Report: Disco nights at Import Export

From Hauptbahnhof I take the tram towards Moosach. 

It is not the prettiest tram route of Munich. But I’m not going a pretty place as well. 

I’m getting off at Leonrodplatz. As soon as I get off, I can already hear the techno playing. I take one more look in my bag when I get off the tram, good, I still have my table tennis bat. 

From Leonrodplatz I walk towards Import Export. 

The way there is paved with public housing and it’s not very colorful. But Import Export is not very colorful as well, it is a big grey building. I imagine that it was once an old printery or perhaps a place filled with old sewing machines and ladies with broken backs. 

But now it’s something very different. Import Export describes itself as so:

 “Import Export is a live music venue and socio-cultural center in Munich, Germany. The focus lies on experimental, outernational, global sounds.”

And tonight, it is also very experimental. It would be untrue to say that it’s disco that they’re playing, it is techno. There is a waiting list to become the DJ, they change every hour. The music, if you can call it that, is constantly filling the whole concrete room with deafening loud techno, but it’s nice, afterall we are not here to talk. 

We are here to play table tennis. 

There are three table tennis tables in the venue, it is the classic high school game of around the table. Because there are so many people it is a constant chaos. But nevertheless, it somehow always works.

And what more is there to it? 

Not much, the rest of the night is having your chest blasted out by loud techno, waiting for your turn to hit the ball, and drinking Augustiner beer. 

It is German, and it is great.