Midwest: Home to Crazy People
Most people seem to think that all of the really innovative or peculiar stuff comes from one of the coasts. The more I listen to modern music the more I tend to disagree.
I recently started listening to Mushroomhead, much to my wife’s distress. (I tend to listen to it a lot, and very loud.) They were really the band that sort of tipped my perception of my little chunk of the world. I’ve been listening to Slipknot and Mudvayne for years, but it never really occured to me that these people were all from the same arbitrarily lumped together area.
For those of you that don’t know Slipknot is from Iowa, Mudvayne is from Illinois, and Mushroomhead is from Ohio. (As a side note, the former sing from SOiL and current singer for Drowning Pool is from Indiana.) Just look at that crowd of folks from the Midwest. Seriously disturbed individuals all making music. Some of it pretty generic sounding at this point, but if you put it in context these guys all revived a little theatricallity that was missing from a live performance. Pyro only really takes you so far (crap, did I just say that?)
If we go back a little further from these folks we end up with the likes of Iggy Pop from Detroit, and that’s a guy that’s just not in his right mind.
I think one of the guys from Slipknot really explained the phenomenon fairly well once. In the midwest there really isn’t much to do. You can do drugs, have sex, read your bible, and get a factory job. Or, you can go out and make your own entertainment. With latex, make-up and fake blood.
Just remember that next time you’re driving across the country. Certainly, lots of innovation comes from the coasts and the midwest is filled with cover bands, but some of those cover bands are just saving up for a 40 foot steel tower that fires flaming drummers into the audience.
Tune in next time for the release of my new album, Attack of the Flaming Drummer.
