Hahaha! One could also try and find parallels between such jam bands and or songs made by them. Like I bet you could find a live phish recording and a live dead recording which for at least 10 minutes are sonically indistinguishable, even tho they are playing "different songs." Except that the Dead had two drummers and two guitarists, and sometimes two keyboardist while Phish has always been just four guys. That's a big difference, personally as a Phish fan who has never liked the Dead I think the music of the two bands is pretty different. The scenes however are very similar and I think that more than anything is what connects the two bands. As far as sampling goes, I think that most purely new musical ideas have been used at this point, so the only real way to create anything "original" these days is by making new combinations of already existing sounds. Andy Warhol, superstar DJs, and mixed media collage type artwork are all well known examples of this. Really it's been going on for quite sometime, isn't rocknroll just a hijacking and exaggeration of pre-existing blues motifs? The creativity arises through novel juxtapositions and context, not necessarily from the actual sounds that make up the compostion. And speaking of context creating art (or destroying art as the case may be), did anyone watch Dateline last night? In the teaser for a story on home improvement scams the background music was Little Fluffy Clouds! I almost spit my beverage all over the couch in shock/disgust. Hearing the Orb on a cheesy network tabloid just about confirms my theory that Western civilization is going to hell in a hand basket, and fast. How's that for some on topic, Orb related news! Jason _________________________________________________________________ STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail