Das Damen

Das Damen
Origin	New York City, New York, USA
Genres	Alternative rock
Years active	1984–1991
Labels	Ecstatic Peace, SST, Twin/Tone, City Slang, Sub Pop
Associated acts	Cell Arthur Lee (Love) Roy Loney (Flamin' Groovies)
Past members	Jim Walters Alex Totino Phil Leopold von Trapp Lyle Hysen David Motamed

Das Damen was an alternative rock band from New York City, United States, formed in 1984. The band released several albums before splitting up in 1991. The band's name is fake German and allegedly translates to "the ladies" (the correct German form would be Die Damen).

The band was formed in the 1984 by Jim Walters (vocals, guitar), Alex Totino (guitar, vocals), Phil Leopold von Trapp (bass guitar, vocals), and Lyle Hysen (drums). Totino and Hysen were previously in the New York Hardcore punk band, The Misguided. They released their eponymous debut album on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace! label in 1986. They subsequently signed to SST Records 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album, Triskaidekaphobe (which featured Wayne Kramer of MC5 on guitar), and the Marshmellow Conspiracy EP (which was withdrawn when it was discovered that the track "Song for Michael Jackson to $ell" was in fact an uncredited version of The Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour", and later reissued without the track) followed in 1988 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, and their final release was the High Anxiety mini-set in July 1991, co-released by City Slang and Sub Pop.

Motamed later joined Cell.

Ira Robbins of 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, and acid rock.

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