I recently stumbled upon a handy site, whose homepage falls right in line with The Barn's objectives of exploring the expanded world of The Grateful Dead and showcasing cool visual charts. The site is GratefulDeadTributeBands.com and their home page provides a nice US map color coded by the number of Dead bands they have identified as being based in that state.
The red = 10+ bands, green 5-9, blue 3-4, yellow 1-2, and white 0. I've never been so disappointed to not live in a red state. But at least Illinois sees a bit more action than Sarah Palin's Alaska.
The site goes on to identify when these bands are playing near you and links up to 224 bands homes on the web.
Given the wealth of this data, I thought it'd be interested to see what happens when you take all 224 and make a Word Cloud out of their band names. It provides a little insight into how these bands name themselves and, as a side benefit, provides can serve as an interesting GD Tribute Band Name Generator. Just pick a couple words from each color and smash them together. Who's up for seeing The Brown Jones Cosmic Pranksters, The Dark Diamond Orchestra or the Workingman's Terrapin Band?
Paradise Waits plays "All Jerry Show" tonight at Brixie's in Brookfield, a Barn Spotlight Show.
