... and Sweeney: re Rummy Conjuring Tricks & his other issues [Fed Our Sea, Exceedingly Good Songs, Soldiers 3] of that period were all cassettes, not vinyl, which he privately recorded & sold at gigs, rather than their being properly trade-distributed: and without the gigs, the sales went. It wasn't, as you say, immediately after Transports came out ~~ but he himself always dated the beginning of the decline, resulting in the complete ultimate atrophy of 1990-91, to that time, and expressed himself absolutely at a loss as to why such a project should have been so peculiarly counterproductive. I repeat, with added emphasis, that his words to me were, as nearly as memory serves, exactly as I quoted above ~~ "I did The Transports, everyone loved and respected it ~~and from that moment my bookings practically ceased and my career went phhhttt!"

~M~