DJ & Producer · Berlin, Germany
Dirty Doering
Dirty Doering rose from Bar25 bartender to resident DJ to Katermukke label boss, becoming one of Berlin house music's most recognizable characters.
Few DJs carry an origin story as tied to a single venue as Dirty Doering's is to Bar25. Born Velten Döring in Leipzig in 1978, he spent two decades working his way from behind the bar at Berlin's most mythologized club to running Katermukke, the label he co-founded in the ashes of that same scene, a trajectory that makes him as much a chronicler of Berlin's post-Bar25 house lineage as a producer in his own right.
From Baden-Baden to Berlin
Döring's family left East Germany in the 1980s and settled in Baden-Baden, in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, where he grew up. He started collecting records and DJing with a friend at 15, playing small clubs around Baden-Baden and Karlsruhe while training as a sports and gymnastics instructor, a detail that sits oddly against the club-kid image he later became known for. He moved to Berlin permanently in 1999, throwing afterhours parties out of his own apartment before landing a residency at Sternradio and, by 2004, making DJing his full-time living.
Bar25, From Bartender to Resident
Döring became one of the defining figures of Bar25, the riverside club on the Spree that ran from 2004 to 2010 and helped define an entire era of Berlin's freewheeling, hedonistic club culture. He started out working behind the counter before working his way up to resident DJ, and by the time Bar25 closed, he had become closely identified with both its sound and its lifestyle. His 2010 track and video "I Would" captured that identity for an audience well beyond Berlin. When the site reopened as Kater Holzig and later evolved into Kater Blau on the Holzmarkt development, Döring stayed with it, remaining a fixture of that lineage of venues on the same stretch of riverbank.
Founding Katermukke
In 2011, working out of the Kater Holzig studio with fellow DJ Sascha Cawa, Döring launched Katermukke, a Berlin house label built, in his own telling, out of a sense that the club needed a label of its own. He had been working at Beatport at the time and was drawn to the still-unusual idea of a digital-first label, a bet that paid off: Katermukke has since grown into one of the more consistently successful independent house labels to come out of Berlin, trademarked in 2013 and still running today. Döring also co-runs Allyoucanbeat alongside Housemeister. His DJ sets and productions move across tech house, deep house and minimal techno, built on the same "deep grooves, melodic house, and driving techno" that Katermukke's own catalogue has come to represent.
Live at RTS.FM
Doering's connection to RTS.FM runs through the same Bar25 lineage that defined his early career: a DJ set recorded for the channel as part of a Bar25 showcase in October 2010, right as "I Would" was bringing him wider recognition.
Beyond Berlin
Doering has kept touring internationally in the years since, with bookings that have taken him from New York to Tokyo and festival slots at Fusion, Melt and Sónar. Since 2012 he has made a habit of leaving Berlin's winters behind for stretches in Cape Town, where he plays local festivals and works with South African artists and collaborators, an extension of the same networking instinct that built his career out of after-hours parties in his own apartment two decades earlier.
FAQ
Who is Dirty Doering?
Dirty Doering, born Velten Döring in Leipzig in 1978, is a German DJ and producer based in Berlin, best known as a former Bar25 resident and as the founder of the house label Katermukke.
What is Dirty Doering's connection to Bar25?
He worked his way up from bartending to resident DJ at Bar25, the Spree-side Berlin club that ran from 2004 to 2010, and stayed connected to the venue's successors, Kater Holzig and Kater Blau, after it closed.
What is Katermukke?
Katermukke is the Berlin house label Doering co-founded with Sascha Cawa in 2011, built out of the Kater Holzig studio and trademarked in 2013, known for melodic, groove-driven house and tech house.
What does Dirty Doering's music sound like?
His DJ sets and productions move across tech house, deep house and minimal techno, built around the melodic, groove-led sound that both Bar25 and Katermukke became known for.
Has Dirty Doering performed at RTS.FM?
Yes. RTS.FM's archive includes a Dirty Doering DJ set recorded as part of a Bar25 showcase on October 21, 2010.