Night Music: Trio, “Da Da Da”

My buddy Moe moved to Germany to get married. He was one of the Warren Street All Starz, our stickball team, which convened every Sunday in a parking lot on Warren Street and Greenwich Street back in the days when nobody lived down there near the World Trade Center.

We all had nicknames. Moe’s was the Name Changer. If you had a nickname and wanted a different one, or if someone thought someone should have a different nickname, Moe had to approve.

Moe sold books and spent a good part of his time traveling around the world, going to book trade events. Moe worked for a book company, Schocken, that had the rights to Franz Kafka’s novels, and we called our parking lot ballfield Kafka Park. When Moe wasn’t in New York on a Sunday he would phone in to the pay phone across the street from Kafka Park. Collect. We always accepted the charges.

Moe fell for a German woman named Julie, and they married. Moe moved to Hamburg, where he learned German by watching TV and going out to eat with Julie’s friends. At some point he sent me a 45 of a record by a group called Trio. It was a goofy bit of catchy electronica, in German, that was utterly lightweight and internationally jaded (read: louche) at the same time.

The chorus translates as I love you not and you don’t love me. Too sexy for my turntable.

A few years later the song popped up in an ad for the Volkswagen Golf.

Will the All Starz get back together?

4 thoughts on “Night Music: Trio, “Da Da Da”

  1. Haven’t heard this in forever. I liked this when it was out. You nailed it as the predecessor to “I’m Too Sexy.”

    Was gonna post a Starz (70’s KISS imitator band who don’t hold up at all these days) song in honor of your ball team, but I’ll spare you.

  2. OK, now you’ve forced my hand:

    1) Richie Ranno, one of the guitarists in Starz, used to set up a real cool CDs and memorabilia booth annually at the Allentown Fair for a few years when these kind of booths made fairs fun. We’d talk to him and boost his ego by remembering Starz. I think I still have an autographed photo.

    2) So how is this “good fun” (strategically left out the “goofy”), but KISS sucks? I’ve gotta get that KISS first album challenge together.

  3. Get the challenge going. I’m not a rabid Kiss sucks man myself. But my recollection is that they did make some awful music.

    But I’ve always appreciated that Willie and Toots DeVille wouldn’t let their kid listen to Kiss, and he loved them so much! Something right about conflict between the generations.

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