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B: REVIEWS, LABELS, COMPILATIONS, FEATURES, INTERVIEWS, FANZINES.

Links to the best 80's underground Heavy Metal sites

Reviews, pictures and info on rare 80's Metal compilations

Guides, encyclopedias and lists of obscure Heavy Metal from all over the world

Complete scans of Metal fanzines from the 80's

~ 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!

Salvage

Lineup:

Thomas Brexeler (vocals, guitar)
Peter Wagner (guitar)
Holger Frey (bass)
Stefan Krings (drums)

Band-info:

Despite it's widely guessed that Salvage was the continuation of Nytemare, it's not really the case. A local underground sampler, that just recently surfaced, proves that Salvage from the Hagen area was active since early 1985, founded by Thomas Brexeler (vocals, guitar), Peter Wagner (guitar), Holger Frey (bass) and Stefan Krings (drums) in Herdecke. Soon Peter Wagner got replaced by Frank Hilleringhaus (guitar) and during 1987 Roland Kluge joined on guitar, while Thomas Brexeler only took over vocal duties. In the same year fate hit Salvage hard when Stefan Krings tragically died in a car accident on his way from Witten to Wetter on the 31st of January ‘87, so the band was forced to hire Christian Ermecke on drums. Salvage got a spot on the compilation “Musikinitiative Wetter", featuring the 2 trax "Long live the Rock" and "Running out of time", that both are dedicated to Stefan Krings. The band also recorded some Demo tapes, one of them dating from April 1987. A bit later on the founding member Peter Wagner returned, replacing Frank Hilleringhaus on guitar. Soon after that Jürgen Tezlaff (guitar, ex-Nytemare) and Frank Brackelmann (drums) replaced Roland Kluge and Christian Ermecke. While being in the studio for recording the self titled CD, Frank Brackelmann was replaced by another ex-Nytemare musician, Georg Plattke. Peter Wagner and Thomas Brexeler subsequently left the band around the same time, so that Ergün Tasli (guitar, ex-Nytemare) and vocalist Dirk Hackenberg joined instead. Now the band featured mostly former members of Nytemare. The newly reformed Salvage with the line up consisting of Dirk Hackenberg (vocals), Jürgen Tetzlaff (guitar), Ergün Tasli (guitar), Marc Herrmann (bass) and Georg Plattke (drums) finished the production of their CD during 1990/91 at the D&S Studio, delivering brainmelting, outstanding, unique, upper league melodic Heavy Metal, that sets the standard quite high for bands who want to messure themself on bands like Salvage. There aren't many words needed, those who loved Nytemare, will adore the Salvage album, as this CD is the crown of their musical legislating. Sadly this album was their only output, coz the guys already quit in 1992.

(Thanx to Tatjana Menk for additional info)

Discography:

"Musikerinitiative Wetter" Comp.-LP 1987 (Stadtjugendring Wetter)
”Salvage” CD 1991 (D&S)

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: