Al, that's a review from twenty years ago and it represented one reviewer's opinion at the time. Would you take the same approach if it was music or plumbing? Imagine if you'd heard a song you didn't like twenty yaers ago and reacted with "Right! That's it! I'm never going to like any music by any performer ever again!" Or... "Someone cocked up my pipework twenty years ago and even though I'm currently up to my neck in sewerage, I'm buggered if I'm going to call out of of those pesky plumbers!" Of course you wouldn't tar everyone with the same brush. Yet because you disagree with the reviewer's verdict on Dick's album that's what you're doing. By, 'eck! Teachers, eh?

On a different note, I have a copy of that album. I quite like it, though I think Dick's earlier and later albums are better. Just my opinion, though.

Paul, I hear what you're saying, but I think unlike the mainstream music mags, fRoots, R2, The Living Tradition, Stirrings and EDS do give quite a bit of space to self-released and small label stuff. Of course they are going to put someone better known on the cover, because they need to sell copies of the magazine to keep solvent and to keep providing a platform to, amongst other things, review small label and self-released albums. And fRoots had the excellent Sam Amidon on the cover last month - he's hardly a household name and his label, Bedroom Community, is hardly Sony... Sam Amidon sings Saro