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WATCH: Katheryn Bigelow interviews the filmmaker behind the Mexican drug war documentary, Cartel Land
Other venues, like SO36 – an old supermarket home to radical shows, including one in which Einstürzende Neubauten used a pneumatic drill to bore a hole in the wall – revealed a different Berlin. "I found this record shop that had just opened, Zensor, that was the only shop in Berlin to stock more alternative stuff from the UK and that's where I met Gudrun Gut, who later formed Malaria." Reeder went on to work with Malaria, and while drifting through these places met the Berliners most residents will never see.Reeder brought Joy Division over to play, thinking they would be a perfect match for Berlin, but their Hitler Youth imagery invoked on their debut EP An Ideal Living was lost in translation. "We put on this gig at the Campino and it was a complete and utter disaster. Here they are coming to Berlin and nobody would entertain them. About 50 people turned up and the gig was atrocious, the sound was awful, Ian was shouting for the monitors to be turned up – he couldn't hear anything, the crowd couldn't hear anything and someone shouted in German (everyone thought Bernard was German because he called himself 'Bernard Albrecht' on the first record) 'Can you turn the vocals up' but with Bernard not understanding what they were saying, he just snapped back, 'Speak fucking English you German bastard' and from that moment on, the ambiance in the room just sank."
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Drugs were as prominent in Berlin's culture as the music and art that was being created there. As Reeder remembers, "It was really easily available. Most people took speed around that period. For me, it was hashish and a bit of LSD now and again if it was fresh. There were loads and loads of drugs though. Germans in general know how to pace themselves, it's not like in the UK where people binge: Germans are quite responsible. People were fucked up, of course, but it wasn't totally aggressive. The biggest problem was people getting into the habit of taking heroin to ease the comedown from the speed, thinking it would alleviate that pain, but of course it would inevitably lead to more pain."Reeder offers an insight into the drug channels during the era too, "Most of it came from East Berlin. Heroin and hashish came from Afghanistan, the LSD and speed was produced in East Berlin. It was made by them to undermine West Berlin, so they could show their kids in East Germany 'look at all these drug-fuelled, debauched people taking loads of drugs. Our kids don't take drugs in East Berlin. We don't have it.' But they were making it all."NOISEY: Watch our new documentary presented by Mike Skinner, 'Hip Hop in the Holy Land'
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