Fruhjahr 76: Erinnerungen an Klaus. 1976 private
***Reissued by Garden of Delights Dec 2025
There are two obscure bands from Germany in the 70s and 80s named Lindwurm. Now why would two groups name themselves after a skin rash? Ahh, it turns out Lindwurm is a type of dragon. Which is obvious from the front cover of course. Not.
So let's talk about the first Lindwurm to market, with their incredibly obscure Fruhjahr 76: Erinnerungen an Klaus (translating to Spring 76: Memories of Klaus). Whoa - this is really deep in the basement hard rock right here. Recently I wrote about another very obscure German band called Florian Geyer. They had a single from 1974 named 'Candle of My Burial / Monday Afternoon' that was incredibly crude. Compared to Lindwurm, that single might as well have been recorded and produced by Alan Parsons at Abbey Road.
It's amateur hour all the way. But there's a certain charm in hard rock music such as this. It's not terrible by any means, and there's some excellent guitar work throughout. But they had a long way to go before they would have entered a proper studio.
As for its rarity, yea this one is the real deal. Looks like my friend Lev missed out on a deal at 7000 Euros. Turns out the only copy in the wilds today is going for 10000 Euros and it's never been for sale on ebay - nor have I ever seen it in a rarities catalog going on some 30 years now. That's a lot of balloons!
Garden of Delights announced their intent to reissue this... oh, when was it? After the fall of the Berlin Wall I think. Not really sure it's worth a reissue to be honest, but for deep dive obscurists it certainly will be the only way 99.999% will have a chance to own it properly/legally.
So let's talk about the first Lindwurm to market, with their incredibly obscure Fruhjahr 76: Erinnerungen an Klaus (translating to Spring 76: Memories of Klaus). Whoa - this is really deep in the basement hard rock right here. Recently I wrote about another very obscure German band called Florian Geyer. They had a single from 1974 named 'Candle of My Burial / Monday Afternoon' that was incredibly crude. Compared to Lindwurm, that single might as well have been recorded and produced by Alan Parsons at Abbey Road.
It's amateur hour all the way. But there's a certain charm in hard rock music such as this. It's not terrible by any means, and there's some excellent guitar work throughout. But they had a long way to go before they would have entered a proper studio.
As for its rarity, yea this one is the real deal. Looks like my friend Lev missed out on a deal at 7000 Euros. Turns out the only copy in the wilds today is going for 10000 Euros and it's never been for sale on ebay - nor have I ever seen it in a rarities catalog going on some 30 years now. That's a lot of balloons!
Garden of Delights announced their intent to reissue this... oh, when was it? After the fall of the Berlin Wall I think. Not really sure it's worth a reissue to be honest, but for deep dive obscurists it certainly will be the only way 99.999% will have a chance to own it properly/legally.
Priority: 3
---1/15/11
"I've got interesting news about the first Lindwurm LP. I'm just back from Moscow record fair and believe it or not I have seen the record there, but couldn't buy it because the price was way higher than I could afford. But I held it in my hands for a while and even got to listen to the first track, which is pretty amazing power-trio heavy psychedelic blast! Definitely would like to hear the whole LP one day!
What is also interesting is that I now have a tracklist of the album (meticulously copied from the original cover) as well as other bits of the info that were on the LP - and it appears that this Lindwurm was hardly related to the band that did the "Im Windschatten" record. Although the cover doesn't state clearly who plays what on the "Fruhjahr" LP, there's a list of the musicians, and no one from it is on "Im Windschatten" unless they used pseudonyms. The sound is highly different too, according to the first track at least. So currently it is my understanding that there were two bands called Lindwurm in Germany.
By the way, Klaus who they refer to in the album title, is a deceased friend of the band whose photo graces the back cover, and the album is dedicated to his memory.
Hope this will be interesting for you and for your blog's readers!"
---8/7/12
And Lev has confirmed now that it is indeed a different group! Here is his review: "I suspected this for a long time, but now, after getting hold of a copy of this elusive album, can confirm 100% that this is a different band from the one that recorded "Im Windschatten" 5 years later. This Lindwurm is a basic heavy rock combo, for fans of Grave, Arktis, Kaputter Hamster, Rockport and the likes, and the album is dedicated to a deceased friend of the band (pictured right here on the back cover), which probably explains why they are totally ripping it in terms of energy and dedication - they've put their souls into this thing for sure! Actually, this is what ultimately makes the record listenable and even charming in its own way, because musically it's rather meh - bloozy heavy rock that only get saved by a few extended Hendrixoid guitar jams. The recording is rather crude too, and apparently at least a part of this material was recorded live, because at some point I can clearly hear the unforgettable high-pitched squeal of a microphone that was placed too close to a monitor or something like that."
1/15/11 (new entry); 8/7/12 (update); 3/15/26 (complete)
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