Most distant bands

I like this statistic as it's a sort of incentive to try and find shorter links.

Machetres is currently 18 steps from the most central band (Pigface). After entering a few links which don't make much difference, I finally found a good one. The link via the bands Stefan Couture And The Campfire Orchestra and The NRIs would shorten it to 12 steps, assuming it verifies.

The most distant band in my queue is currently The One Eyed Jacks, who would be 16 steps from Pigface. edit: Found a connection with the band Voodoo Lust, which would make it 14 steps.

Anyone else looking into any distant bands?

I'm always annoyed that we have links that reach into the 30s. I like the idea of shortening all the links.

Great challenge. I wonder what's the best way to do that. Any ideas?

The shortcuts threads are good ways to prioritize possibilities, I guess. And I suspect that if we could magically get all the stuff from the queue into the live database, we'd generally have a more compact musical universe. But that will take years.

I enjoy building up long links as much as I enjoy tearing them down. I think we'll keep finding long links based on the information available, and all we can do is wait for a new lineup to release something. It's like a game of king of the hill, build one band up and then topple them down for another to take their place. Metal-Archives is great for unintentionally finding long links that wind through entire scenes BandToBand doesn't know about, going through multiple albums of the same band and dodging unknown aliases. They recently celebrated 100,000 bands, which is staggering for one genre.

In the case of Machetres I went along their branch to the point where it finally fanned out into the tree at The Shemps. I searched for all the artist names as I went. First I tried Discogs, but that only turned up The LLC (which collapsed a slice of the tree by 1 step but didn't shorten the longest link) and Science Police (still in queue but wasn't going to have any real effect).

Then I tried Google, usually searching the artist name alongside the word 'band'. That's how I found the links with the bands The Radio Knives and The Mostly Dead (both notable shortcuts but neither was going to shorten the longest link), and then finally the one I posted this thread about. Unfortunately I seem to have scared everyone away from the shortcuts thread, haha.

Wow, looks like your approach has some effect in the statistics, the Jordan Center has vastly expanded.

I've had a go at Sam/Dale Cook. I found a connection via Galt MacDermot's First Natural Hair Band, which should topple Sam by 3 steps if it verifies.

Looks like my shortcut via the band Blindspott would bring The One Eyed Jacks one step closer to Pigface, but not shorten the longest link, so maybe Pigface isn't such a great measuring stick! The link via Voodoo Lust is still the better one.

I've made a connection from the distant New Plymouth scene to the even more distant scene in the city of Palmerston North, which is now dominating the most distant bands stat. The longest link is threatening to go over 30. I guess I'll keep building it up and hope it bumps into somewhere else. ;)

It'd be good to get The One Eyed Jacks in. Then I can send them the link and find out about their next album as The Jacks, which may or may not have 13 members that may or may not lead anywhere.

I figured out info on a band called Evilis, which could shorten the longest link from 29 down to about 26. Though I've also got a branch to the band Foisemaster in my queue which could increase it back to 27 and maybe lead on further.

My my BandToBand, your Jordan Center is looking callipygous today! I wonder how much it can inflate to before it pops and becomes a small group of bands with a maximum distance of 14.

Hungarian bands are dominating the most distant bands now. Some of the related ones I've verified would shorten the longest link a bit.

Möbius Strip (US 1) is easily toppled by a short path I've queued up connecting Silver Apples to The Bevis Frond/Hawkwind etc.