Tomte

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Tomte
Tomte
Tomte
General information
origin Hamburg , Germany
Genre (s) Indie rock
founding 1987/88 as Warpigs
1991 as Tomte Tummetott
1994 as Tomte
resolution 2012
Website http://www.tomte.de/
Founding members
Thees Uhlmann
Christian "Stemmi" Stemmann (until 2001)
Hanspeter Köster (until 1991)
Peter Heinßen (until 1994)
Last occupation
Thees Uhlmann
Dennis Becker (since 2003)
Nikolai Potthoff (since 2008)
Keyboard (until 2008) , drums
Max Schröder (since 2005)
Simon Frontzek (since 2008)
former members
Timo Bodenstein (1994-2008)
Oliver Koch (2001-2008)
Plaice (before 1994)
Alex (before 1994)
Anja (before 1994)

Tomte was a German-speaking indie rock band from Hamburg .

history

Foundation and beginnings (1987–1996)

The band was originally founded in 1987/88 under the name Warpigs in the northern German town of Hemmoor . Later, the name was changed to Tomte Tummetott after Astrid Lindgren 's children's book of the same name , and the band name was reduced to Tomte .

In 1991 Tomte Tummetott recorded a demo tape in the living room of singer and bassist Christian Stemmann, which has not yet been released. The next followed in 1994, this time as Tomte. It contains, among other things, the song Der Egoisté , which later appeared on a CD supplement of the Komm kisses fanzines. In 1996 the first single Blinkmuffel was released as 7 ″.

From the first album to the first successes (1998-2005)

His friend Marcus Wiebusch ( Kettcar ) recorded the first album You know what I mean , which was released in 1998. Then it went on tour for the first time. In order to release the second album A Sunny Night in 2000, Tomte founded the Hotel van Cleef label . The song Korn & Sprite finally gave Tomte a first, minor success; Wilhelm, that was nothing , also released on the album, made the leap to a small classic.

The label Grand Hotel van Cleef was created through the merger with Wiebusch's record company BA Records . In 2003 the third album was finally released, Behind all these windows , which impresses with a much more professional and opulent production and a more relaxed songwriting. It was able to reach number 50 in the German album charts and made it to number 1 in the readers' charts and number 5 in the 2003 annual critics charts of Spex magazine . The video for Screaming My Mother's Name came up on numerous appearances on music television.

Since the release of Behind all these Windows , the band has been writing a small but steady success story - meanwhile many sold out club gigs, as well as appearances in the opening act of Coldplay , on the FM4 stage at the Vienna Danube Island Festival in front of over 20,000 spectators or at the largest German festivals Hurricane and Rock am Ring are celebrated.

The breakthrough with letters over the city and Eureka (2006–2009)

In early 2006, the fourth album, “ Letters over the City” , was released, which entered the charts at number 4. The first single Ich sang the whole time by you reached number 38 in the German single charts. The songs Norden der Welt and New York also achieved fame as radio releases and download releases. In 2007 the Goethe-Institut invited the band to several performances in Russia . Tomte played in Moscow , Novosibirsk , Yekaterinburg and Krasnoyarsk .

The new album Heureka was released on October 10, 2008, and the first single entitled The Last Great Whale was released on September 19, 2008.

In September 2009 Tomte went on tour in the US as the opening act for the befriended band The Weakerthans and gave four concerts in Boston , New York and Washington . In December 2009 the 7 "-single Live from the Eastcoast was released with the songs Voran, weiter and Nothing is as beautiful in the world as listening to drunk and sad music from the album Heureka, recorded on the US tour . The single is limited to 500 copies and each includes an exclusive photo of the tour.

Break (since 2010)

Since the end of 2010 the band has been on pause indefinitely. Singer, founder and front man Thees Uhlmann has released three solo albums in the meantime, which generated a wide audience, especially from the second album # 2 , which reached 2nd place in the album charts. As Thees Uhlmann & Band he goes on long, well-attended tours. For the first two years the band consisted of Tomte bassist Nikolai Potthoff . The remaining Tomte members devoted themselves to other projects. Dennis Becker and Max Martin Schröder play in Leslie Clio's live band produced by Nikolai Potthoff, among others . Simon Frontzek plays concerts as Sir Simon and works as a producer for the Kilians and Spaceman Spiff . Max Schröder is part of the band project Die Höchst Eisenbahn and plays drums there. At times he also represented Tobias Kuhn in the live band of Thees Uhlmann on guitar.

On August 26, 2012 Tomte played in original line-up (Thees Uhlmann, Timo Bodenstein, Christian Stemmann) as special guests at the 10th anniversary of the Grand Hotel van Cleef on the Hamburg trotting track.

occupation

The trio Thees Uhlmann , Christian “Stemmi” Stemmann and Timo Bodenstein emerged from around 1994, initially with a changing line-up . In the beginning Uhlmann and Stemman shared the songwriting and the vocal part more or less equally and played alternately guitar and bass, while Bodenstein acted as a constant on the drums. This division of tasks changed noticeably up to 2001, so that Stemmi mostly played bass at last and hardly brought in any songs. The last concert in this composition took place on January 6, 2001 in the Rote Flora in Hamburg. Stemmi then left the band and Olli Koch von Marr became the band's permanent bassist. In 2003 his band colleague Dennis Becker joined as the second guitarist. Since the tour in 2005, Max Schröder , known as the dog Marie by label colleagues Olli Schulz and the dog Marie , has also been a member; he first played the piano and keyboard and then took the place of drummer Timo Bodenstein, who left the band in 2008 before recording the album Heureka . Simon Frontzek ( Sir Simon Battle ) joined the band as a keyboard player. In August the band announced that Oliver Koch would be replaced by Nikolai Potthoff for health reasons. Before that, Potthoff had replaced Koch on bass at several concerts.

  • Official band photo from 2005

  • Oliver Koch (left) and Thees Uhlmann

  • Tomte live at the GhvC Festival in Bonn on August 6, 2006

  • Tomte at the concert in the Cologne Live Music Hall on March 11, 2006

  • Drummer Max Schröder

Discography

Studio albums

year title Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements
(Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
DE DE AT AT CH CH
1998 you know what I mean - - -
First published: March 20, 1998
2000 A sunny night - - -
First published: October 2, 2000
2003 Behind all these windows DE50 (4 weeks)
DE 		- -
First published: April 28, 2003
2006 Letters over the city DE4 (8 weeks)
DE 		AT29 (6 weeks)
AT 		CH96 (1 week)
CH
First published: February 3, 2006
2008 Eureka DE9 (5 weeks)
DE 		AT36 (2 weeks)
AT 		CH75 (4 weeks)
CH
First published: October 10, 2008

Singles

year Title
album 		Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements
(Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
DE DE AT AT
2006 I was singing letters about the city from you all the time
 DE38 (5 weeks)
DE 		-
First published: January 27, 2006
2008 The last great whale,
Eureka 		DE56 (3 weeks)
DE 		AT67 (5 weeks)
AT
First published: September 19, 2008

More singles

  • 2003: Screaming My Mother's Name (Behind All These Windows; First published April 18, 2003)
  • 2005: The Bastards Who Will Bring You Home Now (Behind All These Windows; First published April 28, 2005)
  • 2006: North of the World (letters above the city; first published April 7, 2006)
  • 2007: Oh Yoko (Oh Yoko single; first published May 11, 2007)
  • 2008: Heureka (Heureka; first published November 14, 2008)
  • 2009: How is Hamburg looking? (Heureka; first published: March 20, 2009)
  • 2009: Live from the Eastcoast (7 "single, limited to 500 copies)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Interview with Thees Uhlmann on the Goethe-Institut website from May 2010
  2. ↑ Tomte Blog - Entry August 21, 2008. Accessed August 21, 2008 .
  3. ↑ a b Chart sources: DE AT CH

Web links

Commons : Tomte  - collection of images, videos and audio files