Today, I was listening to some alt.country. (if you don't know this stuff, check out Boot Liquor and Bloodshot Records.) So this song comes on with this line:
I first met her drinking from a bubbler in the park.Whoa. That ain't country, that's Wisconsin. So, I check it out. It's a band called The Blind Robins, a song called "Miss Limestone County". (See here for lyrics.) Great band, by the way.
You know about blind robins? It's a bar snack (see here), and if I love anything more than bar snacks, it's smoked herring. But to the point: That's a seriously Upper Midwestern item.
Need to buy this album; will try to report on it. Anyway, it's nice confirmation of the presence of this kind of sound in the region.
3 comments:
Just to be clear: Blind Robins may be popular in the Upper Midwest, but it's hardly exclusive to there.
Actually, before moving to the Midwest, I only knew that 'bubbler' was a term that Rhode Islanders used (since I knew one and she and her friends always used this word). Now I hear Midwesterners claiming the word...
You may not have noticed it, but Wisconsin is a very rural state. The largest city, Milwaukee, is still pretty small. Country music has been metamorphosing for many decades now. I wrote a piece about the problems of defining contemporary country music for my website. I revised it recently for my myspace blog. myspace.com/urbandjin
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