In 1967, Scott McKenzie sang, If you are going to San Francisco/Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair. If you're a band coming from there, it doesn't hurt, either. San Fran was the perfect launching pad for the Bay-based sextet Ten Mile Tide, a group that grounds its sound in '60s acoustic folkiness while aspiring to the more ethereal heights of today's improv-folk-rock aesthetic. It's a lonely path recently revisited by the group's Colorado counterparts the String Cheese Incident, but as an opener for such acts as Strangefolk, Karl Denson's Tiny Universe and Moe, TMT has more than established its own unique jam-band pedigree. Subscribing to the grassroots model of jam marketing -- thanks to avid and outspoken support of Kazaa file sharing, the band has been downloaded more than 8.6 million times worldwide -- Ten Mile Tide is quickly building a digital empire. It remains to be seen whether such enviable statistics will translate into a fanbase that's actually willing to purchase official releases and tickets for headlining engagements, but the fact remains that the Tide is on the rise.
