Barring personal or business connections and the odd disaster, we Minnesotans tend not to think about the South* anywhere near enough. The lapse is partially natural. After all, we’re closer to Canada (which we also often sleep on), as well as Iowa, the Dakotas, and–our favorite–Wisconsin. (Many Minneapolitans would like nothing better than to see Madison replace Saint Paul.)
Downtown Madison:
Bicycle-friendly, rich in indie retail… and thriving.
We’re not above accidentally embracing stereotypes, either, and easily fall prey to dismissing Dixie as the cultural wasteland it most assuredly ain’t. Sure, parts of the region sometimes might as well be Morocco, as with the West Memphis Three, or the social worker busted for selling an issue of Elfquest to a minor.
Elfquest Proof Satan is only the beginning.
For worse or worse, cultural intolerance transcends geography, sometimes even rearing its ugly mug just minutes from Santa’s home, not to mention our own back yard. By no means does it always emerge victorious–especially below the Mason-Dixon, where the very forces of nature themselves counter every dim bulb with at least one towering beacon. Some municipalities–especially Baltimore, Atlanta, and New Orleans–might as well be lumen farms. But they’re not exceptional, just big enough to reach critical mass. From two-time World Fantasy Award winning author Jeff VanderMeer‘s Tallahassee to experimental absolutist Leslie Keffer‘s Nashville by way of universally lauded recording artist, producer, and educator Ninth Wonder‘s Raleigh, the New Old South is awash in creative vigor, heated well past boiling by the rebellious spirit that made America itself in the first place.
Trailer for a short film based on Jeff VanderMeer’s Shriek (complete movie here): You’ll never trust another mushroom.
The South is especially rich in metal and its affinities**. with the most exotic lodes often surfacing in surprisingly small communities. Along with the rest of Nile, founder and frontman Karl Sanders shares Greenville, South, Carolina (population roughly 63,000) with ultra-conservative Bob Jones University. The guitar role model, amateur Egyptologist, and all-points, walking BJU dress code violation doesn’t often visit the school’s part of town, nor, knowing better, does it come over to his.
Nile vs. BJU? No Contest!
Other Southern burgs actively welcome non-conformism. Take Hattiesburg, Mississippi (pop. roughly 56,000), home of post-genre-signifier quartet Malamute. (Imagine a cross between These Arms are Snakes and Muse to get at least a tenth of the way toward grasping their reach.). Not only did the venerable Hattiesburg Film Society host the premiere of the band’s first video–for “I Married Common Street Trash,” from their Acerbic Noise Development debut Breathe Deeply, Horse–at least one area newspaper gave the “short movie” considerable love.
Malamute: If they were from Portland, you’d have already seen this video.
Speaking of AND, Wetumpka, Alabama (pop. 5,726) residents and label heads Chad and Heather Baker couldn’t be more emblematic of the new New South. They’re also poignantly aware of the stigma clinging to their part of the globe. “We’re not saying, ‘hey move here, it’s awesome,’ the couple explain on their label’s expansive site, “we’re just saying give us a chance, and don’t let Larry the Cable Guy represent all you know of the South.”
The young imprint’s roster offers a long, deep draught of Bible Belt surprises, ranging from polycore perfectionists El Chupa Cobras (with Mr. Baker himself on drums) to Lafayette, Louisiana-based doom/drone/sludge jesters Devil and the Sea. But Baker and Baker have insatiable ears, and wouldn’t stoop to boosterism if the galactic economy depended on it, any more than they’d let themselves get corralled into working a single genre. That their perfectly natural appetites have lubed the impresario’s path to bargains with Queens-based calculus-rockers Dysrhythmia, Ann Arbor maximalists Ganon, and London-based atmo-commandos Rothko speaks libraries about the boundlessness of good old Southern ingenuity.
NOLA’s Miss Pussycat and Quintron: Could this happen in Saint Paul?
*For our purposes, the Southeast–the Southwest is an altogether different beast–especially Texas, which was once its own country and in many ways, still is.
**Sure, legacy stuff abounds, and provides a living for countless, publishers, record labels, and scholars–all just waiting to assist anybody looking to learn about Louis Armstrong, Robert Johnson, Lead Belly, William Faulkner, Carson McCullers, Jelly Roll Morton, Red Sovine, Tennessee Williams, Tennessee Ernie Ford, etc. One exception: Booker T and the MGs, who easily rank as the best ’60′s band I’ve ever seen–and this was in the mid-’90. I was expecting prim, elder statesmen of instrumental rhythm and blues and instead got my brains blown out by four middle-aged dudes who had more in common with Mogwai, Swans, Isis, and Mouth of the Architect than with, say, the Rolling Stones. Full-spectrum extreme dynamics (as in light as ghostly caress to utterly crushing), unbelievably lush, synapse-withering harmonic firestorms, a genius for turning the point where rock and funk intersect into an entire universe–they had it all, and more. Never have I heard a band so unlike their recorded selves in such a brilliant way. Even now, just thinking about the show makes me wanna toss my head like a joy-struck mammal.
