On stages and on recordings for some 20 years, TIM BEAM is yet still a newcomer in the international music scene. But put one of his albums in and play it to your friends, their reaction will make you think: Why isn\'t this guy on mainstream radio? Quality lyrics, great melodies and guitar riffs that are always remarkable but never too cliché, Tim\'s music easily stands up beside the big boys of rock \'n\' roll. Tim\'s main influences are classic acts like AC/DC, Bob Dylan, Neil Young & Guns N Roses. However, growing up in the Eighties in Germany also put names like Queen, Ramones, Nena, Trio and other heroes of the European and German rock-scene onto his list of influences. Tim is a very prolific songwriter with about two-hundred songs in his war-chest and forty recorded songs on film-scores, children\'s CDs and of course, his own albums. In the nineties and early years of this millennium Tim was the band-leader of the regionally renown Rock Band \"The Dead Flowers\", after which he set out on a solo career with increasingly acoustic ballads, though never definitively unplugging the amps. Over the course of these years Tim has formed Kickoff Records, a music label representing guitar-based music throughout southern Germany. In addition to that he has discovered an excellent set of recording and performance musicians in MC Ugh and Knipper. MC Ugh found his way to Germany\'s Californian Coast (southern Rhineland) in the eighties, and began playing with Tim in the early years of his band The Dead Flowers. He has the musical knowledge of an entire orchestra and has the largest vote in the record label when it comes to musical matters. Knipper brings a slightly different set of influences to the group, and he plays an impressive array of instruments including drums, percussion, piano, harmonica and guitar. In addition, Knipper sings the lead vocals on the song \"Breeze\" on the latest Tim Beam album. Available today on CD Baby, the Tim Beam Albums: Diamond in the Rough (2004), and What happens on the Road (2007) DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH (2004) Tim obtained the title for this album from the inner sleeve of Guns N Roses album “Live Era 1993 -97”, where an old GNR Tour-poster says \"Diamonds in the rough live … \" and wrote the entire title track around this line. Further experiments in Rock include a bassoon in \"Long Road\". Impressions of cold winters in Tim\'s homeland, the Bavarian countryside, set the scene for \"All alone in the snow\". Tales from band and tour-life with a pinch of melancholy à la Pixies makes for a must-hear track in \"Your favourite songs\". For lovelorn listeners there are songs about unrequited romance in tracks like, \"Some things never die\". The songs on Diamond in the Rough represent Tim\'s first full-fledged forays into acoustic music, including the Mediterranean version of Custer\'s Last Stand that is \"Cold is the World\"; however, the stadium-rock roots from Tim\'s days leading the Dead Flowers shine through in tracks such as the psychedelic self-help song, \"Straight Through\". For listeners of chansonniers like Jack Johnson and also of full rock bands such as Tom Petty\'s Heartbreakers, Diamond in the Rough is an exciting missive from the valleys of southern Germany.