As you remember, I featured Spielzeug in last week’s Bio of the Week segment and asked if anyone knew what had happened to them. It appeared as if they had simply vanished into thin air one day. Well thanks to some clever detective work and contacting a lot of people, Mikki from DeutschMusikLand.com finally reached one of the old band members and solved the mystery! As we guessed, Spielzeug had indeed broken up a long time ago, but only after some initial success.

Spielzeug did eventually release their demo which was described in the band bio. Zimmer 111 was finished in November of 2002 and featured 7 tracks. The band produced a video of the first song, “Mit der Zeit” with Srad Film. They were even recognized as one of the top 20 newcomers out of 2,000 German bands in 2003 before finally splitting up shortly thereafter.

You can now listen to 4 of the songs from their demo on the new Spielzeug MySpace page. They sound very promising, so it’s a shame the band split up so soon.

This week, I’m doing the Bio of the Week a little bit differently. Instead of just presenting the band and their bio, I want to ask for your help. I was talking with Mikki who runs DeutschMusikLand.com and we were trying to figure out what happened to Spielzeug, but couldn’t find any recent information. No website, no information online, no releases to be found. All we have is the band biography she made 5 years ago. I think it’s pretty clear they have split up, but when? Did they ever release any music? Where are the band members now? If you have any information about Spielzeug, please send me an email at germaniacdotcom@gmail.com and let me know. Thanks.

Now for the bio, from DML:
Hamburg’s Spielzeug play Nu Rock in the German language & can be compared to bands such as Linkin Park, Incubus & Deftones, their music comprising of heavy guitars combined with electronic elements & oscillating between soulful melodies & aggressive rhythmic riffs.

They have also proved by their appearance at Hafenrock 2002 that they have what it takes to play the open air circuits. Their demo release was planned for the middle of 2002 so it’s either out now or will be shortly forthcoming…

So… What happened to Spielzeug?

X-Tractor is an industrial-rock band from Hannover. They have an album coming out very soon, which I will talk about another day. Here’s a look into the 10-year history of X-Tractor, courtesy of DeutschMusikLand.com and the band. You can also check out some of their music here.

Marzo started two new projects in 1997, Donnersoehne and X-Tractor. Actually both projects were meant to be some kind of liberation and self-discovery. When in 1999 Marzo met Kain Gabriel Simon they realized that they wanted more. So in the next years songs were written and they tackled with techniques a lot. Marzo and Kain both come from different music styles and they tried to combine as much as possible. Marzo comes from the industrial, punk, rock scene. Kain comes from the death metal, gothic, punk scene. Today Marzo also is interested in electro music.

During studio work Marzo and Kain decided to call the project just X-Tractor (Donnersoehne is another story).They came to that conclusion not least because X-Tractor signed a record deal with Twillight. Work is finished since July 2007. The album “Gehirnkonflikt” isn’t readily accessible because it combines 10 years of work. It’s meant to be raw, a little bit playful, buck the trend and commerce and combine a lot of things. Although Marzo and Kain didn’t gave a thought about it, the music of X-Tractor somehow fits into the Dark Wave, Dark Alternative, Industrial and Rock styles. Marzo and Kain wanted to produce a record that is the parting of the ways and can’t be pigeonholed. The record will be available at 05. Oct. 2007 and X-Tractor is waiting for reactions.

Fictional is one of several side projects by Funker Vogt founder Gerrit Thomas. Because he is involved in so many projects, Fictional’s activity is a bit sporadic at best, but the electronic music they’ve produced is as good as any. Here’s a complete band biography, written by Joe Hunter of DeutschMusikLand.com:

Gerrit Thomas, one of the masterminds behind Funker Vogt and Ravenous, formed Fictional in the late 1990’s to create a hybrid between the two bands. The project forged high energy music similar to Funker Vogt with vocal styles of Ravenous to make a pounding, non-stop electro mix that is entirely contagious.

Including work on Fictitious, Gerrit has also done remixes under the name Fictional for such bands as Decoded Feedback, Leaether Strip, Melotron, Merge, and several others. Other band projects include the aforementioned Funker Vogt and Ravenous, along with Fusspils 11.
(more…)

Zyklus :N: comes from Bavaria in southern Germany. They are an electro-industrial band with some harder guitar sounds blended throughout. Mikki from DeutschMusikLand.com translated the German biography on their website a few years ago in 2005 when they were just starting out:

They are Zyklus :N:
They are a band that would like to shoot into heaven like a comet. Their intention is to make perfect music. Music that goes right through one and isn’t quickly forgotten. They make no claims that they’re idolized. They don’t interpret love songs. They don’t tell of luck and pleasure. They don’t enthuse about the wonders of life. They perform no dances in order to land the ultimate hit.

They are Zyklus :N:
They are not pessimists. They have utopias. They listen to people. They want to be heard. They’d like to establish a communicative bond between themselves and the listener. They don’t want to be satisfied. They don’t want to issue cures. They convey pure energy which infects each listener that gets inspiration from the sound. They are the angels of darkness.

That reads almost like a manifesto of some sort, but it’s the music that really matters, and I have to say it’s quite good. Good enough to get signed to Danse Macabre Records anyway, and that’s no small feat. Zyklus :N: is currently in the process of recording their first full-length album which is targeted for an October release.

You can listen to some of their demo songs over on the band’s MySpace page, but don’t sorry, the sound quality is great unlike most demos. I will definitely be keeping track of this band for their album release.

Erben des Zorns is a death metal band from Kiel. I’m in the mood for something hard and fast right now, so I thought I’d make them our featured band this week. As you will see in the bio (from DeutschMusikLand.com, of course) below, the band has spent a lot of time over the past year writing and recording new songs. Their second album is pretty much done now so it shouldn’t be too long before it’s released. I’ll keep you updated about that, but for now you can head on over to EDZ’s MySpace page and listen to some of the tracks from their first album. I think if this second album has some better production, it could turn out to be really good.

EDZ was founded in 2003 by Sven (vocals) and Marco (guitar), was quickly joined by Jonas (guitar) and, after some initial line-up changes, was also joined by Schulzi (drums) and Henrik (bass).

Their first production, self produced with Lefti, appeared in 2005. Their sound people are z.Zt Matze and Jan. Most noteworthy about EDZ are their German lyrics and deep sound. They try to knock down the bridges between death metal and other hard music styles. They are a non-political band but scream out about things that are necessary and need to be said because they don’t want to tell about trivial storiesbut rather about life within society, within every boundary and about the fear and anger that people feel. In 2006, they were writing songs for their next release while touring with great bands such as Sufferage, Sworn Enemy, 100 Demons, Aeba, Disbelief, One Man Army and some very good local acts.

P.S.: check out DML’s metal genre page to discover all kinds of other German metal bands.

This week, we take a look at one of the best but least known German hard rock bands, Stendal Blast. 2 years ago this month, Mikki from DeutschMusikLand.com translated the bio from the band’s site, giving the English-speaking world some additional insight into the inner-workings of the band.

In full possesion of our spiritual and physical strengths, in no way responsible to any god, endowed with many years of experience in notes, words and tones which are given life through hope and melancholy, we postulate also for those with musical interests, who are hindered in the consumption of free music by our world’s dictatorship.

We are the Alpha and Omega; we accept the NSK-Staat, however reject the Elektrostaatuntil it no longer recognizes any commanders; we will no longer keep silent; we love and desire; we claim a place in the German speaking lexicon; we prefer to smoke filtered cigarettes; we accept that the art of artists beside us isn’t conducted through pure self portrayal; we take grass to be green; we demand free ÖPNV; we are a part of Darwinism; we highly regard “Calva y Nada”, “Laibach”, “Bruce Springsteen”, “Blumfeld”, “Einstürzende Neubauten” and “Diary of Dreams”; we have contempt for “Reamon”, “AC/DC”, “Die Basis”, hip-hop as a whole and reggae as well; we stand by Aldi-Essen and other fastfood; we demand the decontrol of “Musaril” tablets for the purpose of general relaxation; we want a the fundamental right to luck; we demand an effective diet; we are brightness and darkness; we demand the elimination of bald headed S-Bahn guards; we request that the Nordsee spreads itself further; we demand hot coffee in the backstage rooms; we are no longer playing for wages under 1500 DM (yeah, guess this is old); we demand the end of all stagnant behaviour; we are Kaaja Hoyda, Bernhard Lottes and Valek Devkar - together we are STENDAL BLAST!

A few months after this bio was translated in October 2005, Stendal Blast made their live debut in the United States. With the support of Radio Goethe, the band played a single show in San Francisco. Before they went on stage, my good friend Erin interviewed Kaaja Hoyda for DML. You can read the interview or listen to it here.

Currently, Stendal Blast is in the studio recording songs for a new album according to last night’s live Radio Goethe broadcast. This will be their first release since 2004’s album Schmutzige Hände (and possibly their last album according to some of my friends). Be sure to check out some songs from this album by visiting Stendal Blast on Myspace.

Virtual><Embrace is the electro solo act Mike E Johnson (known for his work in Infekktion, Agonoize, and Sero.Overdose). The band was founded in 2004, built on a foundation of extremely harsh electronic music, with heavy use of distortion and power beats.

Aside from working on their debut album, Virtual><Embrace has also done remix work for bands such as Mnemonic, XP8, Aïboforcen, and Solitary Experiments.

Since this biography was written by DeutschMusikLand.com contributor Nick Diak late in 2004, Virtual><Embrace released an EP in June 2005 called Hollow And Pure, which turned out to be just a taste of what was to come. A few months later, the full-length album Hellektro was released in both a standard edition and a limited edition with bonus disc and other special extras. 2006 remained pretty quiet for Virtual><Embrace, as Mike was hard at work on his other projects. But then in November of that year, he announced that he would be stopping all work on the Virtual><Embrace project due to increased illegal downloading of the band’s music. He felt the significantly reduced sales numbers he was seeing were just not worth the effort of all his time spent creating the music. This is one sad example of where music piracy can really hurt a musician and take away new great music from the fans as well.

For info about many more great German bands, head on over to DeutschMusikLand.com.

Each week, we are providing you with the history of another German band with the help of our friends at DeutschMusikLand.com. Mikki runs a terrific site with literally hundreds of band bios and all kinds of other content like interviews and album reviews. DML is definitely a site worth visiting!

Staubkind has been selected as our band for this week. (Technically, it was the band for last week, but we lost that post so we’re doing it again this week!) In any case, here’s the Staubkind bio from DML:

In 2003 Louis Manke (guitarist for the Berlin electro band, Terminal Choice) began a solo project called Staubkind. The sound was heavily influenced by bands such as Oomph!, Linkin Park, Evanescence and Zeraphine and offered a catchy mixture of hard guitars, bombastic melodies and emotional singing. The song, “Endlos” appeared on various compilations and found its way into the hearts of many, Terminal Choice fans included. A suitable home for Manke’s “child” was soon found in Fear Section, the label of Terminal Choice’s bandleader, Chris Pohl. The maxi-CD, “Keine Sonne” appeared in February, 2004 and the Staubkind debut album, “Traumfänger” has been in stores since May, 2004.

Since this bio was written in 2005, Staubkind’s album Traumfänger has been re-released with new cover artwork, and the maxi single “Ausgebrannt” was released in October 2005. After working with Terminal Choice for some time, Louis Manke has returned to the studio to work on the next Staubkind album. He originally hoped for a release date early in 2007, but it has now been pushed back to the Fall season. There will be a supporting tour that is already being planned for November.

We’re looking forward to providing you with more news about the new Staubkind album. Until then, check out Staubkind’s Myspace page to hear some of their industrial-rock songs.

This is our first regularly scheduled segment, “bio of the week”. In this segment, we ask someone to randomly choose a German band, and then we provide you with a band biography in cooperation with our good friend Mikki at DeutschMusikLand.com. Then we will provide a little bit more info about what they are currently working on. Sportfreunde Stiller was the band chosen for the Bio of the Week debut.

Sportfreunde Stiller biography from DML
The band, Sportfreunde Stiller, began in 1996 under the name “Stiller” named for their former trainer, Hans Stiller. The band consisted of Peter Balboa, Flori Rakete and Andi Erhard but when Andi left, the position of bassist was well filled by Rüdiger. Soon after this recasting the EP, “Macht doch, was ihr wollt- ich gehe jetzt”, appeared. The songs, “Wunderbaren Jahren” and “Kleines Geheimnis” were both often heard on the radio even though there was nothing officially being sold. After this however, the band had to change their name because it was already being used by a Hamburg band who didn’t care to share…

Their next EP, “Thonträger”, was named after the soccer player, Olaf Thon, and appeared w/ the band’s new name, “Sportfreunde Stiller”. This album generated some interest amongst various record labels, the winner being “Motor” who released their first album, “So wie einst Real Madrid”, in 2000. As a result of this album, the band was exposed to the public more than ever before due to videos playing on the TV & invitations for public broadcasts. The album placed #512 out of #928 in the German annual charts for 2000 and #97 for those singing in German.

In December, 2000, Sportfreunde Stiller joined the band Readymade on the “Ready, Sport-Go!” tour. For this, the bands recorded a cover of “Dancin with Tears in my Eyes” together by Ultravox and then each covered a song by the other band. Sportfreunde Stiller versioned “It could be nice” and Readymade went to town on “Wellenreiten”. The 3000 limited released singles were only sold on the Christmas tour and couldn’t be bought in stores.

Another first for the band was in 2001, when their song, “Wie lange sollen wir noch warten” was included on the soundtrack for the movie, “Lammbock”.

At the end of 2001, they embarked on a second “Ready, Sport- Go!” tour! This time they covered, together, the song, “Friday I’m in Love”, by the Cure. Readymade did the Sportfreunde Stiller’s *home song*, “Heavysong” and Sportfreunde Stiller took Readymade’s, “When I grow up” & turned it into “Wenn ich groß bin”. 1500 copies were made & sold.

In 2002, Sportfreuned Stiller released a single from the soon to be released album, “Die gute Seite” & was well recieved, reaching #37 on the German charts. The corresponding video, which had them appearing with Emil Bulls and Echt, added to their acceptance to appear on “Top of the Pops” had fans in quite a furor, this being a clear decline into the mainstream, aka “selling out”. But the band seems to see it differently, more as in… they play what they like, whoever likes it, so be it…

In April, 2002, the long awaited album, “Die gute Seite” came out and placed at #6 on the German album charts & #4 on the Austrian ones. They were also nominated by Viva for ‘Best National Video” & then later for “Best German Act” by the Europe Music Awards…

Soccer fans might also hear their song, “Independent” on the FIFA 2003 game for PC and console by EA Sports…

Since the time this bio was written in October 2003, Sportfreunde Stiller’s success has continued growing with several more releases. 2004 saw the release of their album Burli (Little Boy) which featured singles for “Ich, Roque!” and “1. Wahl”, and in 2006 the band released their most recent album You Have To Win Zweikampf. This album spawned several singles including their first ever #1 single “‘54, ‘74, ‘90, 2006″ which became an incredibly popular song during the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

Currently, Sportfreunde Stiller is preparing for a major European tour. You can find a full set of tour dates on their website, here.

Sportfreunde Stiller links
Official website: sportfreunde-stiller.de