slipknot

Rarely since the fiery crash of Buddy Holly's plane in 1959
have the words "Iowa" and "rock and roll"been used in the same sentence.
As we've come to know it, Iowa means corn, livestock, conservatism,
and precious little else.
And like a thousand other landlocked heartland nowheres,
it brims with kids dying from boredom,
and with small-minded politicians trying to keep their little slice of Americana Quaint, quiet, and soul-crushingly sterile.
But the kids aren't all right - they're getting pissed.
And in Des Moines, their rage has a name:
Slipknot. Draped in Ed Gein-style coveralls and nightmarishly surreal masks, touting a sound patched from the best parts of metal, hip hop, violent L.A.-style "new metal," and armed with a multidimensional percussive onslaught the weight of a hundred Neubautens, you could call Slipknot equal parts style and substance.
You could also call it payback time for Middle America.
In a recent Alternative Press cover story, drummer Joey explained the band's vitriolic attack this way:

"All of us were so used to having the middle finger thrown at us, that when we finally threw it back, we did so with ten times the venom."

Which brings us full-circle in a way.
Because, in actuality, there was one other strange incident besides
Buddy Holly's death in which "Iowa" and "rock and roll"
could be uttered in the same breath before Slipknot:
January 20, 1982, when Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a bat during a gig in Des Moines.
"We got the whole thing about the bat right in us," recalls Joey.
"When we were little, we kept hearing about this guy named Ozzy biting the head off a bat.
That was here in this town, and we've had a little bit of the bat in us ever since."
The heaviest band around could have no better teacher.
And indeed, as Slipknot moves from a slot on last year's
Ozzfest to the headline act at this summer's
Tattoo the Earth tour, one thing is clear as crystal meth:
Corn ain't the only thing growing in America's heartland. Consider yourself warned, planet earth!