I remember in the sixth grade when we were all arbitrarily assigned instruments to learn. It was hell for broke parents who were now forced to buy or rent instruments they knew were just going to collect dust in a broom closet. And it was hell for us kids, as when you are a young boy, everything around you is considered to be a weapon. Myself, I got a trombone that I would use the arm of to smack the kid in front of me. It was relatively neutral and genderless, rendering me safe from Ross, the gigantic twelve-year-old Italian kid with the thin mustache. Others were not so lucky, and had to endure the torment that comes with playing the soft, emasculating flute.
See Also: - Six Great Bands That Aren't Nine Inch Nails
But the flute is some serious business. The shakuhachi, for example, is a bamboo flute from Japan, designed by traveling zen monks to play songs and beat their enemies up with. They're still used today for defense. In China, martial artists carried flutes and hid daggers in them, or rigged them up to shoot darts. Or for a modern example, turn to the sacred land known as "Tampa Bay," where recently two rocket launchers and a FLUTE GUN were turned into authorities for $75 and some baseball tickets.
So in tribute to the disrespected woodwind instrument, here are six of the most badass flute bands that aren't Jethro Tull. Because let's be honest, you already knew about that one.
6. Genesis
Peter Gabriel played the flute. Not all the time, but sometimes. If you can tear your eyes away from how scary Peter Gabriel is, notice that Phil Collins is wearing a shirt that says "Genesis" on it, and is also playing a whistle. Despite the incredible energy of this performance and the intensity of that flute, Genesis would later go on to suck ass and never use the flute.
5. Traffic
He'll probably deny it now, but growing up, my dad forced me to listen to Steve Winwood a lot. And the Pointer Sisters. But before Steve Winwood was ruining my life with that song and that haircut, he was playing in a band called Traffic, alongside the legendary and now deceased flutist Chris Wood. This song, "Forty Thousand Headmen," will incinerate your ears with the heat of a thousand denim shirts burning in Winwood's mind's eye.
