Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
“Defiantly nerdy and spazzy.” - The Onion
"The Detholz! sound like a very pissed-off Devo - with their amps turned all the way up -battling Mothra to the death.... Soundgarden meets Mars Attacks! with pounding guitars and haunting, charged vocals.” - Time Out New York
"The Detholz! have landed, and they are ready to permeate your consciousness with hypno-tainment. (They) have become a force to be reckoned with…” - The Paper (Grand Rapids)
"The biggest surprise of the evening, The Detholz!, played a tight, melodic set of artsy rock and roll as surreal as it was catchy. Dressed in matching white outfits and fronted by a bespectacled lead singer (who shook like an epileptic and gyrated his hips like an Elvis impersonator on amphetamines), the Detholz continued to extol the virtues of L-U-V long after the stroke of midnight. The Detholz were the straw that broke the camel’s back – I was dancing, and on Valentine’s Day nonetheless." - Chicago Maroon
“(A) wildly eccentric and oddball group of militant Misters who regularly defy convention and common sense with an air of utmost authority.” - Sidewinder Zine
“quasi-psychedelic space pop – croony, lush, show-tuney, and…rockin.” - Chicago Reader
“A blend of Fountains of Wayne with Devo . . . (with) definite Brian Wilson-esque vocals.”
- Negative Waves
Discography
Who Are the Detholz!? (2002)
The Detholz! EP (2004)
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
Virtuosos of melodic appropriation and genre-leaping mutation, Chicago's Detholz! (pronounced 'death holes') operate a carnival ride through the universes of pop, punk and new wave. A Detholz! concert experience is a sonic adventure in literate hysterics - a motivational seminar, traveling circus and big-tent religious revival playing simultaneously to a congregation of true believers. Sophomore disc "Next New Now," due for release this summer, promises to deliver in sonic form the raw, frantic energy of the Detholz! live show.
Formed at (and later expelled by) a fundamentalist bible school in 1996, the Detholz! created a rock-n-roll Frankenstein out of doctrinal suffocation, a shared appreciation for avant-garde music and the techniques of mass-market mind control. They've since played ceaselessly through the Midwest and East Coast with bands such as Wilco, Radio 4, Electric Six, King Missile, Skeleton Key and Pansy Division.
"Prepare to be mesmerized, hypnotized, super-sized," warns front man Mister C, before diving into a manic rant on advertising and attention spans while jerking and jumping about . . . as if a Latter-Day David Byrne were fronting Fugazi performing a Devo tribute. With razor-sharp execution the Detholz! take the Good People on a head-bobbing romp through pop psychologies, fundamentalist ideologies and marketing strategies, all the while anchored by the menacing Mister M, a giant, cloaked Preacher Man uttering fresh apocalyptic warnings to the crowd like a Flannery O'Connor bottom-country evangelist.
The message is epic, and the medium is undeniably exuberant and gleefully geeky. Turn-on-a-dime changes, unabashed genre-mutilation, grandiose productions and slightly satanic top-40 covers combine to form what can only be called Detholz! . . . and the faithful keep coming back for more.
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