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Champions of Breakfast are the electropop collaboration of Moses Jackson and Val Hundreds. The band is one part punk rock, one part Brechtian showmanship, one part dance party. With a live show that acknowledges its own artificiality, the group takes the conventions of music performance and mutates them into a spectacle of hyperbolic proportion. Here, bass guitars are seven feet long and made of construction paper, everything on stage emits blindingly bright light, and the beats of every track are pushed straight into the red.
The duo reminds its audience that there was a time when electropop meant something in the American Cultural Imaginary, a time when synthesized music was the end result of the dialogue between Art and Technology. The Champions first started crafting songs in March of 2007 and have since played with many notable acts in their native Detroit, electrifying audiences with an over-the-top, media-saturated live set that has clearly been forged from the hell-fires of the Wizard's cauldron. See for yourself.
[PRESS]
Real Detroit Weekly has selected our eight favorite artists to watch for... Val Hundreds and Moses Jackson do not mess around — they make you dance. Whether talking about the mythical beast of Dungeons & Dragons or the Nintendo Power Glove, the duo has been creating dance-friendly jams and the proof is in their 2008 record, Pleasure Mountain.
Song You Want To Hear: “The Power of Glove”
-Real Detroit Weekly
Arriving somewhere between the nerdy fanaticism of Dungeons & Dragons and the hyper-sexualized robo-boogie of Beck's Midnite Vultures, Detroit's Champions of Breakfast is one of the guiltiest pleasures around. Except... there isn't much to feel guilty about — it's all pleasure. Moses Jackson and Val Hundreds, the ostensible brains behind the operation, sport tight-fitting outfits as they lead crowds through shamelessly energetic sets of over-the-top electro-pop gems like "Nasty Bunnz" and "Unicorn Bible," which, in an alternate universe, would almost certainly be hits. Expect child-molester mustaches, Nintendo innuendos and sweaty dancing.
-Riverfront Times, St. Louis
Album Review: (Metrotimes staff writers' top 10 releases of 2008!)
If Daft Punk and Weird Al had a baby who was raised on role playing games, it might sound like this. -Metrotimes Detroit
Album Review: (****4/5 Stars) The music... is some of the most addictive electro-dance-pop you could imagine, with ‘80s soaked synth strings and wavy chimes, coaxing melodies that vroom around beautifully, with cheesy cymbal crashes and pulse-quickening beats. [The music] and the pop structures, the buzzy goodness of their electro-free-for-all, still holds up as quite an enjoyable record. -Real Detroit Weekly
Occupying a headlining slot [at Detroit's 31st annual Dally in the Alley], these D&D-loving dudes recall Tenacious D with a dash of Electric Six in all the right ways -Detroit Free Press (Live Music "Best Bets")
With purple sparkle pants, mustaches to rival Burt Reynolds and a song about Dungeons and Dragons, Champions was hard to top. The duo, Val Hundreds and Moses Jackson, use constructed instruments on stage, including a “guitar” that is at least 6-feet long and made with a thin piece of wood and paper. They write songs about things they are interested in and are serious about what they do. -Lansing City Pulse
Champions of Breakfast, with their "expensive" equipment and psychedelic light shows, bring their insuppressibly charming electro-pop and dance rock ecstasy to the Elbow Room... Most would say the music is definitely for those who love stellar innuendo and quick wit. -Ann Arbor Current
Techno pop isn't dead. It's alive in the Motor City and this band - which sounds like it's cut right from the '80s - is coming to Lansing. Their sound is experimental and involves a lot of synthesized drums and things that light up. Check them out!-Lansing Noise
What really gets the fists pumping are the beats and the infectious fun that roll out of Val Hundreds and Moses Jackson. "Pixelated Love Song" is a pun-drenched dance jam extolling the virtues and pitfalls of cyber-romance. On the jam, the Champs pull off everything the Electric Six and Dan Deacon might have done had they been locked in a cement room with spotty Internet, a pile of softcore porn, a drum machine and an analog synth. -MetroTimes Detroit
"Champions of Breakfast will offer a commentary on the state of pop music with prerecorded techno-pop tunes and a theatrical performance involving cardboard guitars and instruments that light up with the word 'expensive.'" -Detroit Free Press (Critic's Pick Feature)
"They glorify galaxies of basement culture inextricably programmed into our hearts with radiant synth melodies, digitized basslines, clustered fuzz-percussion explosions, while they belt their honey-dipped bewitching, serenades to fair maidens in the arcade." -Real Detroit Weekly
"A lot of newer bands ... are what the younger crowd is into, more stuff with electronics involved: bands like Champions of Breakfast. And they're really fun shows -- people go to these shows to have a good time." -MetroMix Detroit
"Sometimes re-inventing the wheel is necessary. It's part of what makes the band Champions of Breakfast unique. Champions line of musical gear is made from foam-core, scrap-finish molding and cardboard. Somehow they create a sound that's still worthy of applause. The band has a loyal following." -The Birmingham Eccentric
"These two unicorn-obsessed beanpoles are sure to hype you up quicker than Flavor Flav at a casting call. And we hear they absolutely shred the cardboard keytar." -Detour
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