to find something I was 

passionate about, and was good at. 

Which was drag. People always ask, 

‘Oh, where does it begin? How did it 

start?’ and to be quite honest I feel 

Purrja just took over. I took my hand 

off the wheel and I wasn’t driving 

anymore. It was her energy and this 

crazy desire to just get dolled up and 

perform. 

How about you? I remember the first 

time I saw you dancing and I was 

completely transfixed. This is before 

I even knew you. I was, who the hell 

is this person? Your energy was just 

insane. It was love at first sight. 

Twat Butcher: It’s interesting what 

you said about, first you go to primary 

school, then secondary school, then 

university...it’s definitely the same in 

the UK, but for me, I never related to it. 

I knew that I wasn’t going to follow that 

path from when I was 13. I knew that I 

wanted to be a dancer, that I wanted to 

go to professional dancing school. But 

when I auditioned for the vocational 

schools in the UK, the Royal Ballet and 

Ron Baer and all the big ones, I didn’t 

get into any of them. I was absolutely 

devastated. But that same pattern you 

were speaking about, that’s the same 

way that you become a dancer—you go 

to secondary school, you do GCSEs, you 

go to one of the vocational schools. I’d 

missed it already, all of the opportunity, 

all of the years that I could have started 

doing that. So I thought, oh, well then— 

how am I going to make this happen?? 

When I was 18 I decided I was just 

going to move to Berlin and just start 

dancing. I figured I’d work in the Kit- 

Kat club, which I thought was the Kit- 

Kat club from the film Cabaret. That 

didn’t work out. During my audition I 

fell in the pool and almost drowned. 

I finally ended up getting into a 

professional dancing school in 

Montreal, so I moved there for two 

years. I was able to live with my aunties 

for the first year, which was very lucky 

so Montreal wasn’t completely strange 

to me, but it was also the other side 

of the world, which is quite a lot at 

18. Afterwards, I auditioned for an 

apprenticeship program in Israel for 

the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance 

Company . I did the apprenticeship 

program for a year and then was taken 

70

into the main company and dealt with them 

for another two years. That’s how, basically, 

my dream came true. I did it completely not 

following the path that I had always thought 

I was going to take, going to these schools 

in England that had rejected me, and then 

getting into a company that—no shade— 

people who I knew who had gone to those 

UK schools and had taken that traditional 

journey, they didn’t get into this company. 

It was a really validating moment for me, 

to realize you can do things your own way 

and end up in a better place than you ever 

imagined just by following your intuition. 

After that, I moved to Germany for the next 

boyfriend, then moved to Berlin, where my 

boyfriend realized I was raging lesbian. And 

here we are. 

I think my interest in drag started when I 

was living in this small town in Osnabrück 

in Germany. I was taking classes with a 

dance company there, and one of the guys 

introduced me to Drag Race—which is 

so problematic for so many reasons, in 

representation and all the rest, but I think it’s 

a segue into queerness, if you didn’t know, 

or if you had a hard time connecting with 

it. I think for many people, and for me just 

watching Drag Race, it was suddenly just… 

’Oh my God, that’s me.’ It was everything that 

I’ve ever felt in terms of being really loud and 

being extra. Even though I was accepted in 

high school, and was even part of the popular 

crowd, , there were things I changed about 

myself in order to fit in. All of a sudden there 

were these people creating art which touched 

part of me that I’d always hidden. It took me 

a long time to find the courage to start doing 

drag. There weren’t very many CIS women in 

Berlin doing it; there’s still isn’t, and I felt like 

an imposter, like it wasn’t my space. I knew 

that, if I was really going to do this, then I 

really would have to do something amazing 

in order to validate my taking that space in 

the scene. 

Purrja: I think we both have a very similar 

journey towards drag. When I was growing 

up, music was a huge part of my entire being 

when I was growing up. The first CD that I 

ever bought was ‘Scandalous’ by Miss-Teeq. 

Twat Butcher: That’s such a good one! I 

think mine was from The Smurfs—or possibly 

Aqua’s ‘Barbie Girl’ single. 

Purrja: Such a good one. It’s really funny 

because art and music in the UK during 

that time, in the mid to late nineties, early 

noughties, was just next level. Our charts 

were exploding every single week. 

71

Twat Butcher: I was obsessed with 

taping everything off the radio. 

Purrja: My mother listened to pretty 

good music. When I was growing up 

there was Ricky Martin, a lot of Kylie, a 

lot of Dire Straits. So music was always a 

huge part of my life. The first time that I 

really felt this personal connection with 

it was when my cousin asked me one 

day if she could put some music on my 

iPod. I was 14 at the time, and she was 

20 years older. I didn’t know anything 

about myself. I didn’t know who I was; 

just coasting on through life and being 

a very normal child. She filled my iPod 

full of music I had never heard before. 

It was all a lot of female musicians, a lot 

of queer music, and I remember going 

home that evening, getting into bed and 

putting it on shuffle. And I just cried the 

whole night because the stuff that she 

put on was really just resonating with 

me. It was that night that I realized I was 

gay. That’s a very overwhelming feeling! 

Since then, I can never not listen to 

music in my day-to-day life. I always 

have something on, in the background, 

if I’m walking in the street. Going to lots 

of concerts and growing up and getting 

to see these huge artists in real life is 

just such an exhilarating experience. 

Twat Butcher: Do you feel like Purrja is 

an outlet for your love of music? 

Purrja: It really is. Before I started doing 

drag, I got it into my head that I wanted to 

become a music supervisor—someone 

in charge of curating soundtracks for 

TV shows, advertisements and films. 

It’s more about procuring the rights 

to the track itself, but it is still creative 

in a way. I remember just watching TV 

series when I was in my late teens and 

early twenties and just being completely 

moved by the perfect placement of 

the perfect song at just the right time. 

That always fascinated me; I would 

wonder who did that job, because it 

is so important. I’m just sitting here, 

watching a queer TV show or something 

and just sobbing, and I’m like, ‘I have to 

do this job.’ 

I realized that this wasn’t going to be 

so easy to do in Berlin. It’s not a city for 

doing things in terms of TV production; 

London would have been way better, for 

example. When I started doing drag, 

however, I realized that it’s the same 

thing, you know— you’re choosing a 

song, you’re portraying an emotion. 

You’re making people feel. That’s what 

really drew me to drag. I pride myself 

on the fact that I can choose a more 

obscure song that nobody knows, and 

people will still enjoy the performance. 

I grew up listening to a lot of different 

kinds of music, and I want to perform 

songs that not many people know. I 

find that really interesting. Of course, 

I love going to a drag show and seeing 

someone perform a song that is super 

well-known. It’s so much fun, you can 

sing along and you know all the words. 

But I also love the unknown, of doing a 

performance where nobody knows the 

song and you just have to sell it. You 

know what I mean? 

Twat Butcher: Yeah. 

My dad is extremely 

into music, so I first 

heard Eminem, 

Massive Attack, 

Nirvana, Leonard 

Cohen and Bette 

Midler, all from him. 

You love finding new 

music, whereas for 

me it’s all about old 

music. Somehow 

I actually have a 

harder time! I’m 

not so drawn to 

new music or to 

discovering stuff, but 

rather to discovering 

old stuff. When I 

first started drag I 

really wanted to do 

this Old Showbiz, 

grande dame thing, 

rather than feeling 

the pressure to be 

this super-current 

woo-woo Instagram 

queen, if that makes 

any sense. 

What I also realized when I started 

doing drag was that with the music 

I love, it’s actually the lyrics that I 

appreciate the most. It was only after 

I started taking drugs that I began to 

appreciate music that didn’t have any 

lyrics or actual melodies and so on, 

because I’ve always loved writing and 

poetry, and if I didn’t really connect 

with the words of a song I found it 

hard to connect with the song at all. 

That’s changed now, but because of 

lyrics, I’m very much into storytelling. 

That’s also how I got into drag— 

wanting to tell the stories that I’d 

love listening to through these songs, 

to do it on my own, to take them and 

have it be a really narrative thing. I 

just haven’t been able to dance for 

so long because of COVID, but doing 

drag had absolutely nothing to do 

with dancing for me. I didn’t dance 

in any of my numbers, despite being 

a trained dancer, because the thing 

that I love the most is performing. I 

love performing and telling a story 

more than I love dancing. I wanted 

to exercise and build that part of 

myself, without doing it through the 

lens of dance. With drag it’s much 

more about how you use your face; 

with dance, you’re not thinking 

about what your facial muscles are 

doing. In the company that I was 

in, the choreographer never really 

let us look at the audience. It was 

all because it was about complete 

movements; your head is either 

down or up. It was so huge for me to 

be able to do that with music, with 

lyrics, telling a story. 

Purrja: When you create a drag 

persona, it is an act. Parts of your 

personality are absorbed into this 

drag character. Having that moment 

where you’re with an audience and 

you’re just telling them a story, it’s just 

so powerful that everyone’s watching 

you, so intensely fantastic. The thing 

that I love the most about drag is that 

nobody listens to me when I’m not in 

drag. You know what I mean? When 

I’m in drag, I then have this power 

that commands a room and people are 

listening to what I’m saying. So I need 

to make sure that what I’m saying is 

important, or that it’s something that 

I strongly believe in, or it’s a message 

that I really want to get across. That 

is the power of drag. It’s having the 

power to basically command people 

to listen to you. 

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73

Twat Butcher: When you’re on a 

stage you definitely have what is 

essentially a captive audience. It’s 

an audience that has chosen to be 

there because they want to hear 

what you have to say, they want to see 

your interpretation of something. 

I think it’s very important that in 

drag shows, all across the world 

but definitely here in Berlin, there’s 

such a variety of different things 

that people are using that space for, 

to talk about personal stuff. Your 

Habibi performance about your 

personal history was fantastic. I 

love that loads of artists and friends 

of ours do these super political 

personal pieces.For me, I felt that 

coming from a contemporary 

dance background, everything that 

I did was so serious, you know, 

contemporary dance takes itself 

so seriously. Everything is about 

the meaning and the rule of law. I 

take it seriously, but having that 

captive audience and trying to do 

something really joyful, that doesn’t 

take itself seriously...that’s really 

fun. Giving that energy to a room 

full of people, who are often also 

very serious. I think it’s wonderful 

that some people use those spaces to 

work through their issues and give 

people who could be going through 

something similar this feeling that, 

okay, I’m not alone. On the flip side, 

to just do a silly performance and 

give people an escape from having 

to think about everything that they 

go through is just as wonderful. 

That’s also something that I really 

love about drag, especially here is 

that in one show, you can have both 

of those numbers. 

Purrja: Anytime you go to a Twat 

Butcher show, you know you’re 

in for a treat. I’m always laughing 

crazily in the back, feeling so 

energized and inspired by your 

performances. They’re always so 

much fun, everybody is getting 

so much life from what you do on 

stage. That’s something that I really 

admire about your performances. 

They’re so much fun, and 

sometimes I wish that mine were 

a bit more fun. I’m not saying that 

mine are always depressing, they’re 

not! I try and do a lot of different 

stuff. But you have such a strong 

stage presence that it’s hard to 

ignore. 

Twat Butcher: I think it’s also to do it with how comfortable you feel with 

being vulnerable. Being on stage is a very vulnerable thing, and I think for 

some people being super energetic and trying to be funny actually makes 

them feel more vulnerable. Whereas being serious or conceptual is less. 

The Habibi number that you did was very vulnerable, in my opinion. It was 

amazing that you did that, it was so personal and so powerful. You always 

have a full visual, your background visuals with your look and your wig and 

the makeup, everything is a whole experience. Like an art piece; it all fits 

together. 

Purrja: That’s very sweet. You just made me really want to perform tonight! 

Speaking of which, what’s your relationship with nightclubs and nightlife, in 

Berlin and in general? Do you feel safe in these spaces? Do you go there to 

release? What’s your motive for going clubbing? 

Twat Butcher: Queer spaces are really 

important for me, and spaces that are 

really geared towards drag because I 

love being able to go there even if I’m not 

performing; just to go and be with that 

community and see a show. It’s a very 

different vibe than Cocktail D’amore, 

Buttons or Berghain, all that stuff. I think 

it’s a little bit sad how the club world and 

the drag world don’t necessarily overlap 

that much; my partying friends don’t 

go to drag shows that much, and vice 

versa. I think there’s a level of discomfort 

sometimes between the two people, which 

is something to think about. Maybe you 

can speak on this more, but I do think that 

more femme people—whether non-binary 

or CIS—don’t necessarily feel as safe in 

the clubbing scene, that there is still an 

overwhelming preference, or dominance, 

of CIS masculine gayness in the clubbing 

scene, which can make a lot of people feel 

uncomfortable. But yeah, the nightlife 

scene has had a massive impact on me, 

especially coming out later in life and 

having these spaces. 

I miss dancing so much, but the thing that is a bit of a shame is that there 

aren’t really any lesbian spaces in Berlin. I feel lesbians don’t get to have 

the same spectrum of queerness that gay men get to have, you know; most 

people that we know aren’t going to go hang out in those bars in Schöneberg. 

Somehow lesbians are all supposed to stay in one bar and do one night in 

this one place where we don’t have our own policies. That’s not to say that it 

should be exclusionary, but just a lesbian-run policy. 

74

75

Purrja: It’s really interesting that you say that, 

especially about safe spaces and drag bars and 

clubs. When I first moved to Berlin, I got sucked 

into this party lifestyle, where I was out at clubs 

a lot, taking a lot of drugs because I wanted so 

desperately to fit in because I felt it’s what I 

needed to do to make friends here. After a year 

of this I had developed a pretty intense panic 

disorder and very strong anxiety, and I realized 

the party scene was not for me. I’m a very social 

person, I really love socializing with people and 

I’ve always been that way, but I prefer more 

casual settings. That realization coincided with 

me discovering drag and existing in drag spaces, 

and for me that’s where I feel the safest in 

terms of nightlife, in terms of clubbing. I don’t 

necessarily feel very safe at clubs; when I used 

to go to Cocktail or Buttons or Berghain, I would 

feel intensely out of place, like I was performing 

for these people, for these guys and, you know 

displaying masculinity in a way that was just 

uncomfortable for me. 

Twat Butcher: I’ve heard from a lot of female 

friends that you feel pressured to go and partake 

in this hookup culture. But in order to do that 

you have to wedge who you really are into a more 

masculine version of yourself. 

Purrja: Absolutely. Before I started doing drag, 

I had a very big beard that I’d had for years and 

I never saw my face underneath. When I shaved 

for the first time and did drag, it was liberating 

in the sense that— okay, I’m finally doing this 

and I’m expressing myself in this way, but a 

month after I was so depressed. I hated the way 

that I looked; I felt so unattractive and so ugly 

and nobody was looking at me and it was just this 

horrible feeling. I know people who go to clubs 

just to dance, because they need to get rid of 

their energy that way. I completely understand 

that, but it’s not my story. I love to socialize and 

be with friends and have a kiki and have a cute 

time. I express myself and let out my steam. 

Actually, when I started doing drag, I started 

going out less. 

Twat Butcher: Yeah, because you got the thing 

that you had been searching for basically. 

Purrja: I know it sounds lame, but I found my 

purpose and I didn’t need to continue with that 

stuff anymore. 

Twat Butcher: Maybe now’s not the time for 

that whole conversation, but I think that this is 

something that needs to be spoken about a lot 

more. And I know Pansy, I know Danilo from 

Buttons; some people in the scene are doing a 

lot more to talk about staying focused on your 

purpose whilst being in the nightlife scene, AKA 

not getting lost in it. Being able to be out from 

Friday to Monday, taking tons of drugs and all 

that...I think in the queer community, that isn’t something that gets talked 

about enough, and I think it’s such a relatable thing for so many people. So 

much of our community revolves around partying and drugs, and that’s totally 

fine and good, but I think a lot of people don’t speak about the fact that actually 

you’re looking for that community because you’re looking to fill some deep 

need inside yourself; whether it’s a rejection from your family, from not fitting 

in at home, wherever, that’s why you’re out there in the first place. 

If you aren’t able to make those meaningful connections in that context, it 

actually becomes a really toxic cycle. You look for it by going out to parties, but 

you don’t find it so it makes you sad. So you take more drugs because you’re 

scared to connect with people in the first place, but then you’re just connecting 

with those drugs. Then you become dependent on them to connect at all. At 

the end of the day, we all have this vulnerable and inherent need in us to feel 

safe and to feel connected with people. 

Purrja: Yeah, for sure. I know so many 

people who come to Berlin solely to 

party; it’s obsessive the way that some 

people view it. I mean, I get that, but it’s 

so intensely focused on getting fucked 

up and going to parties. When you don’t 

really identify with that lifestyle, it can be 

quite difficult to find your place, as you 

said—’Why don’t I fit in? Why can’t I be the 

same as these people? Is something wrong 

with me?’ You feel weird about living a life 

in Berlin where you’re not partying, where 

you go for walks. It’s a different life, and 

I’ve been living that for the last three years 

now. There’s more than one face to Berlin. 

Twat Butcher: That’s also something that I feel isn’t spoken about, this—and 

it’s not necessarily intentional—the cliquey vibe of the cool kids that go to 

every party and everybody knows who they are; like in high school, you feel 

pressured to be a part of the ‘cool’ crowd, and it’s the same here in the party 

scene. 

It’s just unfortunate that we as queer people are so often insecure and unsure 

about making meaningful connections with people, because either we tried 

and experienced rejection from our friends and family back home, or we 

haven’t been able to fully nurture and accept who we really are. So that’s 

a weird place to start trying to make an honest connection with anyone, if 

you haven’t been able to fully look at who you are. You’ve got love yourself; 

otherwise, how can you have anyone else? 

Purrja: The point about connection is a good one, because that’s what draws 

me. When people come to a drag show, they’re going with the intention of 

seeing a show, of being moved and touched and entertained. That’s where 

I’ve formed the strongest connections in my life at the moment. That’s where 

this concept of chosen family comes into it; these are the spaces where family 

members reveal themselves because it’s where I’m being the most vulnerable 

that I’ve ever been. When people see that it just opens up so much connection; 

that’s what I really enjoy the most about being in drag spaces. Have you had a 

similar experience? 

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77

Twat Butcher: When your passion is something 

creative and you work with people who share the 

same passion, you tend to run into people who you 

fit with. That’s how we first met, actually! These 

are the people who I’ll be friends with for the 

rest of my life—all these friendships born from a 

place of shared passion and shared creation. You 

get to know people in a really deep way if you have 

that connection with them. There’s nothing more 

important than that, I think, as a queer person. 

Purrja: A hundred percent. And even this whole 

thing of chosen family doesn’t necessarily have 

to run so deep. I can go into Tipsy Bear on a 

Saturday night during a non-pandemic and feel 

such a strong sense of family. From the owners 

and bartenders and everyone that works there to 

bring these shows together, for me, they’re my 

family too. 

Twat Butcher: Your chosen family is the same 

way your real family is—you’ve got your mom 

and dad, brother, sister, and then you’ve got first 

cousins and aunts, second cousins, all the way 

down to family friends, and it’s the same in a 

queer family. And the space where you feel safe is 

also a member of that family. 

Purrja: Yeah, I feel the same; it’s mostly queer 

spaces or drag spaces where you go and you just 

feel a sense of a family and community, of feeling 

united. Well, before we wrap up, I just wanted to 

ask you where you see Twat in the next year? 

Twat Butcher: I do also want to push myself to do 

more emotional performances as well, because I 

think that’s an important thing for me to access 

in the context. But what I’ve come to realize is 

that I want to continue to use my drag as research 

for acting. Because now I feel safe in drag, and 

drag is so over the top; you can be so comfortable 

inside extremes, to go big and then to pare it 

back and see , okay, how does, how do these 

experiences, these performances in drag inform 

how I could perform as Ruby, in the context of 

a narrative storytelling situation, acting, a play, 

whatever. That’s what I see for me. 

With the Flaming Go-Go’s, we’d worked a lot 

and had loads of shows before COVID. Once 

everything’s open, we’re going to be back with a 

bang. I’m looking forward to doing that again, 

having that freedom of expression as well. I miss 

it a lot, but the biggest thing for me is using drag 

to push my performance skills, as a characterbuilding 

tool that I can then apply to my own 

performance as myself. What about you? 

78

Purrja: Well, first of all, I’m really excited 

to hear that the Flaming Go-Go’s will be 

back! Some of the most fun times ever. 

It’s such an interesting year because the 

pandemic has obviously blown everything 

out in the open and you’re left feeling 

, what am I doing? I dabbled in online 

digital performances and I enjoyed that, 

so going forward, what’s fascinating 

for me is to incorporate different media 

into my performances; visual stuff and 

maybe more soundscape things. I recently 

started this music production workshop, 

where I’m learning how to use Ableton and 

produce my own music. I want to make 

music, I want to produce and perform 

my own songs, I want to create visual 

landscapes for the music. My goal for the 

next year would be that I could release an 

EP. Which sounds wild, but... 

Twat Butcher: I don’t think it sounds wild, 

I can completely see it! I’ve said this to you 

many times, but I see Purrja as someone 

with their own sound; not just, lip-syncing 

somebody else’s music but creating your 

own thing. 

Purrja: Before I even did drag, I wanted to 

produce music. I didn’t know what context 

that would be in or what my viewpoint 

would be, or even what I wanted to say, but 

through doing drag and really exploring 

this character, I feel I have a much stronger 

point of view and a very solid idea of what 

I want to create. So yeah, I guess that’s my 

plan. 

Twat Butcher: We all know how much I 

love to sing. So I’ll be there. 

Purrja: We still have to do that karaoke 

night where nobody else is allowed to sing. 

It’s just an invited audience. 

@twatbutcher 

@purrja 

79

History of Drug Harm Reduction 

In 1971, Richard Nixon declared drug abuse to be the "public enemy number one of the United States" and thus 

launched the Drugs War. The DEA was formed in 1973 and imposed mandatory prison sentences for nonviolent 

drug-related crimes. It wasn't until the 1980s that Ronald Reagan really buckled down on drugs, causing 

an upsurge in prison, primarily targeting low-income communities and people of color. 

The drug war continues to rage today, though less public and with a shifting dynamic. It is universally accepted 

that the aggressive tactics of criminal punishment and stigmatization continue to fail to prevent people from 

doing drugs. In fact, studies show that they are more than likely to have the reverse effect, while also causing 

severe trauma to impoverished communities of color. The harm reduction movement came about in response 

to the grave crisis. 

Historically, harm reduction is a collection of public health and social practices that communities engage in to 

properly care for each other with the intention of minimizing the social and physical consequences of drug use, 

regardless of their legality. The ultimate goal is to see where people stand on drug consumption and meet 

them there by adequately treating them with boundless compassion. 

Rave Scout x DanceSafe National 

Rave Scout Cookies is committed to endorse harm reduction practices and provide resources to the 

community and society at large as one of its rave preservation projects. In 2019, we partnered with DanceSafe 

National to raise awareness on harm reduction and cease the shame and stigma of drug use. Criminalization 

remains the primary weapon of the drug war. The use of the criminal justice system to solve public health 

problems has proved to be ineffective but also socially destructive. It promotes stigma and discrimination, 

largely carried by already marginalized and vulnerable communities. 

80

In each issue of its periodic handbook, Rave Scout 

Cookies, in collaboration with harm reduction nonprofit 

organization DanceSafe National, publishes a 

collaborative guide for safer consumption of a 

differing drug–– which includes some helpful tips in 

the form of an anecdote written by the Rave Scout 

and DanceSafe teams. These tips will be relevant 

for both users of the drug and party organizers. For 

our Kaltblut feature special, we’ve selected to 

discuss what is possibly the most controversial and 

stigmatized substance on the rave scene right now 

and many decades that came before, GHB. 

(GBL, B) 

GHB stays on everybody’s lips. It reigns uncontested as the most 

controversial drug on the scene right now. It feels good and it’s a 

cheap date, but it’s also extremely delicate and a lot of people are 

overdosing on it. Is GHB acceptable as a party drug? It depends on 

who you’re asking. People who use it see it as a cut above substitute 

for alcohol, with similar effects of euphoria plus increased social 

confidence and libido, without the grogginess or the hangover. 

Scientific studies on the long-term effects of GHB on the body are 

little known and only now emerging, and ignorance is bliss. It is 

relatively inexpensive, making it particularly attractive to poor 

communities, which often means queer folk and people of color. 

These things considered, its ever-increasing popularity at raves and 

sex parties comes as no surprise. 

On the flip side, event organizers categorically reject it. On the international 

party scene, it is common to see posters plastered on walls of venues 

warning attendees against using G at risk of immediate eviction and 

permanent bans for users and their friends. DJs publish Anti-GHB warnings 

in their Instagram stories, so you know where they stand when it comes to 

their own parties. In Berlin, bouncers are known to take baby whiffs of partygoers' 

bottles of poppers to make sure the liquid isn't GHB. Without opining 

on organizers' methods, their insistence and vigilance on the matter are 

understandable. With the spike in consumption of GHB comes a spike in 

overdoses, which can be fatal to people and parties alike. It is an especially 

delicate drug, with a drop or two being the difference between feeling your 

sexy self and slipping into a very unsexy and potentially fatal coma. GHB 

overdoses are particularly visible, with people passing out and even going 

into seizure. Besides being scary, these loud symptoms attract the 

unwanted attention of paramedics and cops, considering a 911 call can give 

away a shindig's location and get it shut down. Parties across the world have 

been forced to either permanently close up shop or go on hiatus because 

of GHB overdoses. The clear liquid, easily mistakeable for water, was 

accused of singlehandedly bringing the U.K queer nightlife scene to the 

brink of destruction in the late aughts. 

Qiblawi, 

Danny 

Scout Segment Editor 

Rave 

Jaberi, 

Salman 

Development & Design 

Content 

Brown & Carl Todd, 

Flatbush 

of Graphics 

Selection 

It is unclear if the warning signs and 

Instagram posts are effective, but instead 

of quitting or turning to alternatives, it 

seems users are instead resorting to taking 

the drug in secret, which is proven to be 

even more dangerous with any substance. 

Look, we get it, drugs are fun. More than just 

being fun, we understand the physical, 

psychological, and spiritual benefits that 

recreational drug use brings to people's 

lives. Equally, our nightlife spaces, 

particularly queer ones, are precious. Our 

responsibility, when consuming any drug, 

extends beyond just ourselves to the 

friends who take care of us, the parties that 

cater to us and to the community at large. 

What's a raver without a rave? The 

relationship is symbiotic and must be 

respected for the good of everyone 

involved. It is important to note that unlike 

the war on drugs, which was essentially rich 

white people in power controlling and 

punishing denizens of poor, queer, brown 

communities, the calls to remove GHB from 

the rave scene come from the mouths of 

our own chiefs. 

So, is GHB acceptable at parties? Well, for 

the purposes of this guide, the question is 

moot. Right now, people are using it 

regardless. We do not condone or promote 

the consumption of GHB. The only way to 

eliminate the harm that consuming any 

drug can bring to you and your community 

is to stop consuming it entirely. With that 

said, if you have decided that the benefits 

of using this drug outweigh the risks, we've 

published DanceSafe National's GHB harm 

reduction guidelines and anecdotal, in 

addition to some Rave Scout anecdotal 

safety tips. 

81

f o r 

g h b 

u s e r s 

s a f e t y 

t i p s 

RAVE SCOUT'S FIRST 

AID 

+ SURVIVAL GUIDELINE 

Prepare your own doses. 

Always measure G carefully using a syringe or 

pipette. This you do in milliliters since you are now 

dosing out the liquid. Never swig G from the bottle, 

it is a very delicate drug. Trust your friends, but stay 

wary of people who offer you GHB without 

consulting you on your experience with the drug. 

Again, when taking GHB from other people, make 

sure to ask if it is GHB, GBL, or BDO. 

Make sure you have 

the right gear. 

(GBL, B) 

Do drugs with intention. 

Whatever drug you're taking, take it with a responsible 

mindset. Know what you want out of it and set 

boundaries for yourself on where you're willing to go. This 

is a requirement for safer consumption of any drug, 

particularly for one as volatile and delicate as GHB. 

Know what 

you are buying. 

GBL, GHB, and BDO look pretty much identical, but 

they are not. GBL is chemically very similar to GHB. It 

actually converts into GHB quickly once it enters the 

body. However, it's also two to three times stronger, 

making the amount required to overdose much lower. 

The amount that will cause an overdose is also 

bodyweight dependent, which means taking a GHBsized 

dose of GBL can easily lead to overdose and 

death, especially for smaller people. 

GHB melts plastic. This means that it can make holes in 

the wrong bottles, and even erase the measurement 

markings on a pipette or dropper. By the end of the 

night, you won't be able to accurately measure your 

doses, which is hard enough to do by strobe light of a 

dark club even when you're not high. A better idea is to 

prepare your doses before your night out and keep 

them in vials. This helps you stay consistent and 

accurate. 

Always 

start small. 

New to dosing? Bottle from a new 

source? Play it safe. We all have 

different thresholds. As with all drugs, 

you have to build a relationship with 

GHB and understand how it affects 

your body. 

not mix GHB with alcohol under 

Do 

circumstances. 

any 

This is a surefire way to ruin everyone's 

night and land yourself in the hospital. 

mix it with Ketamine 

Don't 

opiates either. 

or 

This is known to cause nausea, and barfing 

looks even less cute than it feels. 

a source you trust. 

Have 

The potency of G can significantly differ from bottle to 

bottle. It's best to be familiar with what you're taking, so 

you know how to dose yourself. When buying G, make 

sure you ask about its concentration, which is actually 

measured in grams. i.e., "How many milligrams of G are 

there in this solution?" If you can't get an answer, you 

shouldn’t consume the drug until you test it. 

someone when you've 

Tell 

a dose. 

done 

G messes with your memory; it's easy to forget 

if you've put some in your (always nonalcoholic) 

drink. This way, if you've lost track of 

whether you've taken one or not, you have 

someone to check in with. Do not take another 

dose if you are not sure. Wait it out. 

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f o r 

g h b 

s a f e t y 

t i p s 

RAVE SCOUT'S FIRST 

AID 

+ SURVIVAL GUIDELINE 

Tips For 

Organizers 

Have an onsite medical team. Depending on 

the size of your party and of the drug habits of 

your attendees, consider hiring medical 

professionals. Have a clearly designated area 

where people can receive medical attention. If 

you have the funds for high end production, you 

certainly have the funds for a private medical 

team. 

u s e r s 

(GBL, B) 

Redosing GHB is tricky. 

Set timers and do not re-dose before at least 90-120 

minutes have passed, even if you don't feel high. If you do still 

feel high, you may need to wait 120-180 minutes. Keep in 

mind that redosing hour after hour becomes increasingly 

dangerous, particularly after the third or fourth round. 

Educate rather than punish. As opposed to 

banning it outright, warn about the harm GHB 

can cause people and your party. People will lie 

about what drugs they have taken to avoid 

bans and shaming, which is very dangerous. 

Regulate behaviors as opposed to drug use. 

Have clear policies on essential subjects like 

consent, passing out, and violence. This 

protects everyone involved should you find 

that the appropriate action is to remove 

someone from the venue, without stigmatizing 

drug use. 

Have places to sit. It's not just about comfort, 

it's also about safety. Seating areas allow for 

rest and recovery. 

something before you 

Eat 

GHB. do 

bright food coloring in your 

Put 

bottle. 

GHB 

This helps ensure no one accidentally 

mistakes it for water or liquor. 

Avoid shaming 

your friends for 

doing GHB. 

Marginalizing and stigmatizing people is proven to 

have the opposite of the desired effect of getting 

people to stop doing drugs. Your friends will more 

than likely just end up doing G in secret and passing 

out in hidden corners, which is scary. If you think 

your friends have a problematic relationship with 

the drug, rather than treat them as untouchable, 

connect them with local resources that will help 

them. 

What to do if 

someone 

overdoses?. 

Put the person in the recovery position. Place 

the person on their side, with legs bent, and 

head resting on the arm on the floor. This 

position prevents choking by letting the fluid 

drain from the person's mouth. Check in on 

them and their breathing. 

An ambulance should be called if the breathing 

slows to less than eight breaths a minute. 

Slapping people to sober them up or giving 

them other drugs like coke or speed does not 

work. The person has overdosed, and their body 

needs to work through it. 

THINGS TO KNOW 

G daily is dangerous. If you have been using G 

Using 

and want to stop, there are severe withdrawal 

daily 

symptoms, including confusion, paranoia, delirium, 

memory problems, tremors, and 

hallucinations, 

If you do want to detox, do so under 

more. 

supervision at a medical facility. 

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nuuna.com 

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Between 

memory 

and a 

modern 

aesthetic: 

Valentino 

Men’s 

Pre Fall 

Collection 

May I introduce you to the new Valentino Men’s Pre Fall 

Collection starring model Teddy Corsica in exclusivity 

for this project. The Men’s Pre Fall Collection is a new 

vision and proposal of Formalwear and men’s mindset. 

The signs and codes of Valentino today are re-signified 

through knowledge and freedom of personal expression. 

The Maison’s heritage is re-signified, updated and 

innovated, without losing its rooted values. 

The nature of men’s wardrobe is versatile, a totally 

free and nonconformist attitude. The craftmanship 

conveys value to the research of the classic items of a 

wardrobe in perpetual evolution, moved by an instinct 

of de-structuring and reconstructing, according to 

experimental gestures that add to the iconicity of the 

pieces. 

There is a strong focus on embroideries, a drive 

towards the suit and the study of textiles. By being 

fragmented in a multiplication of views, the Valentino 

identity finds its inclusive, lively unity. The opportunity 

to contaminate aesthetic languages and codes makes 

everyday decisions more interesting and fluid. Free. 

Valentino is one of these worlds, synonym of 

craftsmanship, expertise, elegance, Couture. 

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The basic elements of formal wear, white 

shirt and black tie, redefine the value of 

identity in which the Creative Director 

Pierpaolo Piccioli firmly believes in. 

Everyone can live side by side, meet, 

transform each time in something unique, 

without losing their real self. Romantic, 

subversive, punk, gentlemen, free. 

www.valentino.com 

@maisonvalentino 

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One to 

watch 

Marina Kitsukawa 

Photographer Alîn Zerya @alinzerya_ 

Fashion Marina Kitsukawa @marina_s_online 

Model Arnord Ingendju @arnord.ingendju 

Make Up artist Evin Yeyrek @evinmuaberlin 

Introducing Marina Kitsukawa: The French-Japanese Fashion Design Graduate of the University 

of the Arts in Berlin. Photographer Alîn Zerya captured model Arnord Ingendju in the amazing 

creations from the young designer. 

“The starting point of this work is the analysis of the craft technique Suminagashi (inc floating on 

water); a traditional Japanese technique practiced as early as the 12th century. Later in the 17th 

century, the art of Suminagashi spread throughout Europe known as marbling. 

The interesting thing about the marble technique is, when you drop different colours in water, the 

colours always stand for themselves and never get mixed with each other. And this is the point, what 

makes this technique so beautiful and interesting. There are many different colours, existing side by 

side and in this way, they create one harmonious pattern together. 

In this handicraft technique, I saw the symbol for what I wish for our society: The living together of 

many different individuals, each with its own wonderful and unique colour, which together form a 

harmonious assembly or a harmonious pattern. The message I want to create with my work is the 

call for more tolerance and acceptance of individuals in society with a mood of fun and freedom. 

For the silhouette, I was inspired by the beauty of free-minded pride parade people. People who 

are demonstrating multisexuality and multiculturalism. They want to be accepted from society 

as individuals: as homosexuals or as a person from a different nationality. After I analysed the 

garment of pride parade people, I chose the chap trousers and the tight top as a reference garment. 

The classic jacked, also often worn on the parade, stands historically for uniformity and conformity. 

By choosing a transparent and colourful material for this jacket, this piece challenges the meaning 

of this classical uniform in a playful and permissive way. Colour: I used some colours of the rainbow 

symbol from the pride parade. Therefore, pink stands for sexuality, yellow for the sunlight and blue 

for harmony,” says Marina Kitsukawa. 

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Bambi 

Mercury 

Interview by Marcel Schlutt @marcel_schlutt 

Photography by Joseph Wolfgang Ohlert @jwo_studio 

Bambi Mercury’s real name is Tim and is known as one of the most exciting drag queens on the Berlin 

scene. He has made a name for himself with years of hard work in the club scene as a DJ and club kid 

and lives openly with his alter ego. Bambi does not embody the classic image of drag queens, as we know 

them from Rupaul’s drag race, for example. Tim is a father, an icon and podcast star. Special thanks to 

photographer Joseph Wolfgang Ohlert for capturing Bambi Mercury for this issue! 

Hello Bambi. Welcome to our family. 

Let’s start directly. Please tell our 

readers where you are from and 

what is your mission? 

Hey! Thank you so much for having 

me. I’ve lived in Berlin for several 

years and during that time I created 

my Drag Persona “Bambi Mercury”. 

I think she was always inside of me. 

But in Berlin, in my queer bubble and 

with all those creative people around 

me, Bambi came out and said: Hi 

there! Let’s get it on! 

What drove you to create your drag 

persona? How did your drag name 

come about? 

I always had friends who did Drag. 

One time, one of my friends took 

me to a bar for a public viewing 

of RuPaul’s Drag Race. After 

the screening, the local Queens 

performed and I saw the diversity 

and creativity of their art and I was 

enchanted. 

I had the chance to perform on that 

stage weeks later, and figured out, 

make up is harder than you think in 

the first place. I looked awful, but it 

was a lot of fun. 

My friends have always called me Bambi since my teen 

years. I added Mercury, because of my passion for 

Freddie Mercury and Queen. Bambi Mercury was born. 

In 2019 you took part in Queen of Drags, a drag 

show with Heidi Klum on German TV. How has that 

affected your career? 

It was such a joyride and another small step for 

German television. In the beginning of 2020 we all had 

our live shows at Metropol Berlin and my whole year 

was already packed with bookings. (Performances/ 

Host/DJ) 

Then the pandemic happened. But it didn’t stop my 

creativity. We found our way to stay relevant and use 

our voices. 

How important is a TV show like Queen of Drags and 

RuPaul’s Drag Race for the community? For many 

drag queens and fans, these TV shows are more than 

just a safe space. 

Our queer clubs are our safe spaces. Still there, but 

closed. They are essential for us. 

Showing visibility, diversity and all colours of our 

community is the most important thing. Germany 

still needs time to soak it up. As a queer child, it is 

such a relief to see drag artists and queer people on 

televison. There is an identification that takes place 

and is very important to become who you really are 

and makes you stronger. 

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Talking about safe spaces... How important are such 

places for you personally and which places in Berlin 

do you call a “safe space” and why? 

For me personally, my safe space is my close friends, 

my chosen family and my club Schwuz. At Schwuz I had 

my first DJ gigs and it was the first club I went to when 

I was in Berlin. There are several clubs and bars where 

we can be ourselves. 

On the topic of nightlife and LGBTQIA+ communities, 

what is it like in your city? How could visibility be 

increased? 

I would say that the media is one factor. You will always 

see stereotypes, but not everyone who lives under the 

same umbrella. Berlin is a very international city, but 

it is still filled with hateful people and crime against 

LGBTQIA+ people. This is why we still need a Pride 

and talking about being queer. So many people, mostly 

straight people, don’t understand the struggle. My 

friend Barbie Breakout said once, “Just take someone, 

who’s the same gender as you are and have a walk, hand 

in hand on the street and wait for the response.” 

The drag industry is no longer an underground scene. 

The mainstream and pop music world is celebrating 

drag queens around the world. But here in Germany, 

I think, we still have a long way to go. What would you 

change if you had the power? 

Oh yes! I would love to have a chance to change a lot. 

Going to church in drag and asking them why God 

hates gays. I would love to do a 7 day documentation 

where I go to several spots like a kindergarden or 

retirement homes in drag and have a talk with people. 

Discussions on television shows or maybe a series 

about authentic queer life and not only the cliché stuff. 

You are an artist, DJ, performer, father and an icon 

for many Berliners. What advice can you give to the 

next generation of drag performers? To survive the 

industry. 

Have fun! Don’t take yourself too seriously! You won’t 

get rich, the biggest gift is friendship and experience. 

For me the most beautiful moments I have had are 

when people told me that they or their children have 

been encouraged to be themselves (Outing) and being 

supported by their loved ones, just because of me. 

These moments give me the recognition that I am right 

in what I do. Priceless! 

We have been affected by 

the pandemic for more than 

a year now. How do you 

survive these times? 

I saved a lot of money, 

originally for a trip with 

my bestie Candy Crash. We 

wanted to go to San Francisco 

for Christmas and New Years 

Eve 2020. It helped me to 

survive, I had some DJ gigs 

on streaming platforms or 

corporations like Xbox. 

These strange times gave us 

the option to rethink what 

we do or what we can do. 

It makes us more creative 

and powerful and we are all 

connected, because of social 

media. I am working on 

several projects. 

What does a typical 

lockdown day look like for 

you? 

Long sleep, checking email. 

Watching old movies and 

also adult ones. I eat a lot of 

crap but try to balance it with 

walks in the park or playing 

with my 2 little girls. I really 

miss having food with my 

friends and meeting in our 

favourite restaurants. 

What will be the first thing 

you do when the pandemic is 

over? 

Grab my best friends and 

have a big big celebration in 

a restaurant with masses of 

food. Visiting my parents with 

my children and their mother. 

Family and friends are very 

important for me. During 

lockdown my grandma was 

not able to meet my children, 

she passed away in March. 

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“Our queer clubs are 

our safe spaces. 

Still there, but closed. 

They are essential for 

us. Showing visibility, 

diversity and all 

colours of our 

community is the most 

important thing.“

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You just released the podcast Mehr Glitzer with 

the wonderful Candy Crash. 

Wonderful? She is a beast! Haha! She is one of my 

oldest friends and Iam very proud to have been on 

several events with her. 

What is your podcast about? And why did it take 

you until 2021 for you to do a podcast? 

You will find Mehr Glitzer on Audible, where we 

talk about everything also our views from our 

sights, ‘cause for straights its always a different 

view than living in a queer bubble. And we will also 

drink Champagne from LIDL and throw shade. 

It took 1 year preparing everything. Audible 

took its time but we are more than happy 

that they gave us the platform for our 

queer themes. 

What are you striving for next? What do you want to see 

change or improve? 

I have plans to work on television and writing a lot, I also 

create upcycled sweaters. I stay creative and just go with the 

flow. I would love to see more kindness and understanding 

from all the people out there. The Me Too and Black Lives 

Matter movements are 2 serious themes that will be with us 

for a very long time. Educate yourself and start supporting 

our sisters and brothers! 

Instagram 

@bambi_mercury 

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BE YOUR 

FUCKING 

SELF 

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TEUN SEUREN DELIVERS

Words Lewis Robert Cameron @lrcfashionstylist 

Photography Gijs van de Veerdonk @gijsvdvd 

Fashion Teun Seuren @teun_seuren 

Makeup + Hair Vito Armando @vito.armando 

Models Jules Jaden Avery @julesjadenavery 

Wouter Rave @w.rave, 

Aryelle Freeman 

@aryellefreeman_hopelezz 

Jewelry design Simone Schampers @sisijohanna 

Gloves Jeanne Hermans @cest_jeanne 

Nail art Manon Van Eldik @manon_elvera 

Assistant Robin Promma @r.b.n_ 

Special thanks to Fashionclash 

@fashionclash_festival 

DUTCH COURAGE FOR A/W21 

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Netherlands based designer and KALTBLUT fam-fav Teun Seuren unleashed another successfully explosive 

collection for AW21, entitled Pick My Flowers, They’re Wild presented at Fashion Clash, bursting with unapologetic 

queerness from head to toe, henny. Petals were flowing, prints were popping and shapes were served in 

Electra Abundance. Delivering inclusivity in isolation and finding inspiration in drag communities and the 

beauty of the natural world, Seuren gives us the revelation of the you do you variety we so desperately need 

right now. 

Hi Teun, long time no speak. How have you been? 

Hey KALTBLUT, yes indeed. I am doing wonderful, 

thanks for asking. I have lots of exciting projects 

coming up, and I am starting a small production 

line. So I don’t have any complaints. 

Wow you have been busy! That is amazing news 

and congrats on the new collection also. 

Thank you very much. It was such a strange yet 

amazing show this time. Fully digital this year, which 

was pretty exciting. 

What was the inspiration behind the name of the 

collection? 

The main inspiration was my love for wild flowers 

and nature. Particularly how each plant lives its own 

life without necessarily getting in the way of others. 

Also the fascinating occurrence of weeds sprouting 

out from between the pavement and flowering despite 

all adversity. The power of standing out, living 

your own life without interference from others. 

How do you think recent world events have impacted 

and influenced you as a designer and more 

specifically, this collection? 

I’ve developed myself more as a person and started 

getting into the world of drag. I realized this lockdown 

is actually a mirror of how society deals with 

people who renounce social norms. People whose 

appearance does not conform to social norms and 

standards can also feel isolated a large majority of 

the time. This was a starting point for the collection 

in which I offer a platform for diversity and identity, 

where we can create a safe space to be yourself no 

matter what. I want to make people feel good with 

my clothes. Let them feel and enjoy their identity 

while being absolutely fabulous. 

This collection feels a lot softer and more sensual 

than your previous collections. Why do you think 

this is? 

I agree, this collection is indeed a lot softer than the 

previous collection. In this collection my focus was 

very much on putting together a beautiful bouquet 

of colours and structures. Everything in the collection 

has a warm side, which makes it a lot softer. 

Which makes it very sensual. But a long fake nail 

here or an obscuring mask there makes it refined, but 

also hot and sexy. 

I love the powerful silhouettes and contrasting elements 

you have included. Tell me more about these 

specific choices? 

After the success of my previous collection, and the further 

development of myself as a designer, I wanted to 

implement all these new skills I’ve gained throughout the 

process. I brought back various items from the previous 

collection. Like the femme biker peplum jacket. But this 

time with a full length mermaid skirt. I also wanted to 

experiment more with movement and how clothing can 

respond to it. The look with the ocher yellow jacket and 

peacock print ruffles in combination with the leopard 

print mesh top and pants is a perfect example. Even while 

standing still it is already an impressive look, but once in 

motion the look comes to life and it almost looks like a 

coral reef swaying in the current of the ocean. Same goes 

for the soft biker helmet, while headbanging, the ruffles 

tend to bounce in a hypnotizing swirl, like wind blowing 

through a field. 

Talk me through your print and pattern choices. What 

inspired you to work with these specific fabrics and 

prints this season? 

We had zebra last season. And since I like animal prints, 

I decided to go for leopard this season. A luxurious pink 

satin also caught my eye, I immediately fell in love with 

the combination of pink and the warm hues and spots of 

the leopard print. I got the embroidered floral mesh from 

my local fabric store. The flowers of this print match 

beautifully with the pink satin and pop off the mustard 

yellow stretch cotton I used for my suits and jackets. 

What did you enjoy most about designing and making 

your new collection? 

What I enjoyed most was developing my leopard wedding 

dress. The skirt consists of 11 meters of heavy furniture 

fabric with an intricate lining. This was a dress that I 

have wanted to make for a while. What I also loved was 

collaborating with different local artists. For example, 

my personal nail artist Manon van Eldik made the fake 

nails covered with the same fabric as the bodysuit itself. 

Also Simone Schampers who makes jewelry was able to 

send me very bold earrings and necklaces to compliment 

the looks. 

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What do you think it means to 

be an unapologetically queer 

designer in 2021? 

I think it is extremely necessary 

that we are unapologetic 

right now. We are in the middle 

of a social shift in which gender 

identity, and mental health are 

getting a lot of attention. These 

are issues carrying enormous 

stigma. Now is the time to break 

through those stigmas, and why 

not use fashion. Through the 

years fashion has always been 

a part of political and social 

revolution, like Hillary Clinton 

making a huge political 

statement by wearing a 

pantsuit. 

How do you think your own 

queerness has influenced 

you as a designer? 

It’s funny that you ask 

that, because I think in 

my case it is also the other 

way around. My queerness 

has given me the strength 

to be loud and rebellious, I 

use this in my work. But my 

work has also taught me to 

become more open-minded 

and discover new scenes. 

Thanks to my collections 

I’m exploring the drag 

scene. I would never 

have been able to experiment 

and rediscover 

myself like 

this without 

my work. 

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What would you say is your own personal protective 

space? Where do you feel the safest in 

your own identity? And where do you feel the 

most queer? 

Good question, I’ve been asking myself this question 

for a while now. I want to say at home I have 

a small studio, over 50 plants, lots of mirrors, lots 

of little interesting ornaments and in the evening 

I have different colored mood lights. Through the 

leaves of the plants, and the shattering of the light 

through the mirrors, the room fills with beautiful 

drawings on my ceiling and walls made of a combination 

of lights and shadows. I describe it as 

my personal museum. This, plus my favorite music 

(including ARCA,SOPHIE, and Lana) makes it 

a true safe space for me. 

That is a lot of plants. Sounds like heaven. With 

regards to queer spaces, do you think catwalks 

are doing enough to explore queer identities? 

I think we are at a big turning point in regards 

to gender, queerness, and sexuality. I see a lot 

of queerness happening around me. Such as 

non-binary drag artist Bimini who is now extremely 

popular in the fashion industry. They 

have been asked to walk for London Fashion 

Week, featured in Dazed, after their participation 

on RuDrag’s Drag Race and recently signed 

to Next Models. Also icon Mark Bryan is known 

worldwide, because he likes to walk in heels and 

skirts without any shame. I think we’re well on 

our way to normalizing and properly representing 

queer identity, but we have a long road ahead 

of us. 

What is the main message you are trying to get 

across with your work and this new collection 

in particular? 

Basically; Be your fucking self, and mind your 

own fucking business. I am thriving for a world 

where your gender, sexuality, ethnicity and age 

are no longer important. Fashion is universal. It 

doesn’t need to divide us, it should connect us. 

Amen/finger snaps. Finally what would you describe 

as your best queer experience or queer 

highlight as a designer so far? 

Receiving all the kindness and love, getting messages 

from young queer kids being inspired by 

my work, taking the time to let me know they are 

inspired by me. I’ve always known I would never 

have kids myself, but this way I feel like I am leaving 

a legacy. That feels so powerful. 

House of Teun Seuren. We love to see it. Live 

long and prosper. 

Instagram @teun_seuren 

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Rave Against 

The Machine: 

10 Years of 

Interview by A. Susurration 

All illustrations/Flyers by Stefan Fähler @stefanfaehler 

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When you first enter Gegen, the immediate 

feeling is of having gained entrance to the sorts 

of mutant saturnalia you always dreamed of as 

a kid—Pinnochio’s Pleasure Island, Bradbury’s 

Dark Carnival, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse; seedy, a little 

dangerous, and full of hidden delights. Stretching 

throughout the whole of Berlin’s KITKATCLUB, its 

atmosphere whirrs with the promises of forbidden 

debauched deliciousness, woven of disco light and 

beads of sweat. 

As the reveller winds their way through the veins of the club, 

passing steel poles where pulsating flesh spins a techno 

tarantella, winding passageways between rooms where 

genres become amorphous, melding into each other in 

ecstatic cacophony, slipping between the dance-wracked 

louches lounging lasciviously by the lapping indoor pool 

(they say there’s no p in it, which is clearly taking the piss..) 

it is this atmosphere that suffuses mind and body. Its unique 

perfume of filth-black Berlin grit and international queer 

expression is an intoxicating cocktail, especially for the 

many who have travelled here searching for an escape into 

this world that could only exist in this place. Gegen is a party 

like no other, and that smart, sexy power has kept it thriving 

in a city long known for its mad raving stark. 

This desire for more, for newness, to push the idea of what a 

party can be deeper, harder, was the genesis of Gegen in 2011, 

a fusion of three minds entrenched within different aspects 

of Berlin’s queer club scene: Fabio Boxikus of Sabotage, Phag 

Off’s Francesco Warbear, and Tomas Hemstad, who helmed 

Darkness. Seeking refuge from the more homogenized, 

stereotypical aspects of the gay circuit, the three sought 

to create a space that could be subversive as well as safe, 

and beholden to no specific ‘scene’; a space where sleazy 

sounds and socio-political commentary make for beautiful 

bedfellows. 

“Although coming from a similar queer political background, 

we all had different life paths; we communicated with 

different scenes in Berlin,” explains Fabio. “Our coming 

together acted as a magnet for these scenes and created a 

vortex which led them to clash within our event— without 

which they would never have been interested in clashing 

before. We created a spark, which then became bigger and 

bigger, and which then attracted various external realities. 

This was exactly what we wanted: to create a space where 

beauty was in diversity and where liberation came through 

the freedom of the body’s expression.” While Tomas and 

Warbear have since left Berlin, Fabio keeps the fires burning 

together with resident advisor and DJ Marius Sagau, aka 

Mar/us. 

One of the things that makes Gegen such a joy is that it shows 

a variety of nightlife’s many faces, every floor presenting a 

different expression of queerness. It is this, says Fabio, that 

brings the people bacch to this bacchanalia. “We don’t want 

to categorize our audience, because we are against labels and 

classifications in general. The whole thing is a genderfluid 

amalgamation of bodies, where everyone has the possibility 

to express—and have expressed—emotions with those 

around them. 

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Photography 130 by Andrea Galad for GEGEN002 @andreaglalad

The energy at Gegen is much different from other parties. 

There is no performance anxiety, where you have to 

be perfect to get in. We don’t force people to conform to 

a set look to get in, but you should be prepared to know 

where you are entering. Through the four musical floors, 

we create a diverse musical space so that each person is 

able to find their place, where they can let themselves go. 

The music acts as a magnet, the dance as communication 

and from there, the liberation of the individual itself. 

They then rediscover and question themselves in a space 

where they meet people outside of their particular scene. 

Diversity and multiplicity are precisely what enriches us 

as people and as a party, and it’s important for us to give 

space that allows the free expression of the individual.” 

That space didn’t come naturally—especially in Berlin, 

where space has fast become a pricey commodity. Following 

the debut of three separate nights held at the 

sadly now-departed warehouse MIKZ, the venue then 

promptly closed due to the surging rent prices. Finding a 

new location proved convoluted; the trio knew what they 

didn’t want—the classic post-industrial Berlin techno 

flavor, the too-cool-for-pool vibe of the bigger clubs and 

parties that they wanted to subvert. This eventually led 

them to their now-permanent home at Kit Kat, which Fabio 

says is the perfect fit for Gegen’s ethos. 

“The KITKATCLUB is a space that has had a clear political 

concept from the first moments of its existence, 

which is allowing the utmost expression of 

the liberation of the body through communication. 

At the gate on your way in you can read 

‘Life Is A Circus’; we knew that this was the 

perfect place for a mass of freaks like us. 

And so we began our journey inside this 

space twisted on itself around tunnels, 

secret passages, swimming pools, fluorescent 

colours and intertwined masses 

of semi-naked bodies. 

The concept of the club was—and still is—completely 

out of the usual conventions of the music industry, 

which has the headliners as the main ‘value’ of the evening. 

Those who go to KITKATCLUB do so because of the 

atmosphere it creates, and because of that sense of not 

belonging to the stereotypical standards of many other 

clubs, of straying from the cliché. Instead of a dresscode, 

revelers are invited to let go and explore their new 

selves once they have crossed over, creating a wave of 

warm positivity that includes, involves and engages you, 

that you can find in the smiles of the people you meet. 

All this gives free rein to self-expression in a space devoid 

of prejudice, and from here, the amalgamation of 

bodies, as if they were a single body wriggling to the beat 

of the music, exploring new horizons carnal and otherwise. 

The presence of the Awareness Unit also plays a key role. 

We were among the first to create these omnipresent angels 

dedicated to communication and harm reduction— 

easily identifiable and approachable team members 

whose role is to watch over and support all the participants 

in our sabbatical ritual.” 

Binding all this beauty together is the incredible visual 

imagery which Gegen has become known for. Each 

event poster is a work of art, evoking the fantastic and 

the otherworldly, perfectly capturing the yearning for 

metamorphosis that suffuses their revelries. These 

ephemeral visions are birthed from the mind of Stefan 

Fähler, Gegen’s go-to illustrator since 2013. He has become 

a sort of reference point for graphic communication 

in Berlin, creating artwork for big events in the 

scene as well as newspapers and other cultural happenings. 

Queens and angels, dreams and delirium all cavort 

in equal terms throughout his work, tongues and 

limbs blossoming like a velvet concussion across your 

ventral pons, a jewelled universe of delirious, mutated 

monstrosities which Fabio says perfectly capture the essence 

of Gegen. “Even today, looking at his old graphics, 

I keep discovering small details that surface, that were 

hidden among the various explosions of color and minutiae 

that fill his work. ” 

That mutational exploration extends to their booking as 

well. Gegen’s decade of esoteric lineups has brought together 

artists and DJs across a wide variety of genres— 

grime and glam bumping beauties basement-level, 

harsh noise and R&B rubbing shoulders before the 

phrase ‘post-club’ was a gleam in a journalist’s eye... 

each time, there is always something to shock and delight 

the eyes and ears. 

“An important aspect on which we work a lot, is searching 

for the artists we involve during the evenings. We try 

to involve mainly Flint* / LGBTQIA+ and foreign artists, 

although it’s not always that simple, because the club 

scene is heavily dominated by the white CIS male. We 

don’t work on a concept of genre exclusivity but of inclusivity; 

this can be seen not only in the lineup of our 

events, but also in the work we are doing with our own 

label Gegen Records.” 

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On this page, the first Gegen flyer made by Nina Reisinger 

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Formed pre-COVID, the label maintained Gegen’s 

questioning approach, created not only as an imprint 

but as a personal critique against the music industry. 

“We started working on the label with Marius in October 

‘19. It was rather bad luck that we found ourselves 

launching the label in the middle of the pandemic. The 

good thing about this whole period is that it allowed the 

record label to become our main focus and help us not to 

disappear into the fog, as with so many other events. It’s 

giving us hope, and at the same time we’re giving artists 

in our community a reason to keep their head up, to keep 

creating and not lose themselves in depression—a state 

that is currently afflicting many people in our scene. 

Despite this current climate, we are working hard to 

ensure the survival of our club culture and therefore 

continuing to support and promote queer artists by 

offering them a platform within the music industry. 

As the work behind a music label is very complex and 

challenging no matter what you do—but especially 

while juggling a pandemic, the survival of a culture 

and forward-thinking work ethics—we have expanded 

the label team to include La Fraicheur, another Gegen 

resident, who’s giving us a lot of support in this project. 

Another new addition to the team is Andrea Galad, a 

photographer with a neoclassical aesthetic who uses 

bodies as the ultimate expression of the statuesque 

beauty of Hellenistic works. We love the compositions 

and stories he tells through his shots, which is why 

we’ve entrusted him with the aesthetics of our label. 

He’s narrating stories through bodies. Bodies are 

expressions, and Gegen is an explosion of stories.” 

The physicality of this new label’s releases is also key 

in Fabio’s mind. “The vinyl format, although more 

expensive in terms of production, has another positive 

impact on musicians as well as music lovers, because you 

create a concrete product that feels grounding, an asset 

that you can touch and live with a greater satisfaction, 

in addition to the fact that the beautiful cover artwork 

by Andrea can be hung like paintings. The images, or 

rather the visual presentation is, as we all know, the first 

impact you have introducing any project, that speaks to 

the audience even before you start reading or listening. 

On the cover of the GEGEN002 release you see a white 

man embracing a person of color—a very clear signal 

that we want to convey, especially after the various 

violences that the POC community have had to suffer 

and are still suffering.” 

While originally conceived as a vinyl-only music label, 

given the circumstances of the world the team decided 

that including a regular digital release format as well 

would be easier. “The simplified task of releasing this 

format has given us more of an opportunity to promote 

lesser-known artists in the scene, as well as chip away 

at the gender issues that afflict the music industry. Our 

first digital release involves only female and non-binary 

artists, precisely because we wanted to involve and give 

visibility to a group of producers who are unfortunately 

undervalued in a very sexist world and a mostly white 

music industry where women are often discriminated 

against on the basis that their appearance is more 

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important than their skills and never on a par with a 

male figure in terms of representation in lineups and 

pay equality. Trans or non-binary genders are rarely 

considered. Gegen Records will always try to promote 

more artists from the LGBTQIA+ scene and female 

producers, because this is the work we were already 

doing with our events and one of the reasons why we are 

still moving forward.” 

As humanity slowly shambles out of our homes in 

long-awaited preparation for a return to ‘normalcy’— 

whatever that might mean—the future of so many of the 

parties and events that once defined our evenings seem 

nebulous right now. Fabio, however, is confident that 

what makes Gegen so different from other parties is also 

what will keep it alive, and has a message for all those 

who would queue once more before its portal. 

“To paraphrase Dante’s Inferno in a modern key: 

Leave all prejudices behind, you who enter. 

Our individual freedom ends where another person’s 

begins. 

Where there is no respect, there is no place inside 

Gegen.” 

This interview has been edited and condensed for 

readability and clarity. 

Instagram @gegenberlin @soundcloud @bandcamp 

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10 Years 

Photography 138 by Gili Shani @gilishani

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Photography by Sophie Aghia @aghiasophie

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Photography by Discordant @ema_discordant

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Photography by Gili Shani @gilishani 

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Photography by Gili Shani @gilishani

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A TALE OF 

Johannesburg and Kyiv’s 

Explorations of club culture have been 

essayed forth almost since clubbing 

began. For as kinky, stinky, filthy 

and exhausting as it can be, there’s 

something pure and deeply spiritual 

about the act of surrendering yourself 

to the pulse of the beat, feeling your 

body immerse into a crowd and become 

part of it. It’s a universal language. 

TEN CITIES is an intimate look at 

clubbing from within the perspectives 

of urban denizens who lived through 

the ebbing tides of nightlife groovage 

within their own backyards. It’s 

filled with tales of DIY creation and 

promotion, of building temples to disco 

and decadence against sometimes fatal 

odds. These tales were transcribed right 

before COVID hit. 

A year later, virtually every club in the 

world has ceased operations—nightlife 

has become either nonexistent, or 

furtive and illegal. From their homes 

in Cape Town and Kyiv, TEN CITIES 

essayists Sean O’Toole and Vitalii 

Bardetski discuss how their own 

clubscapes have shifted in this time— 

and how they will continue to survive. 

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TWO CITIES 

Club Culture, Post-Pandemic 

Interview by Daniel J. 

Free Style Pantsula, Soweto Twonship, Johannesburg, 2016 

Chris Saunders @chrissaundersphoto 

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The Jazzolomos: Jacob ‘Mzala’ Lepers (bass), Sol ‘Beegeepee’ Klaaste 

(piano) and Benni ‘Gwigwi’ Mrwebi (alto sax), Johannesburg, 1953 

Jürgen Schadeberg @jurgenschadeberg 

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Sean: Here in South Africa, the lockdown itself was quite destructive; 

we don’t have much flex in our financial institutions to handle longer 

lockdowns, as has been the case in Europe. As a result, people just 

started going out. There was an attempt to reopen the clubs late last 

year, but then raids happened targeting the bigger institutions, and 

licenses were pulled. 

So was there a bigger impetus to do informal, illegal parties. Have 

you seen any of the lockdown-flouting DIY raves that have occurred 

sporadically here in Berlin? 

Sean: It’s much harder to police pop-up, one-off events. It’s important 

to note that alcohol was banned during the lockdown here. There was 

a total prohibition. If you look at the history of clubbing here, and 

particularly in Johannesburg as well as the idea of what people do for 

pleasure after work, it’s very tied in to alcohol consumption. Joburg 

isn’t an old city; when it was founded, drinking and prostitution were 

very much big trades. Some of those attributes still feature in our club 

narratives, so when prohibition happened there were very quickly 

responses to counter it. Parties became the way to access alcohol. 

It’s quite different from having a woodland rave in Berlin, where the 

primary impulse is to dance. The alcohol ban has hit people harder 

than anything, partly because there’s a high level of alcohol abuse 

here. 

Vitalii: Well, this is Ukraine—even when everything is forbidden, it’s 

still possible to do something. Last year, all the clubs and bars were 

supposed to be closed. But after midnight, they just shut their doors 

and they’re ‘home’, it becomes a ‘private party’, where people with 

passwords can get in. But here as well, we don’t really get support 

from the state. Our businesses have to be open to survive. 

I gather there’s not much support for nightlife and underground 

culture there? 

Vitalii: Frankly speaking, almost none. 

Sean: In Joburg, it’s mainly theater and live artists who are suffering; 

in plain English, they’re all pissed off. Now, there is an Arts Minister 

within the central government, and we did have a large sum of 

money which you could apply for as a performing artist. But then 

the ministry claimed they had over-budgeted, so that money was 

suddenly unavailable. Of course, there were allegations of corruption. 

As a result, there’s currently an occupation being conducted at the 

National Arts Council’s offices, and there have been artist’s marches in 

cities. It’s pretty dire. But the clubs are happening here, both formally 

and informally. 

Vitalii: Here, there are clubs that have paid their rent through 

crowdfunding donations from their visitors. 

Sean: Here in Cape Town, a friend bought a very expensive sound 

system; one of those massive ones where you can dry your hair simply 

by standing in front of it, and he set up a listening lounge just before 

lockdown happened, and he opened around July. I went to one or two 

of his nights; they weren’t busy, but even during a pandemic, some 

people just want to dance. Nothing can kill certain basic human urges. 

You want to move, you want to get drunk, you want to meet someone. 

Those urges will continue, whether permissible or not. 

Vitalii: I would agree. When the bar I own reopened after the new 

year, we had a couple of events and it was incredibly busy. People were 

partying like it was their last night out. Our normal crowd is usually 

35+, but these days we mostly have younger kids. 

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DJ Invizable, Orange Farm Township, Johannesburg, 2015 

Chris Saunders @chrissaundersphoto 

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Everyone thinks they’re immortal when 

they’re young. 

Vitalii: They’re not at all afraid of getting ill. 

Sean: In South Africa, obviously our 

seasons are opposite to you—December, the 

height of summer, is our peak party season. 

Last year there was an assembly of, I think 

graduate students, that now gets constantly 

referred to in the news as a super-spreader 

event. Which I suppose it was, but you can 

see how easily even a smaller event gets 

criminalized or pathologized in the media. 

Vitalii: How is the vaccination situation 

over there, Sean? At the moment, only 

two people here are vaccinated. There has 

actually been some progress very recently. 

For instance, I was vaccinated yesterday. 

Sean: As it stands, we’ve had very few. The 

process has come very late. What’s perverse 

is that we have a factory producing vaccines 

for Johnson & Johnson, which are then 

shipped elsewhere. It looks like people my 

age won’t be vaccinated until 2022. 

Vitalii: Same here. 

It’s mind-boggling to think about the 

long term effects this will have on the art 

we create. As nightlife is somewhat taken 

underground again by necessity, do you 

see this impacting a wider, long-term 

movement of more DIY creativity within 

clubbing-at-large? 

Sean: It’s a good insight; I think history will 

show that this sort of DIY creativity always 

rises in moments of great social pressure— 

look at what the DDR and collapse of the 

wall fostered in Berlin, for example. A 

lot of what is now considered ‘official’ 

club culture was birthed from very informal roots. When one looks at 

Johannesburg club culture, you see that as well—in your essay, Vitalii, you 

mentioned a rise of mainstream clubs with American-sounding names 

in the early ‘90s. The same thing happened here as well, but they were far 

more DIY enterprises. I suppose that when you have these kinds of big 

social breakdowns, coded into that is opportunity. It’s often the only thing 

you do have in these moments; not capital or resources, but ideas and 

enthusiasm. Combine those with music, and it’s usually a good recipe. 

Vitalii: The club culture here runs through two different channels. The 

institutional venues will survive; they can afford to bribe the police when 

raids or checks happen. The smaller venues don’t have the money to do 

this, so when they police come, they have to shut down. So the police can 

send reports back and say, well we closed this and this many venues today. 

They would rather harass some artist promoter and 15 kids in a basement 

than a fancy club owner who’s probably a government official. 

This sounds very similar to how you described early Kyiv club culture in 

your essay, Vitalii. 

Vitalii: Yes, but on the other hand, so many smaller venues and bars 

are already dead simply from not being able to pay their rent. This has 

changed the club scene here already; new owners have taken over the 

old spots, new places have sprung up. This year Kyiv has maybe 40% new 

venues. 

Sean: Like a lot of South Africa, Johannesburg is similar in that there are 

two cities operating at once. The ones that deal with licenses and formal 

restrictions, those have been hit hard. But you have these large, communal 

neighborhoods here with their own cultures and informal establishments 

that have been around for decades. They’re a facet of how people navigate 

our cities. 

The state here is both strong and weak. Because of police action, there’s 

great suspicion even though they don’t have the power they had thirty, 

forty years ago. Here, the police will do a raid on a bigger, well-known 

club that makes a lot of money and say, hey—share some of this profit with 

us and we won’t bother you. If they do this at a smaller club with fifteen 

people, the owner won’t have anything for them. So the system itself has a 

lot of flex within it that enables people to have illegal venues and parties. 

Vitalii: When we have visitors from Europe now, what makes them excited 

is not just the clubs but that the restaurants are open (well, secretly)! The 

atmosphere feels almost like the ‘30s in America. 

158

Shine, from the series Maskirovka, Kyiv, 2017 

Tobias Zielony @tobiaszielony 

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Make Up, from the series Maskirovka, Kyiv, 2017 

Tobias Zielony @tobiaszielony 

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The scandalous era of speakeasies and bootlegging. It’s a 

literal interpretation of what you said in your essay, Vitalii— 

people ‘having a psychedelic feast in the times of plague’. 

Sean: I suppose it’s an old analogy, but if you look at a Breugel 

painting, there’s so much happening—people dancing, 

beheadings, it’s bedlam. I feel like that’s a good analogy for 

now; there’s so much happening that it’s hard to see it all. 

Vitalii: Life is very psychedelic right now. Even in death and 

sickness, you need to keep living. 

Sean: One of the things that was really an eye-opener for me 

while working on my essay for TEN CITIES, this urge that 

people have to dance, to congregate and listen to music, to 

share this pleasure...this happens everywhere, around the 

world and in spite of whatever the local politics are. It’s a way 

to forget about your life, your job, those local politics. In South 

African, the history of Apartheid has become the dominant 

way of telling our story. While working on the essay, I was 

looking for photographs of pleasure—and I couldn’t find 

any. Every photograph was just of things happening—people 

working, police killing people, death. Yet at the same time 

these photos were being taken, people in those same cities 

were going out, having fun. They were finding these little 

moments to hide from their social conditions. 

The pandemic is very real, and it is very devastating. But even 

now, finding these moments to forget the bleakness of the 

world—this is imperative. 

This interview was condensed and edited for clarity and flow. 

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Graffiti in Sophiatown, Johannesburg, 1955 

Jürgen Schadeberg @jurgenschadeberg 

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I NEED A 

SHERØ 

Interview by Daniel J. 

Pictures by Alain Egues 

Stéphanie D’Olieslager hasn’t been slacking during the last year’s pandemic. 

Recognized throughout the club-sphere for her prolific work and collaborations—a career beginning in 1991 that 

has seen the Belgian-born producer rise through her local house and techno scenes and beyond—D’Olieslager is 

armed with those most intrinsic of tools for any creator: an unbreakable passion and deep love and knowledge of 

her mediums. Currently based in Berlin, the former D’Steph/anie now operates under the alias Sherø, producing 

music inspired by her clubbing origins, when house music was the operating dancefloor currency for the 

optimistic underground. 

Following a killer debut in her Berlin Moon EP, Sherø’s follow-up Adult EP triumphantly dual-wields acidsoaked 

house and techno bangers that would make your Hackers soundtrack jealous. Both dropped on her 

imprint KlubKids Records, formed in 2020 as an aural collective supporting the queer artists that are the true 

alchemists of nightlife. On both releases—one released pre-pandemic, one post—the markers are the same, yet 

Adult’s bombastic energy feels like a distillation of all the fun we’ve been missing since lockdown first started. It’s 

the balm we all need right now, forged in a world where clubbing now feels like a distant memory... 

You always seem to have a lot of interesting 

and fun remixes and collaborations; I saw 

recently that you’re working with Sulene 

Fleming again. 

Sulene and I go way back. I did a remix for 

T.Roy´s single “A New Love” with Sulene 

on vocals 10 years ago. We finally talked to 

each other again last month, and decided to 

work together once more. I like to have an 

organic flow with people; somehow it needs 

the right timing. 

What other folks have you been making 

aurals with lately? 

The next one on KlubKid is with Joy Wellboy. 

I met Joy on New Year’s Eve 2001 in a club 

in Antwerp. We were both on the lineup, 

but we only really got to know each other 

much better lately, since we both live in 

Berlin now. In 2019 around Christmas, they 

sent me a demo album and asked me for a 

remix. One song immediately stood out— 

the lyrics were so catchy! I could totally 

see a house version of it, but somehow I 

couldn’t get the right tone and flow. It was 

a huge struggle, so I gave up and told them I wouldn’t do it; 

also, my label wasn’t ready to release such a big artist yet. 

Then last Christmas they played the song live on a streaming 

event and it just hit me again, the beauty of it. I got out of bed 

looking for the parts I made back then, and suddenly I felt it, 

it flowed, I found the right sounds and melody for it and now 

we´re super happy to release this together. 

Another EP that will be released by June I think, is an older 

track I made with JNM the Naked MC from Amsterdam. 

We used to work together for many years, but I never 

played the unreleased B side song we made until just 

before Covid at Brenn, and it had such a great 

response on the dancefloor I decided to 

finally put it out. It’s totally different, 

with marimbas and a bit more broken 

beat summer vibe, and I asked 

Megablast who I worked with in 

the past for a remix. He created 

a beautiful tropical hypnotic 

house version of it, over 

nine minutes long. I’m 

already looking forward 

to some new collabs 

this year. 

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How have you found the process of creating music in this Plague Age? 

I hear from a lot of producers that it’s hard to find a rhythm these days in 

the workflow. Some people barely get out of bed, as they are freelancers 

without structure or don’t have a paid gig in sight. I still have a part-time 

job and the label which gives me a lot of structure, but I also feel I’m 

becoming a bit of a workaholic. I think I could use a break now! 

As for the label, due to restrictions a lot of remixes or teamwork EPs 

got delayed, so we had a very slow start last year. People were stuck 

somewhere and couldn’t enter their studio, or couldn’t find the 

motivation. Emails were responded to much later mostly, due to everyone 

feeling so anxious. A lot of people are struggling. 

Has this struggle shaped your new EP? 

Both tracks were actually made in the first lockdown last year around 

this time. I was still full of clubbing energy, and suddenly I had more 

time to work on my music. ‘Dominated’, for example, was made in just 

a few hours, which surprised me. ‘Concentrate’ was built up from an 

older track I decided to revisit. I was very inspired those months; I would 

constantly work on music aside from my weekly job, as there was not 

much else to do. I miss testing out tracks on the dance floor, but then I 

just dance to it in my room to see if the structure works or not. 

What do you think the impact of all this will be on future events; after 

so long, do you feel the mental anxiety of avoiding crowds and people 

for so long will have a long-term effect on nightlife? 

It’s hard to say; I do feel people are more open to discussing mental 

health and how they’ve dealt with this pandemic so far, so I guess future 

conversations at clubs will go deeper and be part of our healing process, 

as this has been quite traumatic for a lot of us. I guess some people will 

value everything much more. I do hear people being a little afraid of 

crowds, or being exhausted after meeting a few people. I think this could 

become quite therapeutic if we handle it with kindness and care for each 

other. 

There’s always an underground and DIY resurgence in times of social 

upheaval or unrest; do you think the shuttering of some of the smaller 

and medium-sized venues will birth more grassroots events? 

I honestly have no idea what’s going to 

happen. It’s the first time in most of our 

lives that we’ve had a pandemic. I´ve been 

DJing since 1991 and never thought clubbing 

would stop. We have the consequences 

of economic failure and social anxiety as 

well; it’s a bit unsure where this will take 

us. We’ve already seen some underground 

illegal raves take place. Some bigger clubs 

were mainly booking their big-name 

resident DJs when they were open, so we´ll 

have this clash between the big-name clubs 

and smaller underground parties, and less 

of a mix I think. Another fact is that there 

will be loads more new underground DJs 

jumping to play their first gig in a club, 

since a lot of people started to learn how 

to DJ during the lockdown. So there will 

be a whole new generation of selectors, 

which can be quite exciting and change the 

landscape also. 

With the recent strikedown on the rent 

cap, Berlin is becoming progressively 

harder for artists and marginalized folks 

to comfortably live and make a living. How 

can we, as a community, help save our 

swiftly-tilting city? 

I think by having groups like queer housing, 

queer groups for new jobs etc. on social 

media is a big help for the community. 

There are also a lot of people from the 

queer clubbing scene sharing important 

updates and information about protests 

and petitions in English on Instagram for 

example, where we can donate to help 

certain people and so on, so that´s a small 

thing we can contribute to. 

What websites or resources do you think 

people should pay attention to? 

Mostly it´s people I met in queer nightlife 

who share these valuable things in 

their instagram stories, but as for 

organisations, most of my info comes from 

Berlin4beginners, club commission, Lecken, 

Whole Festival and Change.org Germany. 

It’s important to support each other 

wherever we can. I sometimes help people 

with some production tips, and might do a 

mentorship soon. However, I also see lots 

of people have left the city during the first 

lockdown—mostly expats—and I wouldn’t 

be surprised if more people leave. But I 

think as soon as summer starts and we can 

have some small open-airs, we can lift our 

spirits again. 

This interview was edited and condensed 

for clarity and flow. 

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@shero_909 

@klubkidrecords

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