timo rautiainen & trio niskalaukaus (timo rautiainen & the headshot trio) was a finnish metal band, having five members despite their name, led by timo rautiainen. usually they made songs in finnish, with two exceptions. a friend convinced timo to make an album in german, called in frostigen tälern (in frozen valleys), and later the band produced a second album in german, hartes land (tough land). the german of in frostigen tälern is not very good, making parts of the lyrics somewhat comical, even though they are very serious. the following is a song from the former album. the song is called liebe ohne grenzen (love without boundaries) and tells the story of a farmer, left by his wife and kids, who tries to commit suicide, unsuccessfully.

the next song, fernfahrer (long-haul truck driver), is about a truck driver, stranded far away from home, his driver licence apparently taken away, thinking about his wife, his kids, and the new husband of his wife.

the third song, also from the same album, is called russlands waisen (russia’s orphans).

the next two songs are from the second album in german, hartes land. the first is hartes land, a song on the death of a father, which means that his property is split up among his two sons. one gets the house, the other the frozen land, the beloveth land. listen to its sound.

the last song is zeit der steigenden säfte, about the crazy son of a couple. mocked by the others, and finally taken away.

(the strings were played by eicca toppinen of apocalyptica.)

after a longer silence, i’m back with writing something about bands. today i want to write about a band i used to listen a lot to a long time ago: the german fun punk band die ärzte. let me start with a somewhat sarcastic song called hurra (hooray) from the 1995 album planet punk, aimed at the reunion of germany with all its exaggerated promises.

the second song is ist das alles? (is that everything?) from the 1986 album die ärzte.

the third song is a famous one called westerland, from the 1988 album das ist nicht die ganze wahrheit… this version is a longer maxi version, containing several versions of the song. beginning with an a cappella version, a strange pop version, followed by

ich bin die kleine robbe
und algen find ich gut
am morgen hab ich ausschlag
am abend spuck ich blut

after that comes a pseudo-satanic metal version, which is followed by the real version of the song. finally, a blues version comes up.

the next song is grotesksong (grotesque song) from the 1998 album 13. a mean, sarcastic song. i like it :)

the fifth song is radio brennt (radio burns) from the 1987 album ist das alles?. this again is a special version, with a funny intro. a song about hate on radios (or more precisely, radio stations), which play a lot of crap.

i also like prollhead‘s version of radio brennt, which can be heard here. it’s one of the fantastic pieces from the götterdämmerung tribut album to die ärzte.

the next song is also from the planet punk album and is called opfer (victim). on the evil sides of capitalism.

the last two songs are love related. or, more precisely, unhappy love. the first song, mach die augen zu (close the eyes), from the 1993 album die bestie in menschengestalt, is about a broken relationship, where love has left one side but not the other.

the last song, nichts in der welt (nothing in the world), from the 2003 album geräusch, is about someone losing faith, losing his belief in love.

there are many more good songs from die ärzte. it’s really hard to choose such a small number of them… i already presented one more on spielwiese last december.