Germans and cars. They just go together, somehow, don't they? Like gin and tonic. Or Strum und Drang.

Thankfully, at least some of our Teutonic brethren also have a sense of humor about not only the "Germans sure like to drive fast!" stereotype, but also about that other well-founded cliche -- the one that declares anyone and everyone from Germany to be half-hip, half-dorky fans of uber-intense techno, a la bands like Kraftwerk, Nitzer Ebb, etc.

Case in point: The marvelously self-promoting and unpretentious Porches on the Autobahn, a techno band so relentlessly uncool and excellent that no one with any musical taste could possibly dislike them.

How can you hold anything against a band with a frontman, Otto Jayayyemmri, who earnestly lays down the law in language that reads like a heady mix of Kerouac, Rilke, P. Diddy and Hasselhoff?

Of the band's current U.S. "2007 Fastest Drivers Tour" Otto declares:

"This is the tour to make my heart grow. We meet to a lot of new friends who is the most cool. The other USA to be more different. Nature, stiles [sic], hardness, courage, and dancer to all come hard. I think to myself why is love to us fast, and next to be dancer for all? I know to it to be Jerich Bloodroot! For the next of the USA I find to it and kill to it! Oh, yeah, this place is the HAMMER!"

Drive fast. Rock hard. Get jiggy, Deutschland-style.

--BEN COSGROVE