Das Damen

Das Damen were one of the most metallic acts within the legendary SST steady, melding ’60s psychedelia and weighty acid rock and roll using the noisy, punk-derived alternative rock and roll typical from the label. Rather than delving into screaming white sound such as labelmates Dinosaur Jr., Das Damen favored warm, trippy, high-volume distortion. Their early materials was given to improvisational jamming, but because they created their songwriting, they threw in more technical rhythms and period signature shifts. Acquiring their name from the German term for “women,” Das Damen had been formed in NY in 1984 by vocalist/guitarist Jim Walters, guitarist Alex Totino, bassist Phil Leopold Von Trapp, and drummer Lyle Hysen. The group released its six-song, self-titled debut EP in 1986 on Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Serenity label; it had been quickly found by SST, that was also Sonic Youth’s label at that time. Das Damen’s 1st full-length for SST was 1987’s Jupiter Vision, an extremely improvisational record that nodded towards the spaced-out acidity jams from the past due ’60s and early ’70s. The follow-up, 1988’s Triskaidekaphobe, was a far more organized and melodic hard rock and roll recording, but its follow-up, the Marshmellow Conspiracy EP, accomplished a lot more notoriety. Among the four songs, “Track for Michael Jackson to $ell,” was in fact a straight-up cover from the Beatles’ “Magical Secret Tour,” acknowledged to the users of Das Damen to protest spending Jackson royalties (Jackson experienced simply outbid Paul McCartney for the privileges towards the Beatles’ whole catalog). Jackson’s attorneys got wind from the stunt and purchased all copies from the EP (pressed on red vinyl) taken off marketers’ warehouses and damaged. SST later on reissued the EP inside a three-song type, however the controversy helped spell the finish of Das Damen’s profession with SST. The music group moved on towards the Minneapolis-based Twin/Tone label and released Mousetrap in 1989. Though it boasted even more polished creation, it didn’t make any inroads at university radio. Das Damen documented one further record, the 1990 live established Entertaining Friends, that was performed at CBGB’s and released in the German label Town Slang. In 1991, they shifted to Sub Pop to get a one-off one, “High Stress and anxiety,” but eventually disbanded.