Kühlhouse quickly established itself as a serious venue for house parties in Bremerhaven and appealed to ‘new’ people in particular. Not just scene-goers like me. That was refreshing because it meant the expectations were different.

It was also nice that it took place with a certain regularity, especially in a city like Bremerhaven, which didn’t really have a scene and where nightlife was generally a bit difficult. The Alte Bürger was struggling, having previously been the go-to place for nightlife in the city. There were a few discos that appealed to a different clientele, but they also had their problems. The Kühlhouse stood out. It was small, intimate, played good music, and people met there for a good time in a relaxed way.

At least that’s how I remember it. You tend to remember the good things!

There were plenty of good things going on. I organised a party with Matthias, who rented the halls to the left and right of the Kühlhouse. There was a guest list of 110 people, we took practically no admission fees that evening, but the bar was proverbially drunk dry. It was a lovely evening, Tas & Phunk were there too.

Later, I often DJed there alongside Kolja Bäcker, who was a resident DJ at Rosigen Zeiten in Bremen. After that, Dimi & Loco from my DNMK roster, if you can call it that, did a lot there, and I was occasionally involved. My time as a DJ, especially in Bremerhaven, was very much influenced by Kühlhouse.

Years later, I met Marc at the Alte Bürger Festival. I had been living in Hamburg for a long time and didn’t visit Bremerhaven that often any more, but I immediately asked him about the Kühlhouse. ‘Sold the joint, couldn’t be arsed any more.’

It broke my heart a little, but I understood.
Not only have people like me been moving away from Bremerhaven in increasing numbers, but perhaps the momentum for such things has simply run out at some point.

I think it was in 2018 or 2019 when I wanted to see what was still going on at Kühlhouse, so I looked it up online. I was feeling a little sentimental and curious. I wanted to see what was happening in my old home town.

The URL kuehlhouse.com was not linked to any website because someone failed to renew the registration.

Almost reflexively, I registered the URL and almost immediately had the idea of making an homage mix. With records from that era or records that I particularly liked at the time.

Side note: With my history in the techno scene and not being tied to just one genre, I was always the DJ who didn’t quite fit in 100% at Kühlhouse. I adapted at times, but I also, let’s say, tested the boundaries. Around 2008, I was really into bloghouse, which was influenced by French Touch. Great music, but not always suitable for Kühlhouse.

So, the idea was to make an homage mix with a selection of records. It took me this long because I’ve always found it very difficult to record mixes at home. My mixes were always worse than my sets, partly because at some point I needed the trigger of seeing people’s reactions to my music.

Because I ended up selecting over 60 records for this mix, it was impossible to record it at home with my bias against home recording. When dj.studio came out a while ago, I knew immediately how I could finally record this set outside my comfort zone, and I’m glad that piece of software exists. Without it, the idea would have died!

Long story short, here is my homage mix, which at least reminds me of a good time at the Kühlhouse. Maybe you too?

I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed making it.

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Direct link: kuehlhouse.com

Jeff Özdemir’s real name is Adem Mahmutoglu and, like so many others, he is a Berliner by choice. His life is mainly shaped by music and for at least one of his music projects he sometimes uses the name Jeff Özdemir. Before moving to Berlin, he lived for a long time in Bremerhaven and, to a certain extent, in his former record shop, the 33 rpm store. I bought my first records there about 22 years ago, records that weren’t just for playing at home. They were mainly needed during the time when I was trying my hand at DJing, mostly for parties.

I realise now that Adem’s pre-selection helped shape my musical tastes. At the time, I was certainly convinced that it was just my brilliant understanding of music that kept the record box so well sorted. Obviously, the work of selecting records was a very different one back then and I was correspondingly dependent on the record shop. There was no Beatport, no Shazam. A lot of time might pass before I knew the name of a record I had heard somewhere, and then getting hold of it was the real problem. In the days of dubplates and white labels, it took forever for one of these records to come out, if it came out at all.

In the later transition period from vinyl to digital, I had some heated discussions with Adem about how good the internet was going to be for musicians (my opinion) and the dangers of the internet through illegal downloads (his opinion). This often happened over a cup of tea, so a visit to his shop was not only an invitation to look for records, but also often used for extensive conversations. I miss the environment that his record shop gave me back then. But every now and then I visit Adem in Berlin and reminisce for a while.

Adem felt like one of the last people to leave Bremerhaven. But he was also one of those who always wanted more than the city could give. Many creative people left early, looking for what was missing. Adem seems to have found it in Berlin. He runs his record shop there in much the same way as he did in Bremerhaven. However, the events and releases he organises are now more frequent and extensive. One of these releases is Jeff Özdemir and Friends, which, with its first edition, is also a recapitulation of times past. Tracks like Der Typ ist Fett dabei by Edwyn Tokyo were re-released on the compilation in 2015. But I still remember Adem and Frank playing it for me in the shop.

In the almost 30 years that Adem has been active, he has built up a network from which the compilations now benefit. Some of the bands on the first edition are from his time in Bremerhaven. Other tracks show how Adem has developed in the meantime. In my opinion, Allein mit dem Dualismus stands for this particularly well.

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The second edition, released in 2017, follows the same path, but is also much fresher, with new collaborations. Adem was unnecessarily modest and wished me a lot of fun with the bad investment, even questioning the third edition. But I think that the self-proclaimed Bill Gates of the Bontempi organ continues to offer an interesting spectrum that shies away from being confined to a single genre, and the supposed focus on him as Jeff Özdemir does no harm either. On the contrary, it is through him that interesting musicians and music I am not always familiar with come within my reach.

Jeff Özdemir and Friends Vol. 1 (2015) and Vol. 2 (2017) are available for preview and purchase on Bandcamp (Vol. 1) and Bandcamp (Vol. 2). I also recommend a visit to his 33 rpm store at Wrangelstraße 95 in Berlin, where you can buy them too. Or directly from the Karaoke Kalk label.

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Further reading (all in German):
Jeff Özdemir & Friends at Phonanza FM
Voll am Start, der Mann at the taz
Über den Plattenrand hinaus at Renk Magazin
Hat man da Töne? at Zeit Online (free, but unfortunately requires login)

And an interview I did with Adem in 2008 for the short-lived magazine bookup: