M.Ted, you wrote, "People go to see a lot of live music. The top 100 US concert tours draw upwards of 30 million people a year--and the average ticket price is about $50." I couldn't, and wouldn't dispute that statement, but we're not talking about folks not going to "events" and "happenings" and major concert venues - we're talking about live music in general and "local" live music specifically.

You also wrote, "People still go out to see live entertainment, and they spend a lot more money on it than they ever did before." Again, I cannot dispute that, but I do believe that the money they are spending is not on local talent - it's at major concert venues and festivals and such.

Then you wrote, "They just maybe don't like to hear the music that we like very much--" - this I would dispute because most every time I perform at a pub there are folks who are much younger than me (ten to twenty years) who come up and request specific songs that are certainly from my generation or earlier. Sure, there are folks who don't like what I do - lots of them - but there's many more who do like the songs of my generation as well as those of previous generations. My wife is fifteen years younger than me and grew up on Metallica and Meat Loaf and she simply loves big-band music. Music of all kinds is cross-generational or styles would run their course, die and we'd move on to the next "thing."

Again, you wrote, "Time to re-define what we do, find different ways to express ourselves, recognize and appreciate what is out there, and to stop expecting the present to be what the past was." You are pre-supposing a lot of attitude here. Writing for myself, I am what I am - I sing and I play guitar and I sound a lot more like Donovan than Dave Matthews and I don't need to re-define myself. Again, why are folks not going out to support live music in small venues, whether it is jazz, blues, dixieland, bluegrass or folk? None of those genres need to be re-defined, they are recognized and apprecitated, but they are not being supported except on the bigger stage of "events," and again, I just don't think that music matters to a whole hell of a lot of folks these days.

Finally, I am drinking the coffee, I am getting older and musical tastes do change; but, the people who do spend the money are of several generations, with many musical tastes - and they are still not coming out to support live music on a less-than-grand scale.

You wrote, "Is that clear enough?" Yes, Sir,...crystal. Cheers.