{"id":6978,"date":"2014-02-01T19:00:08","date_gmt":"2014-02-02T01:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=6978"},"modified":"2014-09-06T14:47:38","modified_gmt":"2014-09-06T20:47:38","slug":"iow-cinema-struts-to-elvis-bros","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=6978","title":{"rendered":"IOW: Cinema struts to Elvis Bros."},"content":{"rendered":"

All right, kids, settle down<\/em>! We know that\u2019s hardly the most ingenious headline (or egregious clich\u00e9) we could have come up with for today\u2019s \u201cImage of the Week<\/strong>\u201d but, for those who remember their Champaign-Urbana<\/strong> rock lineage and where The Elvis Brothers<\/strong> fits in, it sure speaks the simple truth. Does it not?<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been brushing up on our Elvisology since visiting the Sousa Archives & Center for American Music<\/strong> on the University of Illinois<\/strong> campus late last year, where we viewed a modest exhibit titled \u201cLive from the Crossroads<\/strong>\u201d featuring vivid portraits of local and touring rock \u2018n roll artists as they performed in the C-U during the Eighties. Photographer and then-music scene perennial<\/span><\/a> Della Perrone<\/strong> captured glimpses of acts like Combo Audio, Adrian Belew, The Vertebrats<\/strong>, and the Elvises \u2013 Rob Elvis (Rob Newhouse<\/strong>), Graham Elvis (Graham Walker<\/strong>), Brad Elvis (Brad Steakley<\/strong>), and sometimes Adam Elvis (Adam Schmitt<\/strong>) \u2013 in their prime. One whole wall is primarily devoted to those wily Elvis Brothers, a pop-rockabilly group with Beatles<\/strong>-style harmony<\/span><\/a><\/span> who gave their fans high-energy shows and a pair of coveted studio albums on Priority\/CBS<\/strong>, Movin\u2019 Up<\/span><\/strong> from 1983 and Adventure Time<\/span><\/strong> from 1985. A third, Now Dig This<\/span><\/strong>, appeared a decade after the first on Chicago<\/strong> indie label Recession Records<\/strong> before they called it a day.<\/p>\n

Upon chatting local music history with exhibit curator Rory Grennan<\/strong> during our stop at the Sousa Archives, which hosts several exhibits simultaneously throughout the year<\/span><\/a><\/span>, we noted a color Perrone print featuring bassist Graham and an apparent bobby-soxer outside a movie theater. We promised Grennan we\u2019d try to discern the origin of that pose and quickly found it in the following clip, a two-minute sequence of the Elvises performing in the Virginia Theatre<\/strong> in downtown Champaign and frolicking outside the former Cinema Theater<\/strong> in downtown Urbana. (Folks who picked up the recently-released book, The Art Theater: Playing Movies for 100 Years<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span>, have seen a picture of Roger Ebert<\/strong> standing behind the Cinema\u2019s concession counter.) It was the band\u2019s first music video, per an introductory voice-over by Rob Elvis, produced in late 1983 as a promotion for the Movin\u2019 Up<\/span> single, \u201cI Know You Shake It<\/strong>.\u201d Rock on:<\/p>\n

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Quite possibly one of the C-U music scene\u2019s original videos in the MTV<\/strong> tradition, \u201cI Know You Shake It\u201d appears here verbatim from its inclusion on the out-of-print compilation tape NOW SEE THIS<\/strong>, issued by Recession in 1993. (This explains the presence of Rob\u2019s exposition.) Several other segments of that VHS release have been uploaded to the same YouTube<\/strong> channel by the tape\u2019s co-producer who we believe is the next segment\u2019s host, Ron Johnson<\/strong>. Explained in the video\u2019s text description, this on-camera Elvis Brothers interview comes from an unaired pilot for a regional program to be called HOME MADE TV<\/strong>. It was recorded in between the original release of Now Dig This<\/span> and Recession\u2019s re-release of the two earlier albums, as the conversation makes clear in between the band\u2019s tongue-in-cheek responses:<\/p>\n