igor and me

I met Igor in a club (Cafe 88) in east Berlin in 1992. He sat in with me and we have been playing together ever since. Igor is the most unique harmonica player I have ever heard or played with (and I have played with many). We had a special "chemistry" from the beginning. We immediately began playing all over Germany and especially "East" Germany. This was less than three years "nach die wende" or after the fall of the Berlin wall. We traveled by train or found someone to drive us. This was my first real experience with life in the former "Communist" eastern Europe. As Igor said to me often in those days, "It is the East, Michael. It is 'a other thing'". So I found a new way to look at my music, my songs and life, in general.Through the eyes of these people that I have become a part of in the years since. Through Igors'eyes.
In this time, everything was changing in east Berlin. From communism to capitalism. All the businesses were new. People had to cope with a different way to deal with rent, bills, health care and a myriad of other things in their daily lives that we take for granted in America. Access to music was new. All of the "western" records that had to be smuggled in before were now easily bought. Consequently, in "the East" in 1992 the music of the '50's, '60's,'70's, '80's and '90's was being played simultaneously as "new" music. This gave me a different perspective on the music I had been listening to all my life. The Everly Brothers, Elton John, The Stones, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Genesis, "top forty" and the blues, etc., were all being played on stereos in clubs in "the East" like it had all been recorded in the past two years. Of course, they had heard some of this music before, but not in its' full 'accessibility'. So I learned a few "old" tunes. 'Not Fade Away', 'Roll Over Beethoven', 'This Land Is Your Land', 'Blowin' In The Wind'. Tunes I had thought were "moldy oldies" but given new life for me through new ears. With these new eyes and ears I wrote many new songs. "Angel of Berlin", How Far Will You Go?" and many others recorded and, as yet, unrecorded.
Igor and "Me" have continued our friendship and musical alliance over the past 7 years. We keep playing together whenever possible. In Germany. And, now, Igor has come for his first "look to America" (July,1999). We will use this website as a platform to play all over the world. Especially east Germany and America. And every time we play the spirit of that time when everything was new will be with us.