In the 1950s, the Chinese government underwent an serious self-improvement campaign to increase the efficiency of its nation. A part of this plan was to annihilate all pests in the country: flies, mosquitoes, rats, and SPARROWS. That's right, Sparrows!
Through research, scientists found that if a Sparrow were to stay in flight for more than a minute straight, it would die of a heart attack. So Farmers from all over the country were "encouraged" to bang pots and pans, and scare sparrows they saw into staying in flight.
Millions of sparrows were killed in the following months, and as a result, its natural food source, the locusts thrived. With few sparrows around to eat and control the locusts, the latter species thrived to the point where they were eating most of the crops of China. Millions of people died as a result of the ensuing famine.
This was the premise for the 2006 album from the Red Sparowes which I have heard all these years, but didn't know the whole story about until now. The names of all the songs make a lot of sense now. Anyways, what a random fact about them. Neat.
They might seem pretentious, but if that's what you view post rock as, you will hate every post rock band no matter how unpretentious they really are.
Here are some of their songs from the 2010(best album of the year) and 2006 album:
