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The Prime Movers Blues Band (Feat. Iggy Pop): "Drinkin' That Orange Driver"
"Digging out these old recordings has been fun, but it also has made me realize what a great place Ann Arbor was in the middle Sixties. The Prime Movers Blues Band formed in the summer of 1965, the same time as the Grateful Dead were doing the identical thing out in San Francisco. Neither knew about the other. Later, of course there was interaction among these new music groups that were appearing all over the country. There was something in the air. It was the Sixties! The Prime Movers had gone to Chicago. We had seen Little Walter, Big Walter, Junior Wells, Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters, and all the blues greats playing live. I can remember one night listening to Howlin' Wolf play in a small club in Chicago. The room was empty and dark; there was no one there but a couple of us. Wolf was up front sitting on a chair next to the great blues guitarist Hubert Sumlin. Wolf's music went into our ears and then deep into my brain. Time just slowed down and then seemed to stop. The walls around me (and my body) became sort of transparent and it was as if I was somewhere out in deep space, just my mind alone, outside of time and place. My body just kind of disappeared. All that I could hear was Wolf's sound in my ear and brain. I lost all sense of a personal who and where I am. When folks ask me why I listen to and study the blues, it is more than just 'good music'. Blues (for me at least) has been a way to touch home, to go between the clock-ticking seconds of my life, somehow stepping outside of time, and get a sense of my life at a deeper level. Blues has always been for me a journey to see the nature of my own mind -- a refresher course in who I am and why I am here. Music has always been that for me." - Michael Erlewine
The main band members included:
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Friends of the Sixties: The Prime Movers Blues Band (Solo from "Endless Blues")
"Friends of the Sixties" with Michael Erlewine, a half-hour show on the legendary Ann Arbor blues group the Prime Movers Blues Band, with Iggy Pop as their drummer, complete with dozens of photos, live tunes, and Iggy Pop singing "I'm a Man" with the Prime Movers Blues Band. Michael Erlewine is founder of the All-Music Guide and former lead singer and amplified-harmonica player for the Prime Movers Blues Band.
This video originally appeared here.
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Michigan Music Project: Interview with Peter Madcat Ruth (Part 2)
Part Two of an interview by All-Music Guide founder Michael Erlewine with harmonica virtuoso Peter Madcat Ruth, an internationally known musician. These video-podcasts are part of a series of interviews for the Michigan Music Project, a documentary on Michigan musicians, artists, venues, and music supporters. The interviews in this series represent basic archival footage (roughly edited) from which excerpts will be taken for eventual documentary.
This video originally appeared here.
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Friends of the Sixties: The Landmark Ann Arbor Blues Festivals 1969-1970
This is a rough-draft of some footage Stephen Erlewine took back in 1970 at the second pivotal Arbor Blues Festival, where his brother Michael was in charge of food and drink for the blues artists, and also served as interviewer for scores of the performers. This was a life-changing experience and led some years later to Michael founding the All-Music Guide (AMG).
This video originally appeared here.
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The Prime Movers Blues Band (Feat. Iggy Pop): "Watch Yourself"
"A question I get a lot is why did the Prime Movers never record and get famous? The short answer is: it was not in the cards. The longer version is actually pretty funny. Here it is in brief: There were two attempts to hitch our wagon to the stars. For a short time early on, we had the now-legendary 'Jeep' Holland, manager of the rock group "The Rationals" as our manager. For sure, he wanted to get us into the mainstream of popular music and to this end he tried to get us to conform, to wear little suits, and whatever he thought would help us. And we did try, but our natural temperament as a band found us wandering off that trail pretty quickly. Included here is an old video of a staged chase of the Prime Movers by a lot of our women fans. We did have some great fans. This video is appropriately stupid, as you will see. Our second near brush with fame came when a subsidiary of Motown courted us to join them as a White band playing Black music. They drove us around in their limousines, set up cool events like my brother Daniel and I having lunch with the Everly Brothers. Now THAT was very cool, because we loved their music. You get the idea. The shit hit the fan, so to speak, when we realized that the Black music they wanted us to play was not the Chicago blues music we loved and were learning, but some really bad arrangements they came up with for us to play. In other words, we would have to play what they gave us to play. Well that was not about to happen and we walked. We were out of there, instantly - short karma for the fame trip. So here is all the actual video of the Prime Movers that I am aware of." - Michael Erlewine
The Prime Movers Blues Band was founded in the summer of 1965 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The main band members included:
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Community High School 45th Year All-Class & 34th Commstock, 2017
Short film of the Community High School 45th Year All-Class Reunion and 34th Commstock music festival, produced in conjunction with the feature-length documentary Welcome to Commie High from 7 Cylinders Studio.
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Bunraku-Style Puppetry with Tom Lee
U-M Center for World Performance Studies visiting puppet artist Tom Lee presents a special workshop exploring Japanese traditional puppetry techniques that have had an enormous influence on world puppetry performance. Following a short talk on bunraku-style puppetry, participants had a hands-on opportunity to handle traditional Japanese puppets and draw back the curtain on how these beautiful puppets are brought to life through skillful puppetry technique.
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Ignite | Ann Arbor
Enlighten us, but make it quick!
How would you share your passion in 5 minutes, with just 20 slides? We asked Ann Arbor this question; Ignite | Ann Arbor is the response. Watch your neighbors engage in this international phenomenon of fast-paced geekery! Discover what your community geeks have to say – whether it's food, tech, business, music, art, history or something strange and new, it's sure to be a feverish night filled with discovery!
The first Ignite took place in Seattle in 2006.
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Rasa Festival | Music from the East and the West
Well known Indian and western musicians come together to talk about the concepts behind Indian and western music, and how they collaborate to create new music. This is accompanied by a short concert where they will present music based on these concepts.
This event was held in partnership with the 2019 Rasa Festival, an innovative India-themed multi-arts festival, produced by Akshara. The Rasa Festival is held annually in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti in September and is designed to promote a deeper awareness and appreciation for the effulgent richness and abundance of cultural heritage that stems from India. It is multi-arts and multi-disciplinary, presenting traditional as well as cutting edge work in performing, visual, literary, media/films, and culinary arts, in partnership with prominent Ann Arbor arts organizations.
Participating artists in the festival are local, national, and international Indo-American artists, artists from India as well as those who are highly inspired by Indian culture. It is a collaborative initiative, working through partnerships with key local organizations such as the Washtenaw Community College, Kerrytown Concert House, the Riverside Arts Center, and Literati Bookstore.
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From Broadway with Love
Musicians San, Emily and Brian presented a program of songs from classic Broadway musicals such as Oklahoma, The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof, The Fantasticks, Follies, Bridges of Madison County and more.
San is one half of the duo, Gemini, his daughter Emily graduated with a minor in musical theatre from EMU and Brian Brill is an Emmy Award winning composer and pianist from Chelsea.