Somewhere in the northeast corner of Wisconsin

Okay, this is a cheap joke, but seriously: imagine joining the Spread Eagle City Council or filling out your address on a college application. Here’s another: Buttzville, New Jersey. You don’t want to punch the name of either town into Google. At what point does a town decide to stick with a name? If Hot Springs, New Mexico, renamed itself after a game show, why aren’t Spread Eagle and Buttzville rebranding?

At the other end of the spectrum, you find this:

Somewhere near the Salton Sea, California

For the record: Spread Eagle, Buttzville, and Mecca are all cases of false advertising.

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Pete Rock & CL Smooth – Return of the Mecca
from Mecca and the Soul Brother. Elektra, 1992 | buy mp3s
A harsh grey boot-stomping break with Pete Rock’s brilliantly deployed flights of brass. Despite a few R&B flirtations, much of Mecca and the Soul Brother holds up today (see the classic ‘They Reminisce Over You’ or the Bee Gees-inflected ‘Straighten It Out’) and it’s an interesting relic: on one hand you’ve got hard-nosed lyrics dedicated to ascetic spirituality while on the other, you’ve got two guys posing next to a Benz on the cover.