The German word for "Title" is "Titel"

I've spent a lot of time talking (with David, mostly, but with other people as well) about our shared desire to foster a "music scene" at Yale. The impulse manifests itself in different forms - the desire to publicize a magazine, or host a successful event, or have a place to perform, or to inspire an artistic dialog (match the converser with the aim for one point per correct pairing, with an extra point awarded for correctly matching the person to their off campus address) - but the most obvious explanation for Yale's apparent lack of scene seems to be a Catch-22: there's no scene to attract musicians so no musicians play so there's no scene.
What seems to complicate this, at least slightly, however, is the comparative challenges encountered by those who have tried to start a scene: throw a concert, you'll get double the attendance at the after-party. Invite Yale performers, and only their friends will come. Invite non-Yale performers and people won't come if they haven't heard of them, but will come but only to stand around outside smoking because the venue is small and hot and you didn't show up for the music anyway, you showed up for the scene, and the scene is inevitably out in the fresh air and the open space where it's comparatively quiet, at least quiet enough to talk without going half deaf from the goddamn guitar, which is a pain in the ass for the promoter who wanted there to be a music scene, instead of a stand-around-and-shoot-the-shit-and-have-a-smoke-not-so-far-from-the-music scene, which is so easy to foster that you pretty much do it by accident if you leave a bottle of Beam too close to your iPod.
And partially that's what's been so interesting about our nights out in Berlin: if you are from Australia and you want to play "original" songs that sound exactly like Oasis or the Verve in a smokey lounge you can and people will show up and listen. And if you want to play an accordion while telling a story about an incredibly fat man you encontred while waitressing and your "bandmate" wants to make sound effects with an iBook and a handful of large stones, there's an audience for that too - an audience that paid 5 Euro plus two more per drink and crammed into a small set of bleachers to give you their totally undivided attention for the whole of your 20 minute set. But no longer. Time limits are strictly enforced.