The Music Cities

The Atlantic just published a piece called "The Savage Empathy of the Mosh Pit."
James Parker went to the New England Metal and Hardcore Festival at the Palladium in Worcester and asked whether the pit could teach us something about how to live together in 2025. His answer: yes. The pit self-polices. When someone falls, they get picked up. There's violence, but there's also care. Savage empathy.

He's onto something. But I'd take it further.

The pit is economic infrastructure.

That festival at the Palladium didn't happen because a city planner approved a cultural district. It happened because someone built a room, bands showed up, and a scene had decades to develop its own rules. The unwritten codes Parker observed, the mutual aid, the tribal identity, that's what emerges when you give a community space and time to build something real.

Cities keep trying to manufacture this. They brand innovation districts. They commission public art. They hire consultants to design "authentic" and "vibrant" spaces. They program culture from the top down.

Meanwhile, metalheads in Worcester built a self-governing community through controlled chaos. No consultants. No grants. No permission.

The same thing happened in a German village called Wacken. Population 2,000. Every summer, 85,000 people show up for a metal festival. The village didn't plan to become a global pilgrimage site. The scene built itself because someone created the conditions and got out of the way.

That's what cities don't understand. You can't program a tribe. You can only give them a room and let them build.

The pit isn't a metaphor. It's a case study.

We cover this in our Wacken episode: How a Village of 2,000 Becomes a City of 85,000: https://youtu.be/YU9fsKxKU70

Read our more economic development focused take here: www.patreon.com/posts/atlantics-savage-147699124

Read the Atlantic article here: www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025/12/an-ode-to-mosh…

‪@TheAtlantic‬​

18 hours ago (edited) | [YT] | 3

The Music Cities

This is the economic development framework behind The Music Cities episode on Babymetal.

Three teenage girls in tutus fused J-pop with death metal and created a category that didn't exist. The industry said it couldn't work. They sold out arenas.

The full article breaks down what this teaches cities and economic developers about category creation versus category competition, production economies versus consumption economies, and why the winners don't fight for market share - they build markets that belong to them.

If you watch for the music and stay for the economics, this is the deep dive. This is subscriber content from our Street Economics Patreon, presented here at no charge for our Music Cities Podcast subscribers. It is also available on our Music Cities Patreon.

THE IMPERATIVE OF CATEGORY CREATION AND THE PRODUCTION ECONOMY PARADIGM

The fundamental failure of modern economic development lies in the persistent addiction to zero sum competition. Most municipalities chase a finite pool of corporate relocations and retail chains using a generic playbook of cash for jobs incentives and tax abatements. This extractive model does not build wealth; it moves capital from the public ledger to the corporate mothership, often at the expense of local identity and long term fiscal sustainability.

When a city attempts to become the next Austin, the next Nashville, or the next Silicon Valley, it has already lost. By adopting the language and metrics of established hubs, a community accepts subordinate status within a category it did not create. Economic development is not a race to replicate. It is a strategic exercise in differentiation.

True economic winners do not compete in existing categories. They create their own.

Category creation requires a pivot from the consumption economy to the production economy. The consumption economy is visible, safe, and easily measured. Weekend festivals. Food trucks. Cover bands. Sales tax receipts. These are service activities that trade hours for dollars without creating exportable value or intellectual property. They are the economic equivalent of a franchise. Stable, perhaps, but dependent on someone else's brand and innovation.

The production economy happens behind closed doors in spaces that the typical economic development practitioner rarely visits and often dismisses. It is the realm of the entrepreneur and the startup venture where original intellectual property is manufactured. This sector drives economic gravity. It spawns the auxiliary ecosystems of studios, managers, lawyers, and specialized operations that form actual industry clusters.

The most potent and misunderstood asset in this production economy is cultural infrastructure. Most civic leaders view art and culture as a nice to have amenity. A decorative layer to be applied after the real economic work is done. This is a catastrophic misreading of how talent and capital actually cluster.

Cultural infrastructure is not a metaphor. It is foundational economic hardware.

Talent is geographic. It is not a random distribution of luck or genetics. It clusters in specific places because those places provide the ecosystems that make talent visible and viable. When a city fails to recognize its existing cultural infrastructure, it actively devalues its most significant unfair advantage. This infrastructure often exists in plain sight, housed in unassuming buildings that civic leaders overlook because they do not fit the aesthetic of a technology park or a corporate corridor.

The legitimacy of a local economy is often found in its tribal engagement rather than its general market appeal. Fans consume products. Tribes belong to ecosystems. A consumption based plan builds places for customers. A production based strategy builds environments for tribes. The former is a marketing exercise. The latter is what actually works. When a community builds for belonging, it creates a billion dollar economy around a desire that precedes the physical infrastructure.

Institutional survival depends on the ability to evolve without reinventing the core identity. Many organizations and municipalities believe they cannot survive the transition of leadership or a shift in market conditions. The strongest institutions demonstrate otherwise. You can protect your core and innovate at the edges. You do not need a rebrand or a total reinvention. You need to remember who you are and build the infrastructure that allows that identity to scale.

The gatekeepers of economic development rely on credentials and legacy affiliations to validate their strategies. But credentials do not build tribes. Conferences do not create industry clusters. White papers do not attract talent. What attracts talent is an ecosystem with the things that make it a place where talent wants to be. What builds tribes is authenticity that resonates.

The geography of innovation is moving away from traditional hubs and into outsider locations. The suburbs. The non traditional cities. The places quietly producing world class intellectual property while planners chase the next big thing. These communities are shaping entire industries from their own backyards. This is the production economy in its purest form. Unobserved. Unplanned. Powerful.

To reach the elite level of the profession, economic developers must stop looking at brochures and start looking at the rooms where things are actually being made. They must understand why certain venues create economic gravity and why tribal loyalty drives repeat visitation. They must recognize that talent does not just get found. Talent gets connected through ecosystems that make it visible in places where talent actually wants to be.

SOURCE CODE

The frameworks above did not come from a conference panel or a white paper. Watch the source on YouTube now.

They came from watching three women walk onto a stage in Las Vegas and create a category that did not exist. Babymetal did not try to out-metal the metal bands or out-pop the pop acts. They created kawaii metal and now own 100% of it. Winners create categories. They do not compete in existing ones.

Iron Maiden has maintained consistent brand identity for 50 years. No rebrand. No pivot. No chasing trends. Eddie the mascot is cultural infrastructure that cities should study. How many downtowns can claim 50 years of consistent iconography?

While Tampa planners were chasing corporate relocations, a Florida suburb was building a production economy that shaped death metal worldwide. Obituary. Deicide. Morbid Angel. Death. Cannibal Corpse. Studios. Producers. Intellectual property. An industry cluster hiding in plain sight while the economic development office was somewhere else.

Wacken, Germany turns a village of 2,000 into a city of 85,000 every August. Not through marketing. Through tribal belonging. Through infrastructure that serves the production economy, not the consumption economy.

Music is not a metaphor. It is infrastructure.

Heavy metal has been teaching economic development lessons for 50 years. The economic developers who understand this will build something that lasts. The rest will keep writing plans, chasing the next Austin, and wondering why the tribe never showed up.

1 day ago | [YT] | 5

The Music Cities

The 2025 Wrap-Up episode is done and live on Patreon.

How Iron Maiden, Lovebites & Tampa Death Metal Built YouTube's Top Economic Development Channel.

27,000 subscribers in 135 days. The full story. Every show. Every lesson. Every framework.

Patreon supporters get early access now at patreon.com/TheMusicCities

Everyone else: Friday morning.

#LetsDoIt

1 week ago | [YT] | 6

The Music Cities

Here are some pics from the recent Accept show at the Culture Room in Fort Lauderdale. Accept, and especially the album and song Metal Heart, had a huge impact on me during my formative years learning guitar in the 80s, and it was great being able to ask Wolf about that and many other things.

#heavymetal ‪@ACCEPTTUBE‬ ‪@wolfhoffmann-2023‬

Skip the Carousel

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1 week ago | [YT] | 12

The Music Cities

Today's post is not heavy metal, but it is one of the best examples of music as economic development and workforce talent attraction.

The Talent Incubation Myth: Why Your Tech Hub Isn't Working

Your city spent $40 million on a tech incubator.



You branded an innovation district. You hired consultants to design a startup ecosystem. You hosted pitch competitions and gave out grants.



And nothing happened.



The tech talent didn't come. The startups that did come left for Austin or Miami or San Francisco the moment they got traction. Your innovation district has a brewery, a coworking space, and a lot of empty storefronts with "Coming Soon" signs that have been up for three years.



Here's what your consultants won't tell you: the system doesn't create success. You cannot manufacture lightning in a bottle.



The most sophisticated talent development program in the world will fail if it doesn't capture outliers who are already exceptional. The winners do not manufacture talent. They arbitrage it.



The factory is not the product. The factory is just the infrastructure for talent capture.

Today's Street Economics Daily breaks down the Talent Incubation Myth and what cities keep getting wrong about innovation districts, tech hubs, and cultural exports.



The source code comes from an unexpected place. Not Harvard Business Review, but from K-Pop idols BlackPink.

Read the full article here: www.patreon.com/posts/december-30-2025-146951900

Watch the episode here: https://youtu.be/SSxWgLgKZGI

1 week ago | [YT] | 9

The Music Cities

This morning's short featured a clip of me during the recording of "Moonshiners" with my former band McFisty.

You can hear the full song here: https://youtu.be/z4MPrnApsfE?si=-aEzT...

and hear more here:‪@mcfisty1068‬

Skip the Carousel

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1 week ago | [YT] | 8

The Music Cities

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 2

The Music Cities

The BusinessFlare Take on the Local Garrison Economy

Economic developers are obsessed with vibrancy. They chase generic nightlife districts and entertainment zones that look the same in every city. They are building consumption economies designed for passive visitors.



They are missing the most powerful force in regional growth: The Garrison.



A Garrison culture forms when a group is ignored or attacked by the mainstream. They do not just prefer a product. They build an identity around it. This is the difference between a city with only a live music scene and a city that is truly a Music City. One has customers. The other has a tribe.



So What?
When you look at your city, stop looking for vibrancy. Look for the tribal garrisons. Whose identity is being dismissed? Who is building their own infrastructure because the city won't provide it? Those are your future entrepreneurs. Those are your production engines. The more a group has to defend itself, the stronger its internal economy becomes.



RANKING BY TRIBALNESS (MOST TO LEAST)


1 METAL Score: 10/10 The ultimate garrison. A fifty-year history of being the enemy of the mainstream has created a hyper-loyal culture. This tribe was forged in the fire of the 1980s PMRC hearings, satanic panic accusations, and constant media vilification. That external pressure forced the tribe to build its own self-sustaining infrastructure. Technical knowledge and history are the barriers to entry. As seen in the Japanese metal scene, these are elite musicians and full-time members who command respect through technical mastery. It is a lifelong identity that never surrenders its core values to the pop machine.



2 OPERA Score: 9.8/10 The legacy fortress. Fiercely defensive of the source code (language, staging, vocal technique). They view the modern world as a threat to a 400-year-old production economy. Like metal, it requires extreme technical discipline and rejects any attempt to dilute the difficulty of the performance for mass appeal.



3 GOSPEL Score: 9.7/10 The spiritual garrison. This is a high context, high-performance production economy rooted in the church. It is intensely tribal because it is the primary training ground for the elite vocal and instrumental software that powers the rest of the music world. The tribalness is fueled by a shared faith and a cultural heritage that exists completely independent of the secular pop machine. It has its own venues, media, and economy. You cannot fake the spirit or the technical power required to belong here.



4 K-POP Score: 9.5/10 The digital army. Coordinated and hyper-organized. Tribalness is fueled by defending the culture against Western dismissal and xenophobia. It is identity-based and requires high-speed digital engagement. They operate like a paramilitary marketing force for the bands they support.



5 HARDCORE / PUNK Score: 9.3/10 The purity gatekeepers. Built on DIY software and physical presence. It is a local garrison that recognizes other local garrisons globally. Tribalness is defined by who is out as much as who is in. The pit is the ritual, and the community is the economy.



6 RED RIVER / OUTLAW COUNTRY Score: 9.0/10 The heritage defenders. This tribe exists specifically to oppose the Nashville machine. Rooted in geography (Texas and Oklahoma), storytelling, and an aggressive defense of authenticity. This is the blue-collar garrison that values the songwriter over the executive.



7 LATIN (REGIONAL MEXICAN / CORRIDOS) Score: 8.8/10 The geographic fortress. This is a massive, high-context tribe. It is rooted in family, territory, and specific storytelling traditions. Like Red River country, it is a production economy that thrives on local authenticity and resists generic global polish.



8 JAM BANDS Score: 8.5/10 The nomadic tribe. A high-context lifestyle tribe in which the barrier to entry is experience. These tribes, specifically Deadheads, drive entire alternative economies. They create mobile marketplaces and underground trading networks that operate entirely outside standard retail infrastructure. If you have not put in the miles and the show counts, you are not in the inner circle.



9 BLUEGRASS Score: 8.3/10 The virtuoso circle. Highly tribal because of the technical barrier. It is a production economy of acoustic players who only respect other players. A closed loop of technical mastery in which the software is passed down through generations.



10 CLASSIC ROCK Score: 8.2/10 The foundational tribe in transition. While the catalog is the Gold Standard, the scene has been hollowed out. It has largely transitioned from a production economy into a consumption economy. The original production of new IP has stalled, replaced by a massive service industry of cover bands and tribute acts. It is now more about nostalgia than creation. The tribalness remains high because fans are protective of the era’s authenticity, but the software is no longer evolving. It has become the infrastructure that cities use to sell beer rather than build industries.



11 SOUL (STAX / MOTOWN TRADITION) Score: 8.0/10 The cultural foundation. This is tribal because it is the source code for the West's musical infrastructure. Rooted in community and church heritage, it is a legacy garrison that values the spirit and technical vocal mastery over commercial trends.



12 GOTH / INDUSTRIAL Score: 7.8/10 The aesthetic garrison. An outsider tribe built on a specific uniform and alternative infrastructure. It is highly defensive, anti-mainstream, and exists in the shadows of the conventional music economy.



13 JAZZ (TRADITIONAL) Score: 7.5/10 The intellectual garrison. A quiet but rigid tribe. They defend the craft's technical evolution and dismiss anything that dilutes the music's complexity. Membership requires an understanding of the theory and the lineage.



14 HIP HOP (REGIONAL / DRILL) Score: 7.2/10 The territorial tribe. Tribal when tied to a specific block or city. It concerns defending a geographic production economy and a specific, localized sound.



15 CLASSICAL Score: 6.8/10 The disciplined elite. Tribal regarding technical standards, but lacks the aggressive identity uniform of metal or the mobile economy of jam bands.



16 MODERN R&B Score: 6.0/10 The polished collective. Unlike the older soul or blues garrisons, modern R&B is a more fluid, production-heavy genre. It lacks the defensive us against the world mentality because it is more integrated into the mainstream.



17 BLUES Score: 5.5/10 The legacy keepers. A small, aging garrison. They are defensive of the roots but have largely been absorbed into the lifestyle category of consumption rather than active production.



18 INDIE ROCK/ALTERNATIVE Score: 5.0/10 The trend chasers. A soft tribe. They are tribal only as long as the music is obscure. Once the secret is out, the tribe moves on. There is no long-term garrison defending the core. The Alternative component eventually merges with the Classic Rock consumption economy.



19 REGGAE / SKA Score: 4.5/10 The lifestyle collective. More of a community than a garrison. While there is a cultural identity, it lacks the aggressive defensive posture of the top-tier tribes.



20 BRO COUNTRY / POP COUNTRY Score: 3.5/10 The consumption machine. Designed for mass consumption and radio rotation. It has fans, but it lacks a garrison because it is the mainstream machine.



21 ELECTRONIC / EDM Score: 3.0/10 The temporary tribe. Event-based tribalism. The identity persists for the duration of the festival. It is a consumption-based experience that lacks a permanent fortress.



22 POP Score: 2.0/10 The passive mass. The definition of a consumption economy. No garrison, no defense, no technical barrier.



23 EASY LISTENING Score: 1.0/10 The utility. Zero tribalness. Background hardware for a lobby.



The top half of this list represents production economies. The bottom half represents consumption economies. Cities that focus on the bottom half are just hosting a party.



WHY THIS MATTERS TO ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
We use music to teach economic development because the stakes are visible. Most cities unknowingly build consumption economies—environments that rely on service providers like cover bands who trade hours for dollars but create no intellectual property and no lasting industry. The Music Cities Podcast is about production economies. When a city supports original artists and the tribes that follow them, it creates an ecosystem of IP, studios, and technical talent. If your music strategy does not result in a production economy, you are not building a Music City. You are just hosting a party.



Stop trying to host a party for everyone. Start supporting the tribes that have already built their own fortress.



The Music Cities Podcast youtube.com/@TheMusicCitiesPodcast

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 2

The Music Cities

JAPANESE METAL IS THE GLOBAL PRODUCTION ECONOMY STANDARD

The West is asleep while Japan builds the most elite talent cluster in the world. This is not a gimmick. This is infrastructure.

The most important realization for the West is that the best metal coming out of Japan right now is female. These are not sex symbols and they are not gimmicks. As we discussed in the Lovebites episode, these are elite musicians and full tribe members. They are solid, accomplished creators who are out-performing the global market because they focus on technical mastery and original IP.

BABYMETAL THE GATEWAY DRUG They are the category creator. By inventing Kawaii Metal, they bypassed the gatekeepers of both metal and pop. They are the algorithm trigger because they have the highest brand equity and the broadest pull factor. They prove that when you create a new category, you don't have to compete for the old market. You own the new one.

LOVEBITES THE ELITE MUSICIANS This is the NWOBHM heir apparent. While everyone looked for the next Iron Maiden in Europe, it showed up in Tokyo. They represent pure virtuosity and a dual guitar attack that is technically superior to almost anything in the West. They aren't just a band. They are a high-performance production economy.

BAND MAID THE HARD ROCK STANDARD They are the counter-argument to the gimmick claim. They use the maid aesthetic as a Trojan Horse to deliver elite, tight, mid-tempo hard rock grounded in the blues-rock tradition but executed with modern Japanese precision. If Babymetal is the spectacle, Band Maid is the reliable, high-octane engine.

HANABIE THE CHAOTIC INNOVATOR They are the anti-Babymetal. Harajuku-core. They represent the production vs consumption argument perfectly because they are clearly a product of a vibrant, underground scene that allows for extreme experimentation. They took the metalcore foundation and localized it with a chaotic energy that feels dangerous and fun.

TRIDENT THE POLISHED POWER TRIO This is the missing link between the traditional hard rock of Band Maid and the chaotic modernism of Hanabie. They are the growth-stage startup of the scene. A lean, agile, high-energy three-piece that relies on groove and modern production. They prove the talent pool is so deep that even their power trios can out-perform most arena acts.

No city ever became a music city through cover bands. Japan is winning because they build software that the rest of the world can only try to copy.

The Music Cities Podcast youtube.com/@TheMusicCitiesPodcast
Join our Patreon for more insights: www.patreon.com/TheMusicCities

‪@LOVEBITES_jp‬
‪@BABYMETAL‬
‪@HANABIE_official‬
‪@BANDMAID‬
‪@TRiDENTjapan‬

2 weeks ago (edited) | [YT] | 14

The Music Cities

Most cities are making the "Turbo Mistake": trading a high-value legacy identity for a shiny, generic gimmick. When you chase trends to "rebrand," you liquidate your only true unfair advantage.

In 1986, Judas Priest released Turbo. They traded the "Steel" of the UK for MTV-ready synths and Porsche-gloss visuals. They chased a temporary market trend and alienated the "Tribe" that built their brand's original value.

I see municipal leaders doing this every day. They have a unique, gritty cultural asset and they trade it for a "destination" branding package that looks like every other mid-sized city in America.

The Economic Cost: You aren't "innovating." You're selling out to a fickle audience that won't be there when the trend dies, while destroying the retention of the residents who actually drive your local economy.

Don't make the Turbo mistake. Double down on your Source Code.

#MusicCities #BusinessFlare #EconomicDevelopment #CityBranding #LegacyCity #StrategicGrowth #JudasPriest #UrbanPlanning

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 3