What happens when people who usually brood over rent levels team up with ravers? A “crash parade”. This is an officially registered rental and cultural-political music demonstration. It booms and stinks. Not up to the sky, but still smellable, some diesel generators are humming, which are needed to keep the many music systems and boxes and mixers on the trailers running. The rave needs juice, the basses make your chest tremble. “Noise up – rents down!” That’s the battle cry on Saturday, several thousand activists are taking part, the organizers appreciate that, they’re raving through half the city. Lo and behold, the dry Munich rent policy is getting a whole new drive.
The initiatives “Ausspeculated” and “More Noise for Munich” organized this combination demo. Both are united by the desire for affordable space, for living and for subculture. In the “Sound Walk” both groups benefit from this symbiosis. “In Munich, there is hardly any space for young artists and creative people,” says Tilman Schaich from AusspecIAL and accuses the real estate industry: “It’s all about the money and not about the people.”
Monika Schmid-Balzert from the Bavarian Tenants’ Association calls out: “It’s on fire!” This applies to the rental market in metropolitan areas, but now also in medium-sized cities. That is why an alliance of more than 160 groups is fighting for a nationwide rent freeze for six years. It’s supposed to breathe.
While the traditional activists want to achieve a ban on rents by law, the noisemakers from the parade are taking new paths of argument: where luxury apartments are being built, the buyers or tenants want peace and quiet. Ergo, say the ravers: the more noise, the lower the risk of gentrification. “No investor will build a penthouse worth millions in places where there’s a club or a neighborhood meeting place,” explains Julia Richter from “More Noise for Munich”. Standing in front of the jukeboxes, she recites a poem: “Maybe some investors think it’s loud here, my money is wasted here. That’s the good thing about social noise, it keeps rent increases at bay.” Above all, it is the car noise that makes you ill, but it is accepted and not punished. If the music is loud, the police will come quickly.
The rental music activists are fighting for a special kind of “noise protection”. The police guarantee protection for the dancers on this day. Their blue lights match the disco lights on some demo vehicles. A dozen cars with just as many music collectives set off at 4 a.m., passing gentrification hotspots such as Thalkirchner and Türkenstrasse, and only arrive at their destination in Schwabing at 10 p.m.
“Carriage” is a real generic term in this parade. Sometimes the music comes from the loading area of a flatbed truck, sometimes from a cargo bike, sometimes the vehicle is muscle-driven, sometimes battery-supported. “More luxury noise” reads one of the demo posters, while another doesn’t think around the corner: “Miethaie fuck you.” For six hours they parade through the city, dancing and laughing and banging, the police registered a few complaints from local residents. Were there any penthouses among them?