Detlev Schmidtchen (ex-Eloy) - Progressive Electro

Detlev Schmidtchen started out as a guitarist in a school band in 1970. The following year, he founded the amateur band Getriebe in Hanover, which won the ‘Pop 75’ festival in the Niedersachsenhalle in 1975. The winner was awarded recording time in a studio (released in a small edition as the vinyl single Syncron) and a dinner with the festival's headliner, the band Eloy. This first contact with Frank Bornemann, the head of Eloy, led to Schmidtchen becoming part of the new Eloy line-up shortly after the two bands broke up.

Schmidtchen was a member of Eloy from 1976 to 1979. Initially as second guitarist, but after a short time mainly on keyboards. He then founded the group Ego on the Rocks with drummer Jürgen Rosenthal (also a former member of Eloy and the Scorpions), although they only released one album, Acid In Wounderland (1981). During this time, he also worked on the concept album Warlock - Memories of a White Magician (1981) by Jon Symon. He then teamed up with another former Eloy musician, Manfred Wieczorke (guitar, keyboard). The duo initially made music in the NDW style in 1982 and 1983 under the name Piefke & Pafke and die Jungs aus der Dunkelkammer. Later projects with instrumental music ran under the names The Trick, Animator and Choco.

In 2007, Detlev Schmidtchen's first solo CD The Last Planet (Chapter I - Impressions) was released, a concept album on which he once again collaborated with Jürgen Rosenthal.