A few weeks ago, Julius Windisch shared the statement (text here) he made at Donau115 about their handling of the statement made by Friede Merz last July. This has prompted me to also share my own experiences with Donau115 since then whilst publicly expressing my own solidarity with Friede and challenging their structures. I have been holding onto and putting this off for months, mainly because I did not want to detract from Friede’s experience, but also because it seemed like many others were just getting on with stuff as though nothing has happened – Friede’s statement was a tidal wave for musicians in Berlin and in many other scenes, it deeply affected many people on many levels, but nothing seems to have changed structurally since then.
Before reading on, I encourage you to read Friede’s statement and Julius’ statement. I would also urge everyone to read the appendix to Friede’s statement which concerns Donau115, as it also demonstrates what I am about to talk about.
Many people reached out to me after I had publicly expressed criticisms of Donau115’s handling, both with their own experiences of abuse of power and expressing solidarity. I was glad that I could be there to listen, but angry and frustrated that because we exist in a small interconnected scene and because the existing structures are so broken, there was not much I could do about it other than try to engage with Donau115. In the almost one year since then, many musicians have also confided in me that they do not feel comfortable in this space anymore, and I know at least one other musician has faced a similar experience to my own, which demonstrates that this is a structural issue.
To be clear: the reason I am sharing this is not because I want any sympathy, because I miss the place or because I want more gigs – I no longer personally want to play at Donau115, though I will have to in the future due to the precarious financial situation I and many others are in. It’s because, also as an affected person, I want to make it known how hard it is to even express support for other affected people as a freelance musician without facing consequences that directly affect you socially and economically, and to show how much power then gets in the way for people who want to make a fairer and more ethical workplace and scene for themselves and others, and what people risk when they call something out.
Like Julius, I would like to say that this is not an attack on Donau115. However, in a public institution/club/organisation etc. there needs to be responsibility and accountability from the top down, and when you cannot raise an issue with those in charge, the space is not a safer space, and further various abuses are facilitated.
My experience is as follows – I have used exact quotations where possible:
- After expressing solidarity with Friede publicly, signing the statement that called for Donau115 to properly acknowledge their stance and make changes to make the space a safer space for affected people, I received a barrage of messages from one staff member in a position of power at Donau115 telling me that Friede Merz’s portrayal of the interactions between herself and Donau115 were ,,not portrayed properly’’ and that my posts (along with others) were going to destroy the club and make them lose their funding. Apparently I did not understand the ,,full story’’, but this staff member was unwilling to tell me what that supposedly was. This person told me that the owners see Donau115 as a ,,side thing’’ and that they’re ,,not that involved with anything’‘ – these attitudes are also reflected in Friede’s appendix statement.
- The situation made it impossible for me to book anything at Donau115, and meant I was not welcome in the club. Essentially, I, as well as several other musicians in the scene, had been tacet cancelled. Around November 2023, I raised the issue I had with the staff member with an owner – I was offered a ,,workaround’’ to perform at the club by this owner, with no acknowledgement or response about said issue. This did not really feel comfortable but I decided to go ahead and complete the shows I had out of my sense of commitment to the projects performing and my own economic situation.
- Several months later in March 2024, I raised the issue again with the same owner, since I had been promised a response by the owner at a later date, and even praised for being so open and transparent with them. I wanted to see if they were ok with a staff member (for whom they bear responsibility) cancelling musicians and also calling Friede’s account into question. I was disappointed that a place I had always viewed as welcoming and open, that had been a home to me and many others, could mess up so badly on so many levels, and I wanted to find some closure to the situation.
- The owner responded to me framing the issue as a ,,personal friction’’ between myself and the staff member, and refused to take any responsibility for the situation – they would not be my ,,conflict mediator’’. The owner told me they had ,,generally speaking… complete confidence’’ in this staff member. The owner refused to see the actions of their staff member on several musicians in Berlin, and their own actions towards me, as a structural issue, and said they do a lot of ,,unseen’’ and ,,unpaid’’ work ,,for the Berlin community’’. My own experience was essentially denied, and when I restated it, I was simply told the ,,workaround’’ was still possible and therefore there was no issue in me accessing the space. The owner placed a ,,boundary’’ and I was told I could no longer discuss this with them in any form.
In one of their posts made on 29.7.2023. about Friede’s statement, Donau115 said they were exploring ,,specific ways’’ to learn and that they would share them with the community when the work was done. They then closed the club without comment. Upon reopening, they said ,,We have begun a process of working with staff and external professionals to clarify the Donau115 GbR policy on similar cases in the future’’. As far as I am aware, and as Julius said in his statement, current staff at Donau115 are unaware of this happening at all, and there have been no further clarifications from Donau115 since last summer – I welcome a correction from Donau115 if I am wrong about this. Several ways for them to learn and develop are still open (awareness agencies, free funding to do do so etc.), as evidenced in Friede’s statement from July 2023 and Julius statement from a few weeks ago.
I would like to encourage Donau115 to make the attempt to begin making their space safer and clarifying their policy. To re-engage with people who hold them to account, not just ignore them and shut them down. There have been tens if not hundreds of examples of various forms of abuse of power in the music scene since Friede’s statement – I just heard another one about a different club yesterday. Musicians should not feel intimidated after supporting their colleagues or afraid of losing work, reputation, being labelled or attacked. I am not saying my experience is an abuse of power – I am saying that people in powerful positions make it difficult to impossible to speak out against such abuses.
I encourage those who attend the club as an audience or performers to think about whether they want to be a part of spaces that enable these kinds of situations with the musicians/bands they come to see or their colleagues. I ask those who attend/play in other clubs where they know of owners and staff who do not truly work for and with their communities and who enable or commit abuses of power, if they want to support that. In the absence of any unified codes of conduct, policies or structures, and with unions who are often separate from the actual working reality of musicians, the change has to happen from within the scene. I would like everyone to question their own ethics, to read and to empathise with others, to take things seriously. Support and believe affected people, read, learn, make mistakes, be a small part of building a community, a career, a space for everyone that can exist without other people being affected, gaslit, shamed, or shut down.
James Banner 