Live Unsigned’s resident reviewer Oli Arditi will be contributing to the blog over the next few weeks taking a special look at squat scenes as a hub for some of the most interesting musicians and event organisers – an area of special interest to us at Live Unsigned. The first post in the series gives you an introduction to squats in general, and what makes them so relevant to a struggling unsigned band.

Squats: a great way to tone up your thighs and bum. Also, places people live in without the permission of the nominal property owner.

Picture by Paul Linus Claassen

If you’ve had anything to do with squats in the UK you probably think of a small house, maybe a group of houses, occupied by a loosely affiliated group of people who need a roof over their heads, or occasionally by a group that has come together for a short term political objective, such as opposing a road building scheme. There might be some good parties, maybe with live bands; sometimes a place will be squatted simply to hold a party in, and then abandoned; and occasionally a more ambitious, arts based objective is pursued (as by the !WOWOW! collective in Peckham, London); but usually, a squat is a house, being used as a home by people who were unwilling to see it standing empty.

I haven’t been inside a squat for over 10 years… but I lived in squats as a child, and again for a year after I left home in the late 80s. As a kid I lived in a part of London where whole terraces of houses were squatted, and there was a great variety of community based arts activities going on: there’s not been many comparable scenes in Britain since then (the 70s), but there have been some, and even the smaller squats have provided fertile ground for local music scenes.

As a teenager I was far too untogether to organise gigs (or even a band), but if you came to any of the squats I lived in, at any time of the day or night, you’d find a jam session going on. Squats tend to attract musicians, serious or otherwise, for a variety of reasons.

Music types are often on the lookout for cheap housing, and squats are rent-free, however, for all that they do require a certain investment of time, and a commitment to the lifestyle.

The lifestyle itself is another reason: the sorts of people that pursue an artistic vision at the expense of a regular job tend to be people that reject other aspects of mainstream culture. Squats are naturally prime sites for the demimonde to come together, and musicians, especially in the more anti-establishment genres such as punk, can find them a haven.

Music is usually a unifying thread through the life of a squat: even those denizens that don’t actively create music are likely to give it a place of central importance in their lives. Musical choices and preferences are one of the principal sites where cultural identity is formed and asserted, especially for members of sub-cultures.

Gigs in squats can be superb: although they might be intimidating for newcomers, for people who are unsure what they’re walking into, the DIY ethos is all about welcoming anyone who wants to participate. Whether that’s by pitching in to do one of the many jobs that need doing, by performing, or by joining the crew whose job it is to make sure the band feels properly appreciated (yes, the audience!), so go along with an open attitude and everyone involved will be genuinely glad to see you there. Distinctions between crew, artists and audience, between scenesters and non-scenesters, are far less pronounced than they are at most commercial gigs.

The legal environment for squatters has become progressively more hostile in the UK, so although there have been brief moments when an unused building has become a music venue, it’s been impossible for anything long lasting to get established on the wrong side of Britain’s draconian property law. In other parts of Europe, however, the conditions can permit both larger scale, and longer term objectives.

In Berlin, big communal squats (now turned mainly legitimate community housing schemes) are the most uncompromised, active, independent cultural sites in the city. They are of course people’s homes, but they are also places to go for lunch, to watch a film or see an exhibition, to take a martial arts class, to screen print a design on your fair-trade t-shirt, or… to go to gigs!

Even before the wall came down Berlin was a hub for alternative types, as all West Germany’s punks and hippies ended up there to avoid military service (Berlin residents were exempt). With reunification there was a big population movement from the East to the West, leaving many buildings empty, some of them large apartment blocks that had only been partially occupied, and in varying states of disrepair. Amid confusion over the ownership of these properties some members of Berlin’s counterculture found a golden opportunity.

Buildings were occupied, materials were scavenged, and huge maintenance projects were taken on DIY style. For the past twenty years these super-squats have housed some of the leading venues in Berlin’s musical underground.

Times are certainly changing: the squats have now all gone legit one way or another, which at least gives them some legal right of tenure, but also leaves such places more vulnerable to the commercial vagaries of the property market. The last actual, illegally occupied squat was Brunnenstrasse 183, emptied by the police earlier this year (2010) after an eighteen year occupancy.

The gigs are still happening though, and it’s well worth visiting Berlin just to get a taste of this unique scene. If you love any kind of non-commercial music, but particularly the more subversive, punk related end of the spectrum, Berlin’s squats are the place to go.

In future articles I’ll take a detailed look at some of Berlin’s more prominent squats, and try to gather some information about how gigs are organized and who to get in touch with if you’re interested in approaching any of these spots for a gig.

You’ll find profiles for all the squat venues we come across already added on Live Unsigned, but we’re always keen to hear about more. After looking at Berlin I’ll move on to investigate squat venues in other cities, and other countries. I firmly believe the mainstream is never where the most interesting stuff is happening culturally, and if you are involved in running shows at a squat I’d particularly welcome any input or feedback you can give me, as I try to paint a picture of this very live, and very unsigned music scene.