yod wrote:Displaced Pianist wrote: if you want to know if something is palatable to the masses, try it out in Columbus..
Ohio? Georgia? S Carolina?
Ohio. Might be a dismal admission, but way back in da day, I didn't know there were other places called "Columbus." Found out about Columbus, GA when I was in the army, and hadda drive there from Anniston to catch a flight to...Columbus. Weird.
Columbus was well known as a 'test-case' city; might still be, dunno. Fast-food chains like Wendy's got their start there, and very often, when a major corp. (fast food or otherwise) wanted to try out something new/different, they tried it in Columbus first (for ex., I heard that the McRib was tried out in Columbus first). I guess the rationale was that it had a large, diverse population in the melting-pot Midwest, the largest university (at the time--might still be) in the country, etc. If it didn't fly there, it prob. wouldn't anywhere else, but if it did, it had a chance.
This was true of music as well. Bands like The Cars and The Godz did time there (sorta like being in jail--ha!), likewise Joe Walsh (used to date his cousin), L.A. Jenkins, McGuffey Lane (remember them?), Union Station, etc. Not all of them made it big, but proportionately, quite a few did, and many others at least got recording contracts. The music scene was anything but homogeneous, and on any given night, you could go hear whatever genre you wanted. Even jazz.