ESP Magazine
Greensboro, High Point, Winston-Salem (NC)
March 19, 2004


Sharing the Tide
By Grant Britt

San Francisco’s Ten Mile Tide doesn’t mind sharing. Hooking up with file-sharing music software titans Kazaa enabled the band to live a rockstar lifestyle, quitting their day jobs when their online CD sales doubled after fans downloaded their songs nearly nine million times.

But the band’s music is not high profile rock, but a low-key mix of bluegrass and folk with some rock added for good measure. Nevertheless, the band’s profile got such exposure through Kazaa that even CNN paid attention, devoting a three minute segment to the band’s savvy in self promotion.

Identical twins Jason and Justin Munning played guitar in high school, but started jamming together seriously while attending Stanford. They quickly outgrew their initial coffeehouse acoustic phase when roommate Steve Kessler on violin joined in. Drummer John Morales and bassist Jeff Clemetson were recruited through a San Francisco bulletin board.

The name refers to a place in Idaho where the Munnings grew up, described by the band to a mindset/ siouxaside interviewer as “an adolescent male paradise. There’s a gold mine up there, and you can just go up and play around, ride motorcycles and shoot shotguns. It’s a good wholesome time.”

That could be used to describe the music as well. It’s been called bluegrass flavored southern rock. The band likes to throw a monkey wrench into the works at times, adding — what one reviewer heard recently as a newly discovered genre — Irish funk, to their repertoire. The band lists Paul Simon’s Graceland and the works of Bob Marley as influences.

The band’s newfound success has taken them from listening to Marley’s music to being on the same bill with those who were there when Marley composed and performed. The band opened for the Wailers last fall and their spheres of influence have changed since they’ve been touring colleges.

“A lot of what we’ve been listening to lately is smaller bands that we’ve been playing with,” the band related to siouxaside. “We hear a lot of good stuff on college campuses. People in the real world just don’t respect musicians as much. But people in college are still dreamers.”

Whatever you want to call TMT’s music, it’s embraced by legions of listeners. Unsigned, the band has been able to support themselves as full time musicians largely from their association with Kazaa. Guitarist Jason Munning got the idea from seeing the success of Napster, which was just starting out when Ten Mile Tide was getting together. Believing that releasing their music over the Internet was a way to reach a national audience, the band saw that idea realized with the help of Kazaa.com. “Our goal is where we’re at right now,” the guitarist told the Kansas State Collegian last year.

“To do this as a full-time thing, have fans and have a following. This is our first nationwide tour, and we’re excited by the response we’ve been getting.”

Ten Mile Tide’s Internet use didn’t stop at file sharing — the group recently set up a tour utilizing e-mails from fans asking the band to play in their area. Self-management seems to suit TMT’s style.

“We get excited to wake up in the morning,” the band told siouxaside. “Everything we do is for our band and what we’re trying to get across.”

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