Philadelphia

Philly's rock underground has three overlapping chapters in this dataset. The 90s lo-fi / Siltbreeze wave (Bardo Pond, Strapping Fieldhands, Times New Viking) set the weird-rock baseline. The mid-2000s noise rock revival put Clockcleaner and Pissed Jeans on the map — Babylon Rules and Hope for Men arriving in the same 18 months like a one-two punch. Pissed Jeans then proceeded to make five more records on Sub Pop, each better than the last. The current wave (Microgoblet and their peers) carries the post-hardcore / noise pop torch into the 2020s. Cheap rent (relatively), a real DIY show network, and an art-school adjacent scene that doesn't care what's happening in Brooklyn or Chicago.