Kalle Kuts’ & Daniel W. Best`s first “G.I. DISCO“ mixtape
Dear Listeners, Music-lovers, and Dance Aficionados,
“My friend and fellow music buff Kalle Kuts and I were talking about our favorite music from back in the day, when we began to get into music and DJing. We discovered that we both were into “Soulful 80’s Club Music”, which in retrospect, played an interesting role in the West-German experience.
Luckily for us, the American G.I.s stationed here and all over Europe during times of the “cold war”, brought the Music to Germany. Equally responsible were the DJs on AFN (American Forces Network), as well as the so called “Ami (or G.I.-) clubs” within the vicinity of the army-barracks in such cities as Berlin (West), Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Rammstein, Würzburg, Göppingen or Mannheim.
At a time where German radio and TV stations only played mainstream Pop and Rock, Kalle went to GI Clubs such as “Chic” in Berlin, when I went to the Cinderella club in Stuttgart to hear this phenomenon. Thus were our first serious clubbing experiences. In addition, music migrated to the German countryside youth-clubs, mostly frequented by second-generation work-immigrants from Turkey, Greece, Yugoslavia and Arabic countries.
Influenced at this time were German bands of the so called „Neue Deutsche Welle“. One of their main representatives, the Berlin based “Spliff”, even wrote a popular song about the G.I. Clubs called „Das Blech“. As a result modern day artists the likes of Metro Area, Chromeo, and International Pony gained critical acclaim.
This „G.I. DISCO for Beginners Mixtape“ was recorded with a DJ mixer, 2 turntables and a microphone in an old school radio-show style.This is only the beginning of a wonderful musical journey – watch out for events, mixes, and more…”
–Daniel W. Best & Kalle Kuts (January 2010)(Excerpt)