B 018: The End of an Era, And Start of a New One

Facebook notified me today that I’ve been friends with Ziad Ghosn, one of B018’s legendary resident “decknicians” for 11 years today. That’s just a fraction of how long the subterranean bunker has been open though.

B018 is undoubtedly Beirut’s most iconic club. On so many occasions, fellow clubbers I meet in cities like Berlin, DC and Brooklyn, when they found out I’m from Lebanon, they inevitably ask about B018. Most heavyweight artists made their Beirut debut in the underground bunker in the Lebanese capital’s former quarantine area: Karantina.

Whether it’s the design, the concept or the music, b0 has captured the hearts and minds of generations of clubbers. It perfectly symbolizes what a club should be, especially a Techno-focused one: reviving an industrial, down-trodden part of an urban metropolis and breathing life back into it.

Karantina saw some horrible things throughout its history, and even in modern times, it’s largely been an industrial area with warehouses, slaughterhouses and granaries replacing refugee camps, residential areas and other non-industrial buildings that once stood there.

The design never shied away from the brutal history, with a bomb-shelter like venue with furniture that looks like stacked coffins when closed, that turn into comfortable couches when opened. Never pretending to ignore the bad memories, b0 sought to change them into something nicer today, creating new memories in a place most of us grew up driving by and never giving a second thought.

The End of an Era, but the Beginning of a Better One

With so many options to go out at night, even in the general vicinity of Karantina, it’s time for b018 to reinvent itself again. After two decades of massive influence on the culture, it’s time to rebuild, renovate and transform this Beirut icon.

Just for the record, B018 doesn’t mean “be over 18”, it’s actually the chalet number where the parties started back in the early 90s. Building B, chalet number 018. So, please stop working it BO, it’s B0.

This Friday, B018 as you know it will come to an end. It’s being redesigned by the original architect, Bernard Khoury, and will reopen later this year in its new format.

The new B018 will be joining forces with the growing uberhaus empire, with places like The Garten, Discotek and Uberhaus.

I promise I’ll share with you the new design, renders and plans as soon as I get my hands on them. Till then though, get ready for a fond farewell to a club that many of us have too many fond memories in to count.

B018, thank you for all the beautiful sunrises under the retractable roof. Can’t wait to see what’s in store for the next chapter!

https://www.facebook.com/events/1735355169895116/

“Awake” Faith in Lebanese TV Restored

This might upset many of my friends who work on TV series in Lebanon, but I absolutely despise all locally produced drama series. The dialog never feels authentic, the plots are always about matrimonial infidelity, the tired trope that Muslims and Christians love each other despite everything and other story lines that are either incredibly insensitive/offensive, or something you’d expect a western journalist to write after a conversation with a couple of taxi drivers.

I got invited by the amazing team behind “Awake” (thanks Nagham!) to their set, and spent a few hours watching a couple of scenes being shot last month. It was my first time on a drama series shoot, and I must say it was a far cry from the news and live talk show sets and studios I’m more accustomed to.

It didn’t hurt that many of the actors in the series are good friends of mine, but the real treat was when the director and assistant director let me into the editing room to watch the rough cut of episode 1. I was told I could see the first 15 minutes, but I couldn’t help myself and watched the episode in its entirety. Speechless for the most part, interrupted by laughter at the witty dialog every so often, and a mouth open at the quality of the shots, angles and editing of certain scenes such as the tasteful timelapses that help set the mood and scene.

Plot

Awake is about a young woman, Dana (Flavia Bechara), who wakes up from a coma 12 years later, unable to speak or really interact with others. Surrounded by her loving family, and with the help of her sisters Lama (Stephanie Atallah) and Jinane (Ruba Zaarour), she slowly comes to grips with what happened to her and how social media has taken over the world, and that’s when the epic, unexpected twists begin.

I just watched the first episode mind you, but I am already dying to know what happens next. Watching it, I felt it was shot in more of cinematic way, instead of just a set or two with characters talking. The locations where it was shot are all very familiar, and it’ll make you smile when you recognize them and relate to some of the scenes in them.

The dialog is something that stuck out as well for me. The way actors talk on Lebanese TV feels robotic, corny and cheesy most of the time. It never feels real or authentic. In Awake, you feel like you’re peering into the lives of real people in extremely weird situations. It’s how you probably talk with your friends when you’re hanging out, and for once, a local TV show doesn’t feel like an old-timey play, but a deep dive into our modern society in Lebanon.

The Details

It took 12 months to create the first season, which included 83 full days of shooting to produce 15, 1-hour episodes. All shooting locations were in Lebanon.

Cast:
• Flavia Bechara as Dana
• Tarek Yaacoub as Ghassan
• Mohamad Akil as Walid
• Raymonde Azar as Mariam
• Stephanie Atallah as Lama
• Ruba Zaarour as Jinane
• Joseph Bou Nassar as Dr Mehio
• Camille Salameh as Fawzi
• Lisa Debs as Nada

Created by: Nadia Tabbara
Directed by: Mazen Fayad
Produced by: Mohamed Fathallah and Mazen Fayad
Production & Distribution Company: Momaz Flick
Post Production Company: The Brightside
Director of Photography: Toni el Khazen
Music Composer: Nasser Shibani
Casting Director: Mia Deaibes
Editors: Youssef Germanos and Faisal Merheb
VFX Director: Nadine Yamout

Release Date: Later in 2018

Lebanon’s Great Famine Gets a Monument 100 Years Later

During the First World War, half of the population in the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate starved to death. A blockade by the allies, coupled with the Ottoman policy of prioritizing crops and supplies for their troops, meant that vital supplies from the neighboring Bekaa stopped coming in. With the political and man-made causes already plenty, Nature sent a swarm of locusts which over the course of 3 months, annihilated everything edible that was still left.

For such a catastrophic event in Lebanon’s recent history, it seems most of us know nothing or very little about it. You might remember some details from History class if you did the Lebanese Baccalaureate in high school, but for most, it’s part of the collective amnesia Lebanese have about most of the 20th Century.

Monument Designed by Yazan Halwani

A century later, Lebanon will finally have a memorial for everyone who died in The Great Famine of 1915 to 1918. The project was spearheaded by USJ’s Professor Christian Taoutel and Lebanese writer Ramzi Toufic Salameh. It’s financed by Banque du Liban, Lebanon’s Central Bank.

The monument is a steel tree, with quotes by prominent Lebanese contemporaries of the famine, such as Gebran Khalil Gebran, Tawfik Yousef Awwad, Anbara Salam Al-Khalidi and others, being the leaves.

Yazan’s rationale behind this monument is that a century later, only our trees still bear witness to the tragedy that led to half of Mount Lebanon’s population starving to death.

The memorial and the plaza it lies at the center of will be officially inaugurated later this year. It’s on the Damascus Road in Beirut, right where the Civil War’s demarcation line was.

It’s important we never forget traumatic events in our past, and honor the memory of our ancestors who perished in this mix of man-made and natural disasters. I hope this monument makes sure that we stop ignoring our brutal past, and work to make sure something like this never happens again.

My Interview with Detroit Techno Pioneers Octave One

Hours before their performance at Boiler Room x Ballantine’s True Music finale in the Port of Valencia, I got the chance to sit down with Lawrence and Lenny, two of the five brothers from the legendary Octave One. We chatted a little about the early days of Techno in Detroit, the scene today and their unique creative process that has made generations of clubbers dance since 1989.

Before you start reading their answers to my questions, allow me to say it was hands-down one of my favorite interviews in 9 years of getting to meet my musical heroes and asking them questions. Lenny and Lawrence were hilarious, candid, insightful but most of all extremely humble and still as passionate about making music as they were nearly three decades ago when it all started.

You’re actual brothers, and apart from your live performance, it’s all five of you that work together. What’s that like?

Lenny: You know, we disagree all the time. You try not to be too attached to anything, and you try to be open. That really helps the process. Just because you think you’re a genius, doesn’t mean that the other four brothers are gonna think you’re a genius man. So, it definitely keeps you grounded, and also it’s good to have another set of ears, especially when you’re making music, because you might be working on something man, for like weeks and weeks and weeks, and you let somebody hear it and they go “man, that’s out of key”, and this and that. You might be mad, but you also look at it from another perspective. You’re like, I guess you’re right! You learn that over the years. You have to trust the other person, and that’s what it’s really all about.

What’s one party or event that you look back fondly on today?

Lawrence: Marty Barnes and Jay Denham were our next door neighbors, and one day we just went over and other friends came through like Derrick May. Carl Craig’s sister lived upstairs in the same apartment building too. We ended up jammin and recording something really special.

Lenny: It’s somewhere, I don’t know where it is. I think we gave it to Derrick and it never resurfaced from there. Derrick might have it somewhere man! That was the funnest days, we were just making music and we didn’t think about it coming out, we were just making music.

So, the big question always is: digital or analog? What’s your take?

Lenny: Seriously, it’s everything. We’ve been using digital instruments and analog instruments from the beginning of our careers. A lot of people associate hardware with being analog, which is not. Analog is a way of sound being made, but it’s not always necessarily hardware. Like, the 909 is digital and analog at the same time. So, it’s just people not understanding the differences.

Really, music is everything, especially electronic music. I mean, it’s electronic music man, so you use electronics, analog electronics, digital electronics, so for us, whatever fits the bill at that time will be used.

Your musical structure and composition doesn’t always stay in the rigid four-on-the-floor format we’re used to hearing, especially from Detroit-style Techno. How would you say you arrange your productions?

Lenny: For us, it’s just how we think of music. We really get bored easily, so it’s hard for us to just do a track with these slow builds. We appreciate those tracks, big time, and the actual musicians who do that. We don’t have that gift. Ours is, we kinda think, even when we’re doing a track, we kinda think kinda like a song.

But you know, it’s a gift and a curse, it helps us when we’re structuring things. Like, let’s say a lot of people can gravitate to, but when we’re trying to do a straight dance 4-cut, sometimes we need to let stuff ride, but just can’t.

We can appreciate other people’s records, but it’s hard for us to do that when we’re making it.

I’m sure you saw the recent video of an EDM artist at a big festival’s cazy live performance. How do you feel about EDM being much bigger than Techno and your type of music in the US, where you’re from, but Techno being bigger in other places around the world like Europe?

Yeah, we saw that. It’s very commercial. We’d never play like that. Never, nah nah *chuckles*

In the US, the scene is so structured. Even when they brought EDM in, it basically fell into the structure that was already there. They really had to do songs, songs with vocalists, and even without vocalists, it’s structured in such a manner that’s so rigid that it fits the US market. We were doing rebel music, we were always doing something that was different. We were doing something that was contrary to radio. That was actually part of why we were making this music. We weren’t making radio music. It was designed to be anti-radio, EDM was not designed that way. It was designed to be radio-friendly, and for the masses. So, you understand why it did so well in the US, because record labels could understand it, and say “oh, we could put money behind that, this structure we already understand”

Have you heard anything about Beirut? Would you wanna go there soon?

Playing in Beirut would be cool man!

Octave One LIVE at the Boiler Room x Ballantine’s True Music Valencia Finale

The Lebanese Independent Film Festival Starts Tomorrow!

A few weeks ago, the awesome folks at the Lebanese Independent Film Festival (LIFF) called me up to tell me I’ve been selected as one of their 12 jurors this year. Now, I’m by no means a film expert, but I’m definitely a movie buff and love independent movies. So, I graciously accepted. My selection as a juror doesn’t come from my acting or directing chops though, but because of my work in MARCH fighting censorship of movies and theater in Lebanon over the past few years.

Film festivals in Lebanon have historically been immune to the haphazard chopping board of Lebanon’s censors. Unfortunately, in the past couple of years, censorship against movies that include LGBT topics, political and historical events as well as religious themes have increased at an alarming rate. This is why festivals like LIFF are so important, and I’m happy that zero of the 250 movies have been banned or censored!

So, come and enjoy hundreds of amazing independently produced movies, from Lebanon and across the globe, for your viewing pleasure at an incredibly affordable price.

The Details

It’s happening July 12, 13 and 14 at Metropolis Cinema in Centre Sofil
More than 250 movies from 20 countries are scheduled to be screened
Tickets for a day-pass are just 5$ and a 2-day pass for all the movies are for just 10,000 LL
The opening night tomorrow is free of charge and open to the public, so come through!

RSVP Here

https://www.facebook.com/events/899995856848333/

The Jury

Includes experts and stars in their fields, and I’m happy to be with good friends of mine such as Wissam Kamal, Anis Tabet and Rita Hayek!

Rita Hayek
Christine Choueiri
Wissam Saliba
Elias Zayek
Chady Richa
Muriel Aboulross
Denise Jabbour
Rita Barotta
Wissam Kamal
Anis Tabet
Dineta Williams-Trigg
Gino Raidy

Awards Ceremony

The awards ceremony will be on Saturday at 8:00PM. I recommend you come to the opening on Thursday at 7:00PM, and the closing ceremony, and check the LIFF Facebook page to choose the movies you’d like to watch on all, 2 or 1 of the festival’s 3 days!

See you all there with a huge bucket of popcorn!

THE GARTEN IS BACK this Saturday with Ben Klock

Honestly, news of The Garten reopening was sweet enough to confirm, but somehow, it’s been made even sweeter by the fact it’ll also be Berghain’s Ben Klock’s first time in Beirut!

The Garten is Back this Weekend

I’m delighted to let you know that the Governor of Beirut has reversed his decision to shut down the beloved club that helped put Beirut on the world’s clubbing map since its first dome was erected on the city’s waterfront.

This comes weeks after the decision to shut it down, following an innocent mistake by a foreign artist, that was put to use by malicious groups who doctored and looped the footage, and waited till the opportune time to disseminate it out of context.

Glad but Disappointed

I’m glad that The Garten is back. Weekends this summer have so far felt weird without its events on the weekly clubbing schedules. I’m also disappointed it was so easily closed down, for such a long time, leaving the entire team behind it in limbo, not sure if the summer can be salvaged.

However, what’s important is that we were asking for: the club reopening, finally happened, and the club will reopen at the same location this weekend. All I can say is, I’m really looking forward to another sunrise at The Garten!

RSVP here!

https://www.facebook.com/events/229119794354021/

Dublin Room: A First Look at Lebanon’s Newest Dancefloor Above the Clouds

The summer heat is proving brutal in Beirut, and if you’re like me, summer parties on the coast are a humid, sweaty hell and you look for the nearest industrial-grade fan to dance in front. That’s why I’m really excited about the newest addition to Frozen Cherry: Dublin Room.

Dublin Room will be the new section of Frozen Cherry, a place you will go into after you’ve had sunset drinks at their Sunset Bar with the killer views in the Metn hinterlands.

Dublin Room will open on Fridays and Saturdays, and sometimes for special events on different days of the week. The dress code is casual, and the music will be a selection of local and international artists spinning and performing Techno, House and all the mild and diverse flavors in between.

It opens tomorrow night, with a jam-packed weekend that features Ronin and Raphael Merheb on Friday, and Ziad Ghosn and Yves on Saturday. Eli, Rolbac, 3LIAS, Nesta, Phil, Bibz, Fady Ferraye, Gunther and Three Machines are scheduled for this summer too, along with a few foreign surprises.

Here are some pictures of the final touches being put before the grand opening tomorrow night. I’m personally looking forward to dancing with that killer view, and the cool, crisp breeze!

Why Solidere Removed the Art Installation on Burj El Murr

The reason is that they didn’t expect Jad Khoury’s (aka Potato Nose) installation would generate this much of a buzz. Solidere is infamous for not only their land-grabbing of the Central District, and forcing the rightful owners out of their lands to build empty, expensive ghost-towns they thought Gulf rich folks would buy, they’re also extremely vain.

Solidere LOVE the attention, even for things they had nothing to do with, either financially or logistically. Anyone who ever wanted to shoot something in the Central District, knows that they charge you thousands of dollars for each hour, even though it’s a public space in our very own capital.

Why The Burj El Murr Installation Butthurt Them

The artist obviously had the necessary permits, given he was even allowed in to the former snipers’ nest which now has a Lebanese Army base the first few floors. As anyone who ever tried to go into such buildings, you’d know how hard that is. So, permits and permissions obviously aren’t the problem here.

The same artist painted the Holiday Inn hotel a few years back, and even though that one wasn’t as well-received as the Burj El Murr one, with a lot of people furious at what they felt “defaced” Beirut’s most famous war-time remnant right in the middle of Beirut’s fanciest resorts and hotels, he still was allowed to execute the huge mural. This indicates that this artist has always had the necessary permissions, given the Holiday Inn is also a Lebanese Army base on the first few levels.

Solidere wants credit for everything done in the plot of land they occupy in the Lebanese capital. If you want to organize something there, without making money from it, you just need to slap their logo on it, and you’re good to go. If you’re making money from it, then the process is obviously much more difficult.

It seems that even though Solidere didn’t object to the artwork, and waited many days before they did, indicates that they were upset the artist didn’t mention them as a sponsor or organizer, even though they had absolutely nothing to do with it. This explains their tight-lipped responses to the media, and why their “cease and desist” letter to the artist had no specific reason, just “safety reasons”. It also explains why they waited this long, and sent mixed signals, before sticking to their guns at the end.

Now, unless curtains can murder someone if they fall on your head, I don’t see where the risk is. As for the risk to the artist, the concern should have been preemptive, not asking him to scale the entire dangerous building again for no reason but their vanity and pettiness.

Where’s the Government?

It seems Solidere is more powerful than the Municipality of Beirut and the Ministry of Culture. All of these governmental bodies and institutions gave their blessings, and expressed their support for the art installation even. But, as usual, private evil corporations seem to be more powerful than the government’s local and national authorities.

Shameful. Too bad we’re back to that heinous dildo from the Civil War days…Here’s hoping Solidere will figure out how to make money from it and turn it into something useful, or at least pleasant to look at.

Till then, let’s all make sure everyone sees this artwork, and knows Solidere stopped it.

Anonymous Artist Turns Election Poster Garbage into Powerful Art in Beirut

Anxiety and disgust spiked in the weeks running up to the severely disappointing parliamentary elections in Lebanon, thanks to the horribly lame, ugly and dishonest election campaigns that littered our streets, buildings and trees.

Candidates are supposed to make sure all their horrible faces are removed from our eyesight after the elections are over, but just like they neglect the duties misguided people elected them for, they neglected to remove their photo-chopped faces from our streets.

Earlier tonight, I was going back home, and while walking on Pasteur Street, I noticed this epic collage:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BjFnBadHEFs/?taken-by=ginoraidy

Then, a few hundred meters down the street, I saw another one:

Art with a Message

Too often these days, folks are discouraged by art that is obscure and way too abstract. Too much input from the artist is needed before you wrap your head around what he or she is trying to say.

These collages are the perfect example of art that has a message, that needs no further elaboration to click in viewers’ minds. The artist took garbage left over on our walls after the elections, and transformed them into a beautiful, funny and poignant message that is relevant in Lebanon today, especially for young Lebanese.

Civil Marriage, Now.

Sectarianism is the stage 4 cancer that has metastasized in every nook and cranny of our country. From politics, to basketball games, awards ceremonies and family dinners. No matter how much we try to change that, or condemn it, or claim to be against it, the fact of the matter is that as long as personal status laws are governed by religious courts and institutions, sectarianism will always be the stick in Lebanon’s bike wheels.

How can a country’s citizens feel equal if we have 18 different laws that govern their personal lives and relationships, who they marry, what they inherit and who gets custody of their kids? How can we expect sectarianism to fade, if we need to force a man or woman to change their sect in order to be with the person they love? How can our communities become closer, if it’s illegal for them to mix without bowing down to archaic religious laws with no proper civil government oversight?

Lebanon needs civil marriage, and most of the politicians who ran in the past elections promised to make at least voluntary civil marriage a thing. This artist’s collage was a subtle, yet brutal reminder of that.

Here’s to hoping this becomes more than a dream and a nice mural on Beirut’s streets. Here’s to civil marriage happening on Lebanese soil, in front of Lebanese courts, instead of in Cyprus or Greece.

My Interview with Miss Kittin at Boiler Room x Ballantine’s Beirut

Miss Kittin was the cherry on top of an amazing night at the Boiler Room x Ballantine’s in our very own Beirut! I personally enjoyed her set the most, and it was definitely the peak of the night for me.

The crowd was electrified, having been buttered up by five amazing acts, they were ready for the Miss Kittin treatment to wrap it all up. Her singing on the microphone coupled with her performance was sublime. I highly recommend you watch the video below if you weren’t lucky enough to be there live!

I had the pleasure to ask Miss Kittin a few questions for the occasion, and here’s what she had to say:

Gino: You’ve been to Beirut before, what was that first time like? Also, how do you think the Boiler Room x Ballantine’s night will be different?

Miss Kittin: My first trip to Beirut was very emotional, because I was told about the history by Lebanese friends and met incredible people really trying to change their country. I just embraced it like a « first time ». Beirut is full of light, resiliency.

“Beirut is full of light, resiliency.”

I played at The Grand Factory, on top of a mattress factory, one of these places full of history — majestic, an example of the past and future of Lebanon. The atmosphere transports you.

For Boiler Room, I didn’t know what to expect, but it took place in a warehouse with the same feeling, like Berlin used to be. The kind of place where anything is possible.

Gino: Your music is definitely versatile, and you have collabs with very different artists under your belt from Felix da House Cat to Sven Vath. In which segment of electronic music would you say you’re most comfortable or excited in?

Miss Kittin: I don’t know. It’s all human adventures, choices of the heart. I think it’s still what drives me, the connection with people, to let them inspire me, and I suppose that’s why my style is versatile, to be able to express myself in every situation, understand and interact with any universe.

“It’s still what drives me, the connection with people.”

I always say DJing is more comfortable because I practice it every weekend for more than a two decades, and it’s very joyful to use other people’s music to speak for me. Again is an exchange of universes. When composing, you must go out of your comfort zone and expose yourself much more, you have to dig deep and ask yourself who you are, what you want to say and I need that challenge to grow just as much.

“When composing, you must go out of your comfort zone and expose yourself much more”

Gino: What would you say to producers and music lovers in cities like Beirut that are slowly but surely cementing themselves on the world’s music and clubbing map?

Miss Kittin: To use their peculiar environment and existence to build their own style. To surely not try to fit into the rest of the world just to be accepted as an artist. Our difference is our strongest strength.

Our difference is our strongest strength.

Gino: What would you say to artists who are unsure about coming and experiencing Beirut?

Miss Kittin: I’d say it’s extremely important for an artist to perform in places where political and social situations are fragile. Because culture and sub-cultures are a nest for spirits who can change things. Our contribution can bring them the energy to encourage change, and therefore, it makes our job much more useful. You learn and feel gratitude from these experiences.

“…sub-cultures are a nest for spirits who can change things.”

Gino: Can you tell us about your process when preparing for a Boiler Room set? Is it just like any other party, or is there something special in the preparation?

Miss Kittin: It’s definitely not like any other party, first of all because it is broadcast around the world. Many DJs would use it as a promotion tool playing their typical kind of set, but you should take it further. For my first Boiler Room in Paris, I told Dubfire “no techno”, I wanted to take this chance to show another side of us that people deserved to get to know: our roots, where we come from. And we even dressed up for the occasion.

“Many DJs use it as a promotion tool, playing their typical kind of set, but I feel you should take it further.”

For this one, I didn’t prepare much, as I had 2 weeks off before, I wanted to listen to what Beirut inspired in me, see and experience the location and crowd before putting the first record.