Conni Kotte
Les amis 25hours
Superbude Hotels & Hostels
Les amis 25hours
Find Your Own Woodstock
Be it for a musical weekend trip with the family, melodious evenings at a winery, or experiencing the jazz stars of tomorrow performing live — COMPANION presents the best festivals close to our cities.
SAAT
Les amis 25hours
Bordeaux on Board
A slightly lesser-known side to the town Bordeaux is its vibrant street culture — a facet that comes to life when experienced through the world of underground skateboarding.
The Jack of All Trades
Dieter Meier is someone who, without exaggeration, can be described as a music legend. With the band Yello, the Swiss native became world famous in the 80s together with his colleague Boris Blank. Heard their hits like ‘Oh Yeah’ and ‘The Race’? Experimental and electronic, and a little gaga, the tunes get under your skin thanks to Dieter’s deep voice. Yello still perform today. But music is by no means Dieter’s only mode of expression: Dieter, probably the best dressed rebel of Zurich, who even earned his living as a professional gambler for a while, started working as a performance and conceptual artist in the late 60s. In 1972, he took part in Documenta 5 in Kassel, for which he installed a metal plaque at the main station with the inscription, ‘Dieter Meier will stand on this plaque on 23 March 1994 from 3pm to 4pm’ — a promise he later kept. As a creative entrepreneur and investor, Dieter has his fingers everywhere in the game. His greatest passions, however, are the worlds of culinary delights and nature, and, following from that, his farm in Argentina, where he cultivates wine, breeds cattle, and spends a lot of time. He serves up products from his second home in his restaurants — of course this jack-of-all-trades is also a restaurateur. And he has also just set up a chocolate factory. Somewhere between his many projects, Dieter took a moment to answer some questions for COMPANION.
Creating a Cult Label
It all started off with a modest music label and a few pairs of jeans. Since Maison Kitsuné’s origins in 2002, the purveyor of cool has spiralled out into a cult fashion brand and music label with coffee shops in Paris and Tokyo. How did it all come to be? Co-founder Gildas Loaëc shared with COMPANION how he seeks out the eclectic and the classic to stay fresh in these fast-moving industries.
Gastwerk Hotel Hamburg
Les amis 25hours
If not Now, then When?
The members of electro punk band Egotronic have been engaging in musical hedonism for 19 years – a kind of hedonism which can increasingly be viewed as a political outcry. Their latest album Ihr seid doch auch nicht besser (You’re No Better Either) represents the zenith of this development. It’s about the erosion of the political center and the necessity of forging new alliances.
Vienna’s Got Talent
Nadiv Molcho is a theater and movie actor, comedian, director, screenwriter, and producer — all that at the age of 27. A talk with companion.
DEDON
Les amis 25hours
When in Doubt, Anarchy
Tim Renner is a legend in the music and culture business. As a manager at Universal, he discovered bands such as Rammstein, and from 2014 to 2016, he was Berlin’s state secretary for cultural affairs, initiating a digitalisation offensive. Aside from having worked as a music journalist and radio host, and founding his own media startup, Motor Entertainment, he also lectures at the Popakademie Baden-Württemberg and writes books on the industry. In short, it’s hard to think of anyone with a better grasp on the present and future of pop culture. A conversation about youthful anarchism, the vastness of the unregulated internet, and what’s next for the music industry.
Little Tokyo
About one-fifth of all Japanese people in Germany live in and around Düsseldorf. No wonder, then, that this metropolitan region is also being shaped by Japanese culture.
Hamburg’s Got Groove
Hamburg’s iconic Elbphilharmonie is just as famous for its insane acoustics as it is for its programme, which weaves traditional classical music together with rock bands, festivals, and jazz — like the Scandinavian piano band Rymden, for example. On the occasion of their concert, we met the jazz trio in the so-called ‘Elphi’, where we delved into the history of the concert hall and considered, among other questions, whether jazz is the classical music of the 21st century.
