Various - Heavy Kraut! Vol. 1: Wie Der Hardrock Nach Deutschland Kam, 1970-1976 (Teil 1)

Sealed. 2-disc set in 6-panel digipak (w/96-page booklet... in German).

At the end of the 1960s, Germany was still a developing country when it came to rock music. If you want to hear loud guitar riffs, you would listen to bands from the USA and England. They dominated record stores, dance halls and the few radio and television stations. But something is happening in the state of the D-Mark. Bands like the Rattles, Lords, Tonics, Petards, Giants, German Bonds and so on represent the sixties beat, now and again with original approaches. 

The late sixties witnessed a process of revaluation of popular music. With 'Revolver' and 'Pet Sounds', rock music establishes itself as a new art form. And a young, mostly academically educated generation felt that its honor had been taken: If rock is no longer just entertainment, but is even taken seriously by the bourgeois feuilleton, doesn't a country with this great tradition in serious music have a special responsibility? In the future, it will be about the specifically German contribution to the history of rock music, the search for its own musical identity.

For suitably disposed ears, the heavy sounds roaring with brutality from huge Marshall, Orange or Hiwatt towers - above all from England - from Cream, Taste, Free, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, UFO, Atomic Rooster and from the USA the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Blue Cheer, Alice Cooper, Grand Funk Railroad, Blue Öyster Cult and Vanilla Fudge provide the everyday soundtrack. But what is happening in Germany?

In the early days of German hard rock, there was a lack of labels, producers and sound engineers who could do something with this music. But there were pioneers, producers like Peter Hauke, sound engineers like Conny Plank (Eloy and Night Sun, among others) and above all Dieter Dierks (Wind, Jeronimo, Hairy Chapter, Tiger B. Smith, among others), A&R managers like Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser (Birth Control, Virus, among others), labels like Bellaphon, Vertigo, Bacillus, Pilz, Ohr and Brain (Scorpions and Accept, among others).

The public's reaction to early loud guitar sounds in Germany was mixed. On the one hand, rock fans made pilgrimages to international festivals on the Isle of Wight or Fehmarn to experience hard British and US bands; on the other hand, local heavy bands battled against prejudice, low audience interest and poor economic conditions.

The two-part CD documentary from Bear Family Records® on a total of 4 CDs, each with a 96-page illustrated accompanying book, describes in depth the beginnings of hard rock in Germany, the attempts of bands, musicians, producers and record companies to go their own way, which finally put rock music from Germany on the world map of the genre with the Scorpions or Rammstein.

Disc 1
1 Asterix - Look Out 3:09
2 Lucifer's Friend - In The Time Of Job When Mammon Was A Yippie 4:01
3 New Lords - Fly Little Jeannie 4:53
4 Message - Smile 2:11
5 Silberbart - Chub Chub Cherry 4:23
6 Cindy & Bert - Der Hund Von Baskerville 2:50
7 Toad - Stay! 3:27
8 Wind - What Do We Do Now? 8:25
9 Birth Control - Pandemonium 6:34
10 Hairy Chapter - You've Got To Follow This Masquerade 4:47
11 Light Of Darkness - Movin' Along 4:12
12 Eloy - Eloy 6:21
13 Megaton - Coo Cookie Choo 4:49
14 Weed - Sweet Morning Light 5:47

Disc 2
1 The Scorpions - In Search Of The Peace Of Mind 4:59
2 Frame - If 5:07
3 Night Sun - Crazy Woman 4:22
4 Blackwater Park - Mental Block 3:18
5 Twenty Sixty Six And Then - At My Home 5:02
6 Gift - You'll Never Be Accepted 6:30
7 Janus - I Wanna Scream 2:43
8 Tiger B. Smith - Tiger Rock 5:14
9 Kin Ping Meh - Come On In 5:20
10 Puhdys - Vineta 5:46
11 Curly Curve - Queen Of Spades 5:01
12 Black Mass - Spread Your Wings 7:28
13 Electra - Bemühe Dich 3:18
14 Lady - On The Road 2:53
15 Dirk Steffens - Things And Thoughts 3:33