Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft (; "German-American Friendship"), or D.A.F., was a German electropunk/Neue Deutsche Welle band from Düsseldorf, formed in 1978 featuring Gabriel "Gabi" Delgado-López (vocals), Robert Görl (drums, percussion, electronic instruments), Kurt "Pyrolator" Dahlke (electronic instruments), Michael Kemner (bass-guitar) and Wolfgang Spelmans (guitar). Kurt Dahlke was replaced by Chrislo Haas (electronic instruments, bass guitar, saxophone) in 1979. From 1981 onward, the band consisted of Delgado-López and Görl, until López's death due to a heart attack on March 22nd, 2020 at age 61.

In interviews they claimed not to target anything or anyone specific while writing lyrics to be taken as a parody of words and phrases floating around in the public media. "Sato-Sato" and "Der Mussolini" are both examples of songs written around Delgado-López's fascination with the sound of a particular word. A few months before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, D.A.F. released "The Sheriff (An Anti-American Song)".

The album Alles ist gut (all is good) received the German "Schallplattenpreis" award by the "Deutsche Phono-Akademie" (The German Phono-Academy), an association of the German recording industry.

History

Formation and early albums

Görl came to Düsseldorf in August 1978 and met Delgado as both were regulars at punk club Ratinger Hof. Görl noted, "The earliest line up of DAF was Gabi and me in the basement of the Ratinger Hof. We created our basic ideas and we had a very strong will as a duo. Gabi Delgado played the stylophone and I played the drums." Several early Neue Deutsche Welle bands formed from this social group, and Görl and Delgado played with multiple other bands. The first two D.A.F. albums featured the original four-piece line-up and a range of styles. Their first album, Ein Produkt der Deutsch-Amerikanischen Freundschaft, was released in 1979 on Dahlke's Ata Tak label (then called Warning). The album was 22 improvised untitled instrumentals, Delgado having temporarily left the band at the time.

The band then moved to London. As Delgado later noted, "at that time if you wanted to do new music you’d go to London because that was the center, not Düsseldorf." Daniel Miller signed DAF to Mute Records because "they weren’t relying on past rock traditions at all, which is the criterion of what goes on Mute." DAF recorded Die Kleinen und die Bösen (The Small Ones and the Evil Ones) for Mute, one side studio and most of the other side live. According to the Trouser Press, Ein Produkt... featured "shrieking, colliding overdubbed synths and guitars" while Die Kleinen... presented a more polished sound "with anarchic synthesizer work slowly integrating a solid, defined beat." "Der Sheriff" peaked at number 2 on the German Alternative Charts (DAC) and ranked number 15 on the DAC Top 100 Singles of 2003.

The band prepared more music, but split before they could make another album. Görl played in 2007 as DAF.Partei with Thoralf Dietrich (from Jäger 90) as lead singer.

Delgado-Lopez and Görl have played occasional reunion shows since their thirtieth anniversary tour in 2008. In 2010, the band returned with a new single "Du bist DAF", limited to 2010 copies. The sound snippet is available via SoundCloud.

The band declared its split again in January 2015, with another farewell tour to start in May.

An authorised biography of the band, "Das ist DAF", written by Miriam Spies and Rudi Esch, was published in 2017. There is no English translation of the text available at present. According to the publisher's page, "This richly illustrated book tells the unique DAF story from the perspective of Gabi Delgado and Robert Görl", both of whom as DAF are "regarded as a forerunner of the techno and EBM scene." DAF also released a box set with the same title as the biography the same year, with a new single, "Die Sprache der Liebe".

Delgado died in 2020. Görl released one last album as DAF, Nur Noch Einer in 2021, based on old DAF tapes and with new lyrics by Görl.

Legacy

The D.A.F. track "Alle Gegen Alle" was remade by Laibach in 1994. "Der Mussolini" was remade by Atrocity in 1997 and by KMFDM in 2006. Patrik Sampler's 2017 novel The Ocean Container makes reference to "Greif Nach Den Sternen".

Style

thumb|Gabi Delgado-López at Nocturnal Culture Night festival 2016

thumb|Robert Görl at Nocturnal Culture Night festival 2016

Görl described their sound on Alles ist gut in Melody Maker in 1981:

:Most bands get a synthesizer and their first idea is to tune it! They want a clean normal sound. They don’t work with the power you get from a synthesizer ... We want to bring together this high technique with body power so you have the past time mixed with the future.

Delgado described his new vocal style in the same interview:

:The singing isn’t like rock ’n’ roll or pop singing. It’s sometimes like in a Hitler speech, not a Nazi thing, but it’s in the German character, that crack! crack! crack! way of speaking.

The band determined early on that they would not sing in English. As Delgado later said:

!<small>AUS</small><br/>

!<small>SWE</small><br/>

|-

! scope="row"|Ein Produkt der Deutsch-Amerikanischen Freundschaft

|

  • Released: 1979
  • Label: Warning
  • Formats: LP

|—

|—

|—

|

  • CD reissue by Mute in 1999

|-

! scope="row"|Die Kleinen und die Bösen

|

  • Released: 1980
  • Label: Mute
  • Formats: LP

|—

|—

|—

|

  • CD reissue by Mute in 1990

|-

! scope="row"|Alles ist gut

|

  • Released: 1981
  • Label: Virgin
  • Formats: LP

|15

|16

|—

|

  • CD reissue by Mute on 26 October 1998

|-

! scope="row"|Gold und Liebe

|

  • Released: 1981
  • Label: Virgin
  • Formats: LP

|35

|10

|—

|

  • CD reissue by Mute on 26 October 1998
  • Label: Superstar
  • Formats: CD

|95

|—

|—

|—

|-

! scope="row"|Nur Noch Einer

|

  • Released: 26 November 2021
  • Label: Grönland
  • Formats: CD

|—

|—

|—

|—

|-

| colspan="10" style="font-size:90%"| "—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory.

|}

Compilations

  • D.A.F. (LP, Virgin V-2533, 1988)
  • Hitz Blitz (CD, JCI JCD-9027, 1989)
  • Der Mussolini (12", The Grey Area, 1998, 5-track compilation EP)
  • Das Beste von DAF (CD, Mute DAF-4-CD, 2009)

Singles

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"

|+ List of singles, with selected chart positions, showing year released and album name

! scope="col" rowspan="2" style="width:24em;"| Title

! scope="col" rowspan="2" style="width:1em;"| Year

! colspan="2" scope="col" | Peak chart positions

! scope="col" rowspan="2" style="width:13em;"| Album

|-

! scope="col" style="width:2.5em;font-size:90%;"| GER<br>

|-

! scope="row"| "Kebab-Träume" / "Gewalt"

| 1980

| — || —

|Non-album single

|-

! scope="row"| "Als wär's das letzte Mal" / "Der Mussolini"

| rowspan="5" |1981

| — || —

|rowspan="2" |Alles ist gut

|-

! scope="row"| "Der Räuber und der Prinz" / "Tanz mit mir"

| — || —

|-

! scope="row"| "Goldenes Spielzeug"

| — || —

|rowspan="3" |Gold und Liebe

|-

! scope="row"| "Liebe auf den ersten Blick"

| — || —

|-

! scope="row"| "Sex unter Wasser" / "Knochen auf Knochen"

| — || —

|-

! scope="row"| "Verlieb dich in mich" / "Ein bisschen Krieg"

| 1982

| — || —

|Für immer

|-

! scope="row"| "Absolute Body Control"

|rowspan="2" | 1985

| — || —

|rowspan="4" |1st Step to Heaven

|-

! scope="row"| "Brothers"

| — || 23

|-

! scope="row"| "Pure Joy"

|rowspan="2" | 1986

| — || —

|-

! scope="row"| "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi"

| 47 || 17

|-

! scope="row"| "The Gun"

| rowspan="2"|1987

| — || —

|Hitz Blitz

|-

! scope="row"| "Der Mussolini" (Remix)

| — || —

| rowspan="3"|Non-album single

|-

! scope="row"| "Liebe auf den ersten Blick '88 Remix"

|1988

| — || —

|-

! scope="row"| "Verschwende deine Jugend" / "El que"

|1989

| — || —

|-

! scope="row"| "Der Sheriff" (Anti-Amerikanisches Lied)

|2002

| — || —

|Fünfzehn neue D.A.F.-Lieder

|-

! scope="row"| "Du bist DAF"

|2010

| — || —

|rowspan="4"|Non-album single

|-

! scope="row"| "Der Mussolini" (Giorgio Moroder & Denis Naidanow Remix)"

|rowspan="2"|2017

| — || —

|-

! scope="row"| "Boys Noize / Görl & Hell Remix"

| — || —

|-

! scope="row"| "Ich denk an dich"

|2020

| — || —

|-

| colspan="14" style="font-size:90%"| "—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory.

|}

References

Sources

  • Robert Görl
  • Gabi Delgado