Das Damen was an alternative rock

Alternative rock

Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...

 band from New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, United States, formed in 1984. The band released several albums before splitting up in 1991. The band name is German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 for "the ladies", although grammatically correct it would be spelled "Die Damen". (On the other hand, due to a peculiarity of the language, the neuter article would be correct for "girl": "das mädchen").

History

The band was formed in the 1984 by NY,NJ natives Jim Walters (vocals, guitar), Alex Totino (guitar, vocals), Phil Leopold von Trapp (bass guitar, vocals, and Lyle Hysen (drums), and relocated to New York, where they released their eponymous debut album on Thurston Moore

Thurston Moore

Thurston Joseph Moore is an American musician best known as a singer, songwriter and guitarist of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside of Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label...

's Ecstatic Peace! label in 1986. They subsequently signed to SST Records

SST Records

SST Records is an American independent record label formed in 1978 in Long Beach, California by musician Greg Ginn. The company was initially called Solid State Transmitters through which Ginn sold electronics equipment...

 and released Jupiter Eye in 1987, which has been described as "quasi-hardcore that touched on MC5-like garage psychedelia". A third album, Triskaidekaphobe (which featured Wayne Kramer

Wayne Kramer (guitarist)

Wayne Kramer is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, producer and film and television scorer....

 of MC5

MC5

The MC5 is an American rock band formed in Lincoln Park, Michigan and originally active from 1964 to 1972. The original band line-up consisted of vocalist Rob Tyner, guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred "Sonic" Smith, bassist Michael Davis, and drummer Dennis Thompson...

 on guitar), and the Marshmellow Conspiracy EP (which was withdrawn when it was discovered that the track "Song for Michael Jackson to $ell" was in fact an uncredited version of The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

' "Magical Mystery Tour", and later reissued without the track) followed in 1998 before they left SST. The band's next release was the 1989 album Mousetrap, on the Twin/Tone label. Von Trapp left to be replaced by David Motamed, and the band then moved on to City Slang for the live album Entertaining Friends, recorded at CBGB

CBGB

CBGB was a music club at 315 Bowery at Bleecker Street in the borough of Manhattan in New York City.Founded by Hilly Kristal in 1973, it was originally intended to feature its namesake musical styles, but became a forum for American punk and New Wave bands like Ramones, Misfits, Television, the...

, and their final release was the High Anxiety mini-set in July 1991, co-released by City Slang and Sub Pop

Sub Pop

Sub Pop is a record label founded in 1986 by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman in Seattle, Washington. Sub Pop achieved fame in the late 1980s for first signing Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney and many other bands from the Seattle music scene...

.

Motamed later joined Cell

Cell (band)

Cell were a New York-based band often tagged with the label of Grunge given the time frame of their existence, though college rock or alternative is arguably a more apt description. The band formed in 1990 and split c.1995...

.

Musical style

Ira Robbins of Trouser Press

Trouser Press

Trouser Press was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow Who fan Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" ...

described the band's debut as "six badly mixed long songs that are noisy but fun". They mixed alternative rock with metal, psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...

, and acid rock

Acid rock

Acid rock is a form of psychedelic rock, which is characterized with long instrumental solos, few lyrics and musical improvisation. Tom Wolfe describes the LSD-influenced music of The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Pink Floyd, The Doors, Iron Butterfly, Big Brother & The Holding Company, Cream,...

.

Albums

• Das Damen (1986), Ecstatic Peace
• Jupiter Eye (1987), SST
• Triskaidekaphobe (1988), SST
• Mousetrap (1989), Twin/Tone
• Entertaining Friends (live) (1990), City Slang
• High Anxiety mini (1991), City Slang/Sub Pop

Singles, EPs

• Marshmellow Conspiracy EP (1988), SST
• "Noon Daylight" (1989), What Goes On / Twin/Tone (UK Indie #12)
• "Sad Mile" / "Making Time" (1989), Sub Pop - Sub Pop Singles Club release