BBC Mini-Documentary on South Dakota's Underground Music Scene
January 10, 2015 12:09 PM   Subscribe

"There's situations where it limits you in terms of where you can play, but the people who want to hear you are starving to hear you. Starving like you'd have no idea." A rumble has been increasing in volume for the past few decades in South Dakota, disrupting American's perceptions of a state widely known for cattle ranches and desolate landscapes. The music scene has been growing steadily, stuffing sweaty bars and underground venues with punk, heavy metal and rap groups made up of the city's teenagers and twenty-somethings. (5min21sec video)

Features the rap group Soulcrate and the doom metal band Fantome.
posted by MrJM (20 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
That was really cool. I mean, the picked a place that's "off the map" on purpose, but this really could be anyplace that's not on the coasts or along the Mississippi. There's always art for people who want to find it.
posted by digitalprimate at 12:35 PM on January 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


Antarctica's music scene
posted by Ian A.T. at 12:51 PM on January 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


I wondered why they didn't include any hip hop, Rezhop is the most exciting work I have heard in hip hop for the last little bit. But that anecdote from the Fantome guy about church pastors, amazing!
posted by PinkMoose at 1:07 PM on January 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


I mean, the picked a place that's "off the map" on purpose, but this really could be anyplace that's not on the coasts or along the Mississippi
I don't think that's true, for what it's worth. From what I've heard, Omaha has a pretty thriving music scene, for instance, and my hunch is that there are plenty of venues in Denver. South Dakota is pretty far off the beaten path even by Midwestern/ Western standards, and I say that as someone who has been to Sioux Falls fairly recently.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:21 PM on January 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


I wondered why they didn't include any hip hop

Literally half the video is about a hip-hop group.
posted by Ian A.T. at 1:36 PM on January 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


"It was my salvation"
posted by Emor at 1:43 PM on January 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


i meant rezhop, indigenious hip hop, bad editing
posted by PinkMoose at 2:01 PM on January 10, 2015


Love metal and I'm from SD, cool post. Miffed about the "desolate landscapes" line. There's more than prairie and the Badlands!! Haven't they ever heard of the Black Hills? Wow, much desolate
posted by mrbigmuscles at 2:02 PM on January 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


this really could be anyplace that's not on the coasts or along the Mississippi

like chicago or detroit? or nashville?
posted by pyramid termite at 2:09 PM on January 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


Mrbigmuscles and I are in agreement--Sioux Falls isn't exactly "barren." The Hi-Line in Montana--now that's barren.
I noticed last summer that there were some guys from Jamaica working in the kitchen in Al's Oasis who told me that they had to go to Rapid City for any real nightlife.
posted by Ideefixe at 2:27 PM on January 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


PinkMoose: I think there is now an imperative for you to build a FPP on rezhop.
posted by el io at 3:29 PM on January 10, 2015 [9 favorites]


It's vastly, overwhelmingly desolate. Not entirely, but overwhelmingly so.

The exception proves the rule here, and it's got a long way to go on civil liberties, victimless crime laws, and all that jazz. Last small town Fourth of July parade I attended had a dude in blackface.
posted by aydeejones at 3:45 PM on January 10, 2015


I don't mean to condemn it though, I've seen many rays of hope, and the city centers do inevitably bring out Good Things. It's good that it has a burgeoning music scene and I'm gonna check this out. Didn't intend to poop things up, I've just got my fair share of experience, but it's a large enough place for lots of experiences.
posted by aydeejones at 3:47 PM on January 10, 2015


FSD Punk
posted by charlie don't surf at 4:43 PM on January 10, 2015


I live in Sioux Falls. If any of you want to come visit, I'll do my best to be a good host. I have a few wines that are ready to bottle and sample. We could hit up several live music spots.
posted by yesster at 9:29 PM on January 10, 2015


Can I bring lugwig?
(Waves, waves like a Woody Allen character)
posted by clavdivs at 10:03 PM on January 10, 2015


clavdivs, you've a special place in me heart, I'd welcome you, yours, and any manner of cruft you deem worthy
posted by yesster at 10:26 PM on January 10, 2015


Love metal and I'm from SD, cool post. Miffed about the "desolate landscapes" line. There's more than prairie and the Badlands!! Haven't they ever heard of the Black Hills?

I mean, you're not wrong, but for those of us that grew up in any of the small towns east river, that half of the state is indeed desolate and there's a lot of space between those towns. I drove from Armour to Yankton and back on Christmas Eve and while I went through several towns (each of them with a population of less than 1000) and I couldn't find a gas station to save my life and had to pull over on the side of the highway to take a leak. Luckily, of course, there weren't any cars around for miles. And "desolate landscapes" would indeed be a good metaphor regarding the art and music offerings around there.

Of course it's not like the Yukon or anything or even as remote-feeling as (gasp) North Dakota, but compared to where I live now in Los Angeles, it's a real shock to travel back to rural SD sometimes. Not much changes there, and if you're a teenager who's into rock and roll or hip hop you might as well have two heads.

During my teenage years in the 1990s the town I lived in actually got their cable TV provider to remove MTV from its schedule due to how it corrupted the youth and everything, and it was replaced with something called MOR Music which was like QVC for music and the music ranged from light country to soft rock with no hard rock or rap or anything that was even mildly interesting. What I mostly remember was a lot of Jan Hammer and Sarah McLachlan videos. And if you turned on the radio it was either contemporary country, Top 40 for two hours on Sunday (Casey Kasem), or public radio that aired mostly classical music instead of NPR programming. You literally had to drive to Sioux Falls (70 miles away) to find an actual music store that sold CDs. And that's where I bought my first cassette Maxi Single: "If I Ever Fall In Love" by Shai. Because that was the only new kind of thing you heard on the radio in 1992.

Ironically enough, the music programs at the schools out there are GREAT. Kids can start learning instruments and playing in band at 4th grade and many of even the small schools have two band directors - by contrast, the town I moved to in Michigan for high school was five times larger and only had one band director for 7th-12th grades. So in my part of South Dakota you ended up with some kids with some serious musical aptitude and nowhere to really express it (or learn about what's happening in the culture at large) except for the traditional academic outlets like band and choir and piano lessons. All that to basically say that I'm not surprised that there are people there now who are making their own great scenes happen - what else is there to do?
posted by Dokterrock at 1:36 AM on January 11, 2015 [5 favorites]


The comments on this post are why I love MetaFilter.

-- JM
posted by MrJM at 11:30 AM on January 11, 2015




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