User:Tschulz~enwiki/sandbox

Sherman Shultz Food Band The Sherman Shultz Food Band was a free form jazz-art band based in Kalamazoo, Michigan in the late sixties/early seventies era. The band played in campus coffee shops around Western Michigan University and in Grand Rapids. Loosely inspired by the White Panther movement and the cultural politics of John Sinclair, the Shultz Food Band also appeared in numerous free concerts in Kalamazoo and in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Although there are no documented recordings, the band is noteworthy as a cultural phenomenon that became part of the music folklore of southwestern Michigan. It was an eclectic band that consisted of a fluid and evolving group of local artists and radical musicians. At each performance, the audience was unaware of exactly who and how many musicians would actually appear. As the band grew in notoriety, many of the early audiences were actually absorbed into the band and became part of the group performance. The founding member of the Sherman Shultz Food Band was Robb Backus. Robb was discharged from the Navy after playing his first squeaky notes on a pawn-shop alto saxophone during morning inspection from the lookout tower high up on the mast of a U.S. Destroyer. The band got its name from a high-school chemistry teacher who could only play the chords for Louie-Louie on the guitar and a drunken night in a college dormitory room where the participants used their junk food as fantasy musical instruments. Some of the musicians along the way who helped Robb bring his fantasy to fruition included: Sherman Shultz, Tom Schulz, Carl Shoen, Todd Perkins, Sherry Durren, Leonard Duke, Craig Vestal, Carl Botan, Bob Elferdink, and Mark Hamel. Instruments included guitar, bass violin, bass guitar, piano, drums, trumpet, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, clarinet, flute, trombone, recorder, banjo, tambourine, and maracas. Unconventional instruments employed at times by the band included a Theremin, an electric slinky, and a dissembled electric organ modified by Steve Kiraly as a poor man’s synthesizer. Sources: http://drtoddzilla.homestead.com/interviews1.html http://journojackson.blogspot.com/2012/04/gpc-biographical-piece.html http://ditkalamazoo.com/2010/12/11/1213-duke-the-loose-cannons-the-strutt-free-show