Free Iggy Pop by Paul Trynka

entry policy for local students, who could secure a place with a B+ average, and qualify for Michigan Higher Education Assistance Authority grants towards books and tuition. There had never been any doubt among Jim’s peers that he was destined for the university; as McLaughlin put it, ‘He could be wild, but he would knuckle down to it when necessary. For instance, can you imagine how much discipline you needed to write poetry?’
     
    In the heady days of early 1965, the Iguanas had been one of the hippest bands around Ann Arbor. But as summer gave way to autumn, their major-chord, British-invasion sound was sounding trite and last season. Michigan’s musical climate was changing fast. Local bands like Johnny and the Hurricanes, who’d enjoyed big instrumental hits in the late 1950s, had sounded cheesy on record but they were notoriously tough-sounding on stage; other Detroit acts like Billy Lee could hold their own with Detroit’s black soul outfits; Billy Lee even recorded an R&B single for the gospel label Carrie, before recruiting a band called the Rivieras and later choosing a new name - Mitch Ryder - from a phone book.
    Other local entrepreneurs were schooling their own talent. Jeep Holland was nurturing Ann Arbor High student Scott Morgan in the Rationals - the band would hit big with their single ‘Respect’ in 1966, attracting the attention of Detroit’s future first lady of soul, Aretha Franklin. Meanwhile, Dave Leone and Ed ‘Punch’ Andrews had opened a pioneering club in Harper Woods called the Hideout, to showcase the Fugitives, a tough rock ’n’ roll act based around the arrogant but fiendishly talented Quackenbush brothers, who would draw crowds of 700, twice a week. Other aspiring promoters, such as Pete Andrews, opened up venues like Mothers Teenage Nightclub, which he ran at Ann Arbor Armoury, and would pull huge greaser and frat crowds.
    As the Michigan music scene exploded, one crucial concert electrified many of its key players. On 24 October the newly electric Dylan played Detroit’s Cobo Hall, fresh off a European tour that had seen him taunted as ‘Judas’, only to respond with some of his toughest, angriest speed-freak music to date. The Detroit audience was just as ill-prepared for Dylan’s electrified assault as were the cardigan-clad English folkies, and when Dylan hit the stage for his electric set, dolled up in a four-button flannel suit and Beatle boots with a black Stratocaster, all hell broke loose. Osterberg was in the crowd with Jim McLaughlin, and watched as Dylan walked onto the stage with his back to the band. After guitarist Robbie Robertson counted them in, the band kicked into life, and Dylan executed a perfect jump turn, ‘Just like a classic high-school greaser band,’ remembers Osterberg fondly. ‘I knew that move from the greaser bands around Ann Arbor, beetle-browed guys with pom padours leading these really tight bands.’ Dylan’s rocker cool increased Osterberg’s identification with his hero, but even as Dylan and the Hawks rocked through ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ and ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, cries of ‘Sell out!’ rippled through the crowd. Osterberg was transfixed; both by the music, and the way Dylan was way ahead of the audience and seemingly didn’t give a damn about their reaction. ‘It made such a huge impression on Jim,’ says Jim McLaughlin. ‘He was really shaken. It wasn’t just the music, it was the way the crowd booed him. And how Dylan had taken all this abuse, and didn’t seem affected.’
    One Ann Arbor band boasted a special affinity with this revolutionary, controversial music. The Prime Movers had formed that summer, and were led by Michael and Dan Erlewine, together with pianist Bob Sheff. Michael Erlewine was a confident, ambitious, self-styled intellectual - ‘I was forceful, a bit of an asshole’ - who had hit the road with Dylan in the mid-1960s, a beat scholar who had already experimented with marijuana and