Someone wrote me an email a few weeks ago asking about a band called Panik who competed in the Bundesvision Song Contest 2008. I had never heard of them, or their song “Was würdest du tun?” which came in 6th place in the contest, but I did a little bit of research and found out that they are actually quite good. They have also experienced tremendous success and great difficulties for a band that is less than 2 years old.

The story: From Nevada Tan to Panik
The 6 member band was originally called Nevada Tan when it was formed in early 2007. They quickly recorded and released their debut album called Niemand Hört Dich in April, which reached #8 in the German album charts at its height, along with 3 supporting singles. Nevada Tan then played a number of live shows which included the Schau Nicht Weg! festival which was promoted by Viva and Bravo and had over 100,000 attendees. The band’s following headliner tour in the Fall was also successful overall, but got cut short by an accident with their tour bus and a number of illnesses in the band and crew.

At the turn of the new year, a legal battle between Nevada Tan and their manager was brewing because the band claimed they had been mistreated and cheated out of money. This resulted in the band leaving their management and record label, and being forced to change their name. The new name they decided on in January 2008 was Panik.

Needing no time to rest after the chaos they had just been through, the guys immediately started working on new music. Their first release under the new name Panik was the single “Was würdest du tun?” in February, which represented the Northern-most German state of Schleswig-Holstein in the Bundesvision Song Contest and came in 6th place, as mentioned earlier. Later in the year, the band updated their fans about progress on the album, and as it stands now it should be released sometime in early 2009.

The sound
Panik is a nu-metal band, combining metal and traditional rock vocals with elements of rap and turntablism. The most obvious comparison would be to Linkin Park, but there are several German bands who play similar style music as well. Just remember to search for Nevada Tan when you’re looking for music to listen to, because they’ve only released one song as Panik so far.

Watch Panik’s “Was würdest do tun?” music video
Hmmm… I was going to put the “Was würdest du tun?” video here for you to watch, but Universal doesn’t seem to think letting people easily watch music videos of their bands is a good idea. I disagree, since that’s basically like saying “no, please don’t watch our 3 minute commercial!” That’s just not very smart. So you’ll have to go to Youtube and watch it here. It’s a good song, though.

Listen to Nevada Tan’s song “Vorbei”
Thankfully, imeem knows what they’re doing, so you can listen to one of Nevada Tan’s singles “Vorbei” without leaving the comfort of Germaniac.com.

If you really like Panik and want to keep track of what’s happening with the band more frequently than once every few months like their website is updated, check out this Panik news blog, which was presumably created by a great fan.

I know, you probably read the title of this post and wondered why on Earth I’m writing about how to mail a CD. How hard can it be? Who could possibly mess up the simple act of sending a piece of mail? Let me be the first person to tell you that a suprisingly high number of people, even some CD retailers, don’t have a clue about properly protecting a fragile CD and its case as it travels through the mail. This post is the result of years of frustration with people who just don’t do it right. I have both heard about and experienced countless horror stories of boxes arriving heavily damaged, jewel cases turning into shards of plastic, and packages torn open with missing contents never to be found again. Let me give you some examples.

3 horror stories
Yesterday, I noted that the German music retailer EMP.de no longer mails items to the United States. Why not? They carelessly packed numerous customers’ orders which resulted in lots of people complaining to them about damaged goods, and the problem was exacerbated by the fact that many Americans make large “mass orders” of CDs from Germany due to the high shipping costs per order. I remember several years ago, one of my orders from them arrived in a box that was way too big for what I bought. The CDs were flying around loose inside the box with no protection, causing lots of damage. They also failed to tape the box properly which allowed a seam in the box to open up, big enough for a CD to fit through. Fortunately, nothing actually fell out of that box.

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Since the movie EuroTrip first came out in theaters in 2004, a lot of people have been asking about the song that plays in the background when Cooper Harris (played by Jacob Pitts) is in Club Vandersexxx. The song sounds like it’s industrial-metal in style and you can clearly hear some counting in German. Everyone wanted to know who made it so they could find the full length version and get more of the musician’s songs. Some though it might have been a remix of Rammstein’s song “Links 234″ while others guessed it could be Laibach. There was also the belief that is was made by some yet-to-be discovered band.

The truth is, everybody was wrong. Back in March of 2006, Jen from RammsteinNicCage.com got in contact with someone related to the film’s composer, James L. Venable, and found out the facts. The Club Vandersexxx song wasn’t made by any band. Mr. Venable himself created it especially for EuroTrip. There is no full length version of it, and it can’t be found on the EuroTrip soundtrack, either. As a further disappointment to would-be fans, Dreamworks owns the copyright to the song (because it was made exclusively for the movie) so it is highly unlikely that it will ever be released on CD.

There is some good news, though. You can actually download an MP3 of “Vandersexx” from James Venable’s website. The song is only slightly over a minute in length, but it still sounds pretty cool.

You can also watch the whole scene from EuroTrip where “Vandersexx” is played. The song starts around the 2:00 mark. Please be aware: There is some nudity in this video.

I got an email a while ago from someone who asked me which Wumpscut album he should try first. The problem with many bands that have been around for a while like Wumpscut has, is that their sound tends to change over time. So if you’re new to that band, you don’t want to get the wrong first impression by listening to a song or album you don’t really like when you really would like something they released 10 years before that. There’s certainly nothing wrong with only liking a few albums a band has made, it happens all the time. So how do you figure out what to listen to first?

Well, my answer was largely based on the fact that he told me he was really into heavier, more guitar driven sounds, much like I am. I figured if we both like the same kind of music, I should just tell him what my favorite Wumpscut albums are: Wreath of Barbs and Dried Blood of Gomorrha (a combination of the Dried Blood MCD and the Gomorrha MCD). These 2 albums really have a harder EBM sound with a very strong beat, versus some of Wumpscut’s more recent albums like Bone Peeler and Evoke which sound more electro and softer to me. Another reason I recommended Dried Blood of Gomorrha is because it contains my favorite Wumpscut song “Black Death (French Concept)” which is one of their very few songs with heavy guitars.

If you like harder sounds, try my recommendations. On the other hand, if you’re more into the electro scene, then you would probably prefer trying an album like Body Census first. In the end, he decided to get Dried Blood of Gomorrha and Cannibal Anthem, one of Wumpscut’s newer albums, because he had heard some good things about it. It’s not one of my favorites, but it does kind of go back to Wumpscut’s older sound a little bit and it’s still pretty good. He loved both, and that’s what’s important. Wumpscut has a new fan.

I have always liked talking with people about German music and helping them discover new bands they really enjoy. Over the years, countless people have asked me all kinds of questions about this topic, and I have seen many more being asked on forums and websites, too. So to help everyone out, I decided to launch a new segment of the blog called Ask The Germaniac.

If you have any questions at all about German music, just send me an email at germaniacdotcom@gmail.com and ask. I will write an article on the blog about your question’s topic. It’s quite possible that I already know the answer, but if I don’t then I will do my best to find out for you. Either way, your question will get answered and other fans will learn from it as well.

This Ask The Germaniac page will always be available in the Pages menu to the right, for quick reference. You can also bookmark the page at http://www.germaniac.com/blog/?page_id=88 if you wish.