contrabandwidth - "Nothing good has ever come out of the South"

My sister-in-law was telling me a story about a disastorous Christmas Dinner in which a mentally unstable friends father came to dinner and made a scene after a few too many drinks. Mostly it sounded like her family sat there in awkward silence as this guy tried to engage people with this statement. They obviously possesed the restraint and logic that I wouldn't have had to engauge in a conversation such as this. Besides, they live in Florida, and in my opinion, Florida is South of "The South."

I think that he was eventually asked to leave after bespoiling the evening, but when I was told this story, I took a moment to collect myself. Why would anybody make such a sweeping statement? It took me a moment to realize why a statement like that bothered me - I after all am not from the south. I lived in Atlanta for 10 years,but it is so far removed from a "southern experience" I hardly qualify it as a southern city.

I realized, some what disquieted by the fact that it didn't just pop into my head when she quoted "Nothing good has ever come out of the South", that Rock n' Roll came out of the south. Rock n' roll exists as THE American cultural monolith of the 20th century, therefore The South is our version of the fertile crescent.

If what this deluded person held an ounce of truth, and I had only one examle to prove him wrong, this would be my example. In other words, eveything "American" movement in the second half of the 20th century is in some way indepted to the south and Rock n' Roll.

Unfortunately, music journalists are usually quick to tie some comparisons of southern bands to that of "Southern Rock" bands like Skynard, the Allman Bros., Marshall Tucker, Molly Hatchet, etc. This seems as myopic as the aforementioned statement. These bands may hold a great legacy of rocking the south, but there are plenty current and recent bands rewriting what it means to be a person/band in the south (region not really being important) - and not a "Southern Band."

For your consideration I submit the group Neutral Milk Hotel's album "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea." I wont go into the bizarreness that surrounds the bands demise to this day, but in brief say that this band put out one good album and one legendary/epic album, and then disappeared into the ether. There is nothing on this album that says "South" in it's sound or anything (unless you consider an obvious pressence/influence of southern baptist christianity). This is an amazing album from start to finish. It grows in it's influence by word of mouth (ear?), and was the #1 selling album on Merge Records until Arcade Fire's "Funeral." Arcade Fire has definitely taken some cues from NMH. This is one of those under the radar classics (I guess "the radar" means radio, and that might not be a bad thing to any one whose listened to the radio in the past 10 years), that you can listen to wondering how such an amazing album found you.