Local Heros

An Cat Dubh
They are black, they are cats, hence they call themselves black cats. Oh, they play folk rock. I dunno if it's Irish or Scottish, but I'm pretty sure that it is not English... (and Anand is part of them since 2002).
If you want to see Anand live, check out the tourdates on the ACD site. They play A LOT MORE concerts than De Song.

Awen
Heavily influenced by the grunge gods of their adolescence Hannover's Awen channel their spirit and passion into well-crafted songs with swinging melodies and powerful riffs. While they may not have reinvented the wheel, they sure know how to spin it!

The Roxy Flames
Frankfurt's Flames are surprisingly rooted in an AC/DC coverband. While this is probably true for 90 percent of all rock bands, who claim to want to write original music one fine day, listening to the Flames' songs you would probably think, I made this part up.
While they certainly can't deny to have a retro-sound, they have come a long way since. There are few similarities between the cliché boogie of AC/DC and the 70s psychodelic collages and sound songwriting qualities of the Roxy Flames.
And just to get this straight: Robert Hahn has used his high pitched voice live long before The Darkness' singer Justin Hawkins even knew, he would ever have that job in a band...

Guitar Resources

Gitarre & Bass Forum
The online forum of Germany's biggest guitar magazine. If you want to discuss anything with Anand, this is probably the place, where you'll find him at least once a week (...OK, I admit it: once a day!).

OLGA
The OnLine Guitar Archive is a classic. At the same time lots of these "classical" tabs are complete rubbish and especially newbies on the guitar should consider BUYING professional tab books in order to minimize bad habits which are hard to lose later (I know this, because some of the tabs were made by my humble self). If you can distinguish between what sounds right or wrong, it is a good help to get a tab from somebody else and continue working on the tune.

guitar.ch
I have no idea how this site can be online in the first place. They have whole pages from the Fake Book freely available, which is very nice, but kind of a copyright violation of a copyright violation!

flying-v.ch
What a WONDERFUL place to go, if you like exotic guitar shapes, especially the V. Somewhat ugly page, but what photographs they have!

Chords Online
Sometimes the tab provided by the web is a little unsatisfactory. You can check, if there is professionel tab available at this site.

Guitar Gear

Peperoni Music
If you are in need of a coffee in Darmstadt city, I can strongly recommend this place. Not only you can drink your coffe with or without milk, but you can also buy the same kind of gear I use.
Both my Gibsons (LP/SG) come from this place, my marshall too and nowadays I hear they can even provide cow-hide-guitar-straps. Back when I decided to buy my first b/w-cow-strap and make it a habit to use these, I had to go to another shop to satisfy my needs...
If you want to buy lots of stuff there, you can email me first. I will then assure that I get a huge premium for myself!

Education

allmusic.com
How many studio albums did Led Zeppelin record? In what way is the history of Rock sound related to a guy called Bob Rock? Does Madonna write her music herself? Does a band named Meshuggah already exist? Is DeSong really popular in Usbekistan? It's all music!