Dear Listeners, Music-lovers, and Dance Aficionados,

This is Kalle Kuts' & Daniel W. Best`s first „G.I. DISCO“ mixtape. What is this all about you’re asking? Allow me to explain:

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 DJ’ing. We discovered that we both where into “Soulful 80’es 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 clubs within the vicinity of the army-barracks in such cities as: West-Berlin, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Rammstein, Würzburg, Göppingen or Mannheim. In the city of Berlin was the infamous "Club Labelle“, the only club of its kind to be known to a larger public. Sadly however, "Club Labelle" is not remembered for the music but for an unfortunate terrorist attack in 1986.

Most of these places where ethnic melting pots where African-American GIs mingled with local German women. The only German Men in these clubs came mainly for the music and were happy to gain admission! This simultaneously offered the Afro-German community a home where they could be part of the majority…for at least a night.

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, where 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 GI-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 (January 2010)