Grateful Dead

Nice try but I merely presented the numbers and left their interpretation to the reader - any failure to interpret them correctly was entirely yours.

However, if you are going to nit-pick mathematics with me (and any regular readers of my posts will know that is an incredibly stupid thing to do) with respect to population: UK=65m + I=61m + NL=17m = 143m... USA=320m ... so the US has roughly twice the population of those countries added together. Not 3, 4 or 5 times ... just 2 times. Of course that still falls in the vague category of "more" but when throwing large numbers around there is a significant difference between 2x and 3x. When it comes to nit-picking, accuracy holds all the trump cards. 

If you're just talking land-mass area then your wild stabbing around in the dark guesses are still way off, the USA is 16 times biggerer than all those three countries addled together, but you can't be talking about that because it would be just plain dumb.

I suppose we could weigh everyone and then see whether the population of USA was 3, 4 or 5 times heavier.

Yet... Size of population is totally and utterly irrelevant since the artist numbers don't represent anything analysable. There are far too many unknown and unstated variables that contribute to the tallies of each nationality for any conclusion other than "there are more bands here from the USA than from any other country in teh Wurld" to be drawn. That's it. Unequivocal and undeniable - there are more US bands here that UK bands. 

Unfortunately there are many things that simple statement doesn't tell you which is why any interpretation of the numbers is going to be incorrect. Sorry, there are no prizes for stating the obvious.

moshkito wrote: The US, for all intents and purposes, with their differences, from East to West, could almost be separated into 4 or 5 countries when it comes to defining music in America. The GD is not a good representative of the NY scene, or anything in NY is not a good representative of the SF/LA scene either ... and neither is Nashville! Just for starters.

Now you're getting it... music is geographical... who'da thunkit? 

Except when it isn't...

Damn, I forgot every rule has an exception. Damn, even that's isn't true because when it comes to music there are almost as many exceptions as there are genres of music. And there's the problem - music styles form in small localised pockets but quickly spread across geographic boundaries thanks to radio and tours and those magic round bits of plastic that make sounds when you rub them in the correct manner. Thanks to these wonderful inventions Jam Bands, for example, can be found all over America from West Coast to East Coast and all the widdly bits in between, so the Gratefat Deaf may not be representative of the NY scene (wazzat? Studio 54 or CBHeBeGBs?) but they are related to the jam bands that can be found in NY state and other points further east, or north east or north-north-west (sorry, Wikipedia says Phish come from Vermont and my American geography is a bit rusty on Burlington's precise compass bearing from NY but I'm pretty sure that it's a lot closer to NY than it is to SF.)

The problem with theories is they are all right until some miserable sod comes along and proves them wrong. A theory that is only right some of the time isn't a theory, it's just a random collection of words that happened to coincide with something. Like, you know when you're walking along the sidewalk and you see a puddle of water on the ground so you think, oh, that's odd, I don't remember it raining but the puddle is there and rain makes puddles so it stands to reason that for the puddle to exist then it must have rained recently. But then you walk some more and notice that it was the only puddle on the sidewalk, which is peculiar since rain generally doesn't make just one puddle so perhaps it was a very localised shower, like there was a small rain cloud just big enough to make a solitary puddle on the paving... about the size of the average dog for example. So you develop a theory that isolated solitary puddles are caused by dog-sized rain clouds, which sounds very plausible...

Oh well, I've been here nearly ten years now and only have one law to my name, time for a second one:

moshkito wrote: If anything, the GD could/should get some credit for the very long cuts and the extending of the trips, which I think a lot of European bands heard and enjoyed many times.

Which sounds plausible... but I suspect this is highly unlikely partly due to geography and partly due to lack of interest. Greatfun Deal simply weren't that popular enough over here for their long improvised jams to be heard by "a lot" of anyone in Europe, let alone anyone in a European band. There are many other ways in which European bands could have experienced long improv's, jams and extended solos without having to tyre-lever some lesser-spotted west coast jam band into the equation.

moshkito wrote: Did these become an influence ...

Nope. There just isn't any evidence that they could have and no viable reason why. Greatfat Dude didn't invent jamming and they certainly were not the first band to stretch a 2 minute song out to 20 minutes.

moshkito wrote: is another story and would require more study,

...ooo, all of ten minutes I would imagine, if that.

moshkito wrote: and it's possible ... in FEELING,

What? like "I have a FEELING one plus another one equals seven?" 

Honestly, feeling something is true does not make it true. It would be magic if the world worked like that, it really would. Literally, "magic".

moshkito wrote: but not likely in journalistic strictly speaking progressive terms!

You don't say.

moshkito wrote: But we don't discuss feelings any more!

How does that make you feel?

moshkito wrote: They are not journalistic!