DAF - Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft

1979-1982: The Totality of German Post-Punk

Morning Comrades and welcome back to the second patreon-only dispatch of this week. You know the drill, you can sign up for a free 2 week trial of these below and I thank you in advance.

On that note, I am going to play with a new idea / addition to this program now that the powers that be genuinely have shut down my social media channels - something I am probably going to be quite thankful for in the mid to long term - tentatively called the weekly round up. I’ll see when I can send this out, probably over the weekend, but it will essentially be everything you are used to from me over on IG - music, food, and politics etc that is interesting. This will be for everyone and keep an eye out for that this weekend.

Music. Those that know me well enough that music is the be and end all for me, it’s where all creative impulses come from, I spend my waking hours listening to music and it is something that has defined me, personally and professionally since day one. I get super excited about it all and have been looking forward to writing this dispatch all week. Similar to the majority of us that grew up in the English speaking world I was late to the reality that there is an entire planet of non-english socialized music out there and it is glorious, truly. Germany has been my semi-not voluntary home for almost 20 years now and I am still digging out Gems from the history of music here. Granted, there isn’t all that much that truly engages me here, a lot of which has to do with the fact that I am still not socialized into this society, but the few bands that I know and cherish are truly amazing and we are going to chat about a special one ( to me ) today: Deutsch Amerikanische Botschaft, that roughly translates to German American Friendship, a term laden with irony & sarcasm typical to the time and place.

Now to start, I know that to non-German speaking people a lot of their impact is going to be strange, if not relatable at all, but even so, their music is not only brillaint but has been impactful, globally, for decades. The time period between 1970-1984 saw a brief but brilliant explosion of German music and most of you will know bands such as Kraftwerk and Can, of course. DAF were, in opinion, similar to Einstürzende Neubauten, Palais Schaumburg, the truly revolutionary ones, both in politics and the resulting music/art. One could write entire books about the very special cultural ground these bands emerged from, and they have, but in short, it was extremely special and specific to the West-German experience. Revolutionary both in anti-nazi and capitalist realities, yet without a clear class framework to work from, bands such as the above went all out searching for new identities and sounds that were then to influence generations of musicians, artists, writers and visual artists for decades to come.

In my humble opinion, DAF, were and are one of the two most important bands to come out of this place and time. If at any point in your life have enjoyed anything from Depeche Mode to Nine Inch Nails, know that without DAF they probably would not have existed. Following is a dive into their aesthetics, politics, music and influence. Enjoy.