Midwest alerts

I decided to broaden my scope of knowledge and enact a Google alert on the topic "Midwest Music," along numerous other topics. Aside from flooding my email a bit, I've found a lot of interesting stuff. I've also noticed that most of it pertains to Minnesota.
Honestly I don't really consider Minnesota to be Midwest. I think of them more as North. As I have said before, they have accents. Midwest people don't have accents, aside from how Michigan and northern Ohio people have shrill voices and people from Kentucky sound like, um, people from Kentucky. Ok, I'm wrong. We sometimes have horrible accents. Especially if you're a redneck.
But Minnesota people definitely consider themselves to be Midwest. Maybe I'll give them a chance and start covering their scene a bit.
Some recent things I learned from the alerts:
• A real interesting band called Abner Trio who are actually from Indianapolis. Sort of a mix between Sonic Youth with more time changes and spoken word rock. Pretty unique and powerful-sounding stuff. I bet they'd be great live. The band is playing in Louisville tonight (Thursday) with that scene's Lucky Pineapple.
• That historic rumor that Paul McCartney died in the 1960s really took off because of people in the Midwest. Indeed, we are nuts.
... it was two years later, in the American midwest, that the rumor really took hold. Researcher Andru Reeve has traced this midwest origin of the rumor to a song titled “Saint Paul” that received heavy airplay in the midwest in May 1969. The song, penned by Detroit-based Terry Knight, spoke of Paul being in heaven. Knight might have been speaking metaphorically about the imminent breakup of the Beatles, but the lyrics must have suggested the idea of McCartney’s death to some fans. Whatever the case, the idea was planted, and the rumor began to spread around college campuses.
• Sufjan Stevens talked a lot in an interview for a paper in Melbourne Australia, mentioning growing up in the Midwest. In a way, he's doing what this site is trying to do. He has documented music pertaining to Michigan and Illinois so far. Although, I still think if you've heard one SS song, then you've heard them all. Even if they are good songs.
• A meeting is coming up for the Midwest Dairy Association in St. Cloud, Minnesota.
• Midwest Christian Outreach reports that Chicago-based Christian nut job Bill Gothard blames a recent murderous spell by a Denver man to be caused by Rock and Roll music.