Torfrock

Torfrock (German pronunciation: [ˈtɔʁfʁɔk], lit. "Peat Rock") is a German rock group founded by Klaus Büchner and Raymond Voß in 1977. Guitarist Jürgen Lugge from Hamburg played lead guitar until his unexpected death in 1999. With their Northern German identity, they are notable for keeping alive the native Low German language in their lyrics. With many of their songs being Low-German covers of Anglo-American standards, their music style ranges from R'n'B to blues rock and folk rock. Their humorous to surreal song lyrics mostly deal either with 10th-century Viking Rollo (in an interpretation obviously strongly reminiscent of Dik Browne's Hägar the Horrible rather than the actual historical person) situated in Hedeby instead of Scandinavia in their songs, or life in the modern-day fictional Schleswig-Holstein rural village of Torfmoorholm (lit. "Peatbogville"). Beside being a trademark of modern-day Northern German culture, the band is closely associated with another Northern German icon, the Werner comics and movie franchise created by comic artist Rötger Feldmann (a.k.a. Brösel), not only because the band wrote the original soundtrack to the first Werner movie and partly to its sequels, but also because Torfrock singer Büchner voices character Werner in the movies. Also, Torfrock guitarist and singer Voss voices the Präsi Dieter, the choleric, yet likewise good hearted leader of a biker gang Werner is a member of. The title song Beinhart topped the charts in Germany and also entered the Top 20 in Austria and Switzerland. This was their first song to include a guitar solo from Jürgen Lugge. He was only booked as a studio musician besides Klaus Büchner (vocals), Raymond Voß (electric rhythm guitar), Uwe Meitzner (electric bass guitar) and Gunnar "Gustl" Kämmer (drums), but, in Voß' own words, the band saw it as disrespectul to go on tour, play the song and then "have...