The SO36 () club is a music club on Oranienstraße near Heinrichplatz in the area of

Kreuzberg Kreuzberg () is a district of Berlin, Germany. It is part of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough located south of Mitte. During the Cold War era, it was one of the poorest areas of West Berlin, but since German reunification in 1990 it ha ...

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

, Germany. It takes its name from the historic postcode of that area, SO36, in which the SO stands for Südost (South East). The Kreuzberg district has historically been home to the Berlin '' punk rock'' movement, as well as other alternative subcultures in Germany.

History

Since the 1970s SO36 has been a major venue for "alternative" music and culture. Many Punk greats have performed and still perform here.

Martin Kippenberger Martin Kippenberger (25 February 1953 – 7 March 1997) was a German artist known for his extremely prolific output in a wide range of styles and media, superfiction as well as his provocative, jocular and hard-drinking public persona. Kippenb ...

took over the management in 1979, focusing on creating a crossover between Punk and other genres and mediums such as New Wave and the visual arts. SO36 has been compared to New York's ''

CBGB CBGB was a New York City music club opened in 1973 by Hilly Kristal in Manhattan's East Village. The club was previously a biker bar and before that was a dive bar. The letters ''CBGB'' were for '' Country'', '' BlueGrass'', and '' Blues'', Kri ...

'' as one of the finest new-wave venues in the world. However unlike CBGB the venue still stands as of June 2020, and remains a fixture on the Berlin music scene championing new artists, while staying true to its Punk roots. In 2016, the club released ''SO36: 1978 bis heute'' ("1978 through today"), a retrospective illustrated book covering the 36-year history of the club, for €36.

Notable cultural connections

English rock band

Killing Joke Killing Joke are an English rock band from Notting Hill, London, England, formed in 1979 by Jaz Coleman (vocals, keyboards), Paul Ferguson (drums), Geordie Walker (guitar) and Youth (bass). Their first album, '' Killing Joke'', was released ...

named a song $.O.36 on their eponymous first album, but it is unclear if the song was based on the postal code or the club. The ''Electric Ballroom'' held at the club is considered a legendary fixture of the Berlin

techno Techno is a Music genre, genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally music production, produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempo often varying between 120 and 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central Drum beat, rhythm is typ ...

gay scene. ''Gayhane'' founded 1997 by Turkish performer Fatma Souad is the nucleus of the Berlin Turkish gay and lesbian community. DJ Ipek, an internationally known DJ and performer at the club, is responsible for the ''Gayhane'' mixture of Arabic, Turkish and Indian music. German photographer Nicolaus Schmidt created both a documentary and fictitious portrait of the club, called an "amalgam of western and oriental culture".Peter Schwanewilms, exhibition document, Deutsches Haus at NYU
- see: ''calendar spring 2008 detail'', April 12, 2008

References

External links

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SO36 in Exberliner Magazine

Lonely Planet guide to SO36

1979 Martin Kippenberger Poster, Tate Modern

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