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~ The German Hard RocK and Heavy Metal Guide ~
History forged in Steel 1978-1993

Yeah I hear what you're saying - Even attempting such a vast project as a "complete" German HR/HM Encyclopedia seem about as futile as ...making a US one? Bah! Long-time Metal collector and Corroseum forum member Prowler spits in the face of Impossible and hereby delivers unto the Metal world the first encyclopedia of the Largest-Yet-Least-Collected Metal-country in the world!

The main idea for this database was born a couple of years ago, when I had found out that in most of the cases, the style descriptions of many German underground bands was completely wrong or there wasn't any info available at all, because the items/bands were too obscure, or that noone had ever heard about them before. The first impulse was to print a book, but that idea was quickly abandoned as while adding known bands to this database, even more, completely unknown releases of even more obscure acts were found.

We also wanted to focus on any kind of heavy music/band that had ever been around from 1978-1993, so that's why we stopped adding releases to the discographys that was released after 1993 in case you might wonder. This database tries to cover every kind of Heavy Kraut Rock/AOR/Melodic Rock/Hard Rock/Crossover and Metal bands of all genres, that were active during that mentioned time range, no matter if these bands ever recorded anything. We are also aware that the list isn't nearly complete, meaning we are open for any kind of suggestions, corrections and help by adding more obscure bands. Especially the local acts are of huge interest, so we might have a short survey of that city/area's underground scene. We know that especially in the Kraut Rock scene there are tons of bands/albums that would most probably meet our requirements, but unfortunately most of these albums are so insanely expensive and rare, that it's impossible to buy all of them just to check out if they might include any possible Hard Rock riffs. We are open for your suggestions, don't worry, your name will be mentioned in the article. To get the site started, we first added the bands with vinyl/CD appearances, while the Demo bands will be added piece by piece in the future as well.

Last but surely not least, a BIG THANK YOU to Dan Edman who made all this possible, by granting me space and technical help. Without his heads up I'd most probably still be dreaming of something like this project.

Browse bands by letter:

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(*=useful for searching town of origin, related or comparable bands etc..)

LIST ALL GDR BANDS!

Artossa

Lineup:

Michael Schneider (guitar, vocals)
Daniela Nehr (vocals)
Myriam Nehr (vocals)
Jochen Zastrau (guitar)
Tom Kaiser (bass)
Roland Weller (keyboard)
Archie Köller (drums)

Band-info:

Artossa was founded in the Hannover area by Roland Weller (ex-Circle, ex-Herr Mann) and Andreas Eigner (Scarlet Anvil Band) in summer '83. Eigner asked his mate Joachim Köller (Scarlet Anvil Band) to join, who brought bassist Uwe Reinecke into the band and lastly joined Frank Schomburg on vocals. After playing several venue's in Spring '84 Artossa recorded a Demo with the 3 songs „Time for love“, „Hard to live“ and „You got to get“, to get more gigs in the future. During one of these gigs in Hamburg the guys met female vocalist Uschi Wittig, who joined them immediately. At that time Artossa was more like a Rock band, but Oktober '84 they entered the UAM Studio to professionally record the songs "Time for love", "Permanent runday" and "I only wanna be with you" with Udo Lindenberg's producer Manfred Lohse. "Time for love" either got airplay at the NDR radio station, which helped the band enormously to develop a certain grade of popularity within the northern part of the country. Several bigger tours followed till 1986, when the first bigger personnel break happened. Eigner, Schomburg and Uschi Wittig left the band due to their jobs and the connected change of distance between the other band members. Jochen Zastrau (guitar) replaced Eigner in summer '86. Also Uwe Reinicke quit Artossa, and it wasn't easy to find a steady substitute at all. Tom Kaiser finally in 1987 could get hired for that purpose. First Chris Scheiba got the male vocal part and also the teenager Myriam Nehr was asked, who either appeared with her younger sister Daniela to the first band rehearsal. With Chris Scheiba (vocals), Daniela Nehr (vocals), Myriam Nehr (vocals), Jochen Zastrau (guitar) and Tom Kaiser (bass), the remaining founding members Roland Weller (keyboard) and Joachim Köller (drums) finally formed the new Artossa. 1988 Scheiba left but Michael Schneider, originally a guitarist, got the micro job, who either was contributing a second guitar to Artossa's sound now. With Schneider Artossa recorded their only vinyl in February '89, that featured 4 songs, featuring a brand of Melodic Rock and AOR and released it privately. Their songs wasn't exactly essential, but nevertheless Artossa could be classified a healthy upper middlefield quality, while "The touch" as well as the title track both know to attract for sure. One of the better private german AOR vinyls so to say, though the band disappeared afterwards, after having played still a few bigger shows during late '89 and 1990.

Discography:

"Citylights" MLP 1989 (D.A.O.)

No Corroseum-feature would be complete without some proper sampler CDRs!
Straight from Prowler's personal archive we present thee...

download ~Volume West~
download ~Volume East~

(For more obscure German goodies, check out "Teutonic Evasion", the German edition of the Veterans Of The Various-Wars samplers...)

For further tips, discussions and questions, please visit the designated The Heavy Metal Mania-thread at The Corroseum Forum, or use the contact form.

Keep exploring the olde German Metal scene on these other sections of The Corroseum: