From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V16 #747 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Friday, October 10 2008 Volume 16 : Number 747 Today's Subjects: ----------------- RE: florida does it again ["Bachman, Michael" ] Re: abbrev. qry. [craigie* ] Re: Master Debaters ["Nectar At Any Cost!" ] Re: Master Debaters ["kevin studyvin" ] Re: Master Debaters ["kevin studyvin" ] Re: perhaps this is being discussed in another thread even as we speak... ["(0% rh)" ] Re: Master Debaters [FSThomas ] Re: Miles on BSDR (I know - I keep changing thread names...) ["kevin stud] Re: Master Debaters [FSThomas ] Re: The "Eye" debate... ["kevin studyvin" ] Re: song for natalie [Tom Clark ] Re: Okay...Jazz Butcher? [Sebastian Hagedorn Subject: RE: florida does it again - -----Original Message----- From: owner-fegmaniax@smoe.org [mailto:owner-fegmaniax@smoe.org] On Behalf Of 2fs Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 5:57 PM To: Pigworkers Local 47 Subject: Re: florida does it again On 10/9/08, Marc Alberts wrote: >> >> >> If rationality were the province of only one side, the major national >> debate over the last 35 days or so wouldn't be about whether Palin is >> qualified to be VP but whether Obama, with a resume that is basically >> just as long, is actually qualified to be President. Jeff came back with: >That was, of course, the chief plank (such as it was) in McCain's campaign before he rendered it utterly >absurd by picking Palin as his VP nominee. If McCain wanted to pick up Independents and Hillary supporters by choosing a woman, he should have picked either Maine(R) US Senators Susan Collins or Olympia Snow. Michael B. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 06:42:34 -0700 From: Eleanore Adams Subject: Re: Universal health care My primium (one person, no kids) is $700 a month. My employer pays 4150 of it so I pay $550 if it. And that is still the crappy plan that I pay 20% ea On Oct 10, 2008, at 2:19 AM, matt sewell wrote: > Not sure what I'm meant to be disagreeing with, but thought I'd > weigh in > anyway... > > The NHS tends to be much-maligned in some regions of the press, but my > experience of it, and the experience of people I know, is actually > pretty > good. When I had my appendix out the hospital I went to > (Dorchester, Dorset) > was clean and the staff all excellent. The surgeon had very hairy > hands and > the anaesthetist an enormous orange moustache, but these were the only > (slightly) unsettling things about the whole experience. > > Weirdly, I'd taken it entirely for granted - the fact it was all > completely > free - until talking to some American friends who seemed amazed > that I could > just rock up at the hospital and expect to be treated. I always > find it quite > amazing that a civilised country like America doesn't have this as > I think > most Europeans (and I guess some Latin Americans) see it as a > right. I was > shocked when I found out how much medical insurance was in the US - > am I right > in thinking it's over $200 a month? Blimey... > > Cheers > Matt "yes, my Moon is New not Full" SewellOn 10/8/08, Benjamin Lukoff > wrote:>> > From: "C. Huff" >> > >> > I am > actually for universal healthcare. It seems to work quite well in> > > France,> >> Sweden, Canada, etc....I think it is ridiculous that we, the >> American> >>>> > I think the British might disagree with you... > _________________________________________________________________ > Get all your favourite content with the slick new MSN Toolbar - FREE > http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/111354027/direct/01/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:24:13 +0100 From: craigie* Subject: Re: abbrev. qry. DTAS is the NASDAQ abbreviation for Digitas... who were touted as a rival to iTunes... Or maybe it's Don't Tell A Soul. 'Mats Rule! c* On 10/10/2008, 2fs wrote: > > This is the second time I've seen iTunes' ID a track on a CD with a > parenthetical "DTAS" appended (in this case, it was on several tracks on > Nick Heyward's _The Apple Bed_). > > WFT? Am I supposed to know what that stands for...and why it's there? > (Can't > remember the other disc I ran into this with...) > > -- > > ...Jeff Norman > > The Architectural Dance Society > http://spanghew.blogspot.com > - -- first things first, but not necessarily in that order... I like my girls to be the same as my records - independent, attractively packaged and in black vinyl (if at all possible)... Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc (the motto of the Addams Family: "We gladly feast on those who would subdue us") ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 07:43:44 -0700 From: "Nectar At Any Cost!" Subject: Re: Master Debaters ferris, you made this same claim in february, at , to which i responded: >>so you're saying (and by "you", i mean "limbaugh") that twenty-five years after the CRA's enactment, a delayed clause kicked in, compelling the banks to lobby for fewer and fewer controls on their operations? and compelled the bush administration to strike down predatory lending laws against the protests of all 50 states attorneys general? and compelled the fed to slash interest rates? and compelled the financial press to, rather than bemoan their woeful fate, trumpet the glory of the market's bounty? and compelled brokers (not to mention bankers) to get filthy stinking rich (against their wills, of course; but sometimes one must suffer for freedom, you know?)? and that all that shiny, new suburban and exurban housing (and the shiny, new SUVs used to transport its inhabitants to and fro') is actually filled up with *negroes* (and other welfare queens)? does it also explain the bush deficits, i wonder?<< and then: >>the more i think about this, the more hilariously ridiculous it appears to be. (not that it weren't hilariously ridiculous already; or not necessarily any more hilariously ridiculous than anything else you're propounding.) you'll notice that the banks themselves aren't arguing that it was "legislation" that did them in -- they're simply saying that they need a bailout, but that they should be careful to use language that makes it look like they're asking for something other than a bailout. you'll notice that the republicans controlled both houses for much of this period, and did away with plenty of legislation they didn't like -- why not the onerous CRA, "compelling" the banks to make risky loans? you'll notice that the legislation has not been repealed...yet the banks have stopped (or at least curtailed) their risky lending practices. how'd that happen? why could they do it now, but not then?<< to which could also be added that if the CRA were responsible for the housing bubble, then we would expect that the housing bubble were unique (that is to say, that speculative bubbles are not endemic to american capitalism, and un-regulated markets generally). also, we would expect the real estate bubble to have played out only in the u.s. of a. (unless similar legislation had been enacted in the other affected regions). really, though, since you're a dedicated swallower of limbaughism, what i'd like to know is whether limbaugh was warning, a few years ago when the market was at its height, of the impending CRA-impelled doom? or rather, was he bleating that the housing market was proof-positive that "the tax cuts [had] worked", and repeating cheney's mantra that "deficits don't matter"? but getting back to february. i also complained then about your debating "style" (i.e., ignoring all refutations of your claims, then re-posting the claims a few months later, as though we'd forgotten that they'd already been refuted), and offered: >>that said, if you'd like me to re-post the offending passages, with the offensive words changed to better suit your sensibilities, and with your name in the subject line, so that we can pick up where we'd left off, just let me know. it can be after you return from vacation, if that works for you.<< well, it appears you've returned from holiday, and are wanting to take up this subject again. so, how about addressing my arguments this time around? from the 1997 intro to galbraith's *The Great Crash 1929*: >>Always when markets are in trouble, the phrases are the same: "The economic situation is fundamentally sound" or simply "The Fundamentals are good". All who hear these words should know that something is wrong.<< ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:00:19 -0700 From: "kevin studyvin" Subject: Re: Master Debaters > My MRI (prolapsed lumbar disc, since you're asking - all better now) came > through in about five days. The noise it made reminded me that I hadn't > played Metal Machine Music in AGES... > I hear ya - those MRI machines ROCK. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:03:52 -0700 From: "kevin studyvin" Subject: Re: Master Debaters > Your tacit assumption here is, of course, not baseless -- I know of > *numerous* examples where people waited very long for referrals, > sometimes *too* long (as in "too late"), to receive treatment on the > NHS, or indeed were not treated at all, with dire consequences. (My > wife lost her mother to just such a flagrant failure.) > Yeah, the late great Canadian cartoonist Rand Holmes died of cancer a few years back while waiting for treatment. Shame. Just the same... ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:08:23 -0400 From: "(0% rh)" Subject: Re: perhaps this is being discussed in another thread even as we speak... i say: > Sebastian says: >> -- "(0% rh)" is rumored to have mumbled on 9. >> Oktober 2008 16:33:11 -0400 regarding perhaps this is being discussed in >> another thread even as we speak...: >> >>> so i'd not heard "dick van dyke" (N.B. title is a guess, since it's, >>> yes, well-concealed in the cd player) before. it's very catchy. >>> well, maybe not catchy. perhaps it more just latches on. fiercely. >>> but i have to love it: i mean, how often does robyn write a song >>> whose sole purpose is to heckle the jazz butcher? >> >> I have no idea what song you are refering to! I'm not even sure if I've >> already listened to every track on "Bod Case Of History" (that's what you >> mean, right?). So, which one is it and how does it heckle old Butchy? > > i'll go out on a limb here: you definitely haven't heard every track. > you'll be able to tell the "dick van dyke" song when robyn starts > singing the words "dick van dyke" over and over and over (i think > there might be some other words in the stanzas, but they prove to be > no match for "dick" "van" "dyke"'s in the overpowering chorus.) i looked up the track listing for "luminous groove"... ...and i think i'll just drop the subject. ...although perhaps i can plead some stage of grief? that would be the one that's left me unable to concentrate in any serious capacity for the last two months. i've been having no luck with higher math, and robyn's way more complicated than that. or i could just be a dope. xo lauren p.s. to slightly answer edward's question, the jazz butcher is the type of guy who would write a song about dick van dyke. - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:11:11 -0700 From: "kevin studyvin" Subject: Re: Okay...Jazz Butcher? I can only attest to hearing a single ages ago, of which I remember only that I got a chuckle or two out of it. On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 5:31 AM, edwardofsim@tiscali.co.uk < edwardofsim@tiscali.co.uk> wrote: > Okay, fellow-fegs, thou guiding lights of inspiration and taste... > > I am a total complete neophyte when it comes to The Jazz Butcher. Over > the many years I've been reading (and sometimes posting to) the > feglist, I've seen this artist come up numerous times, but to my > knowledge I've never heard anything. But the persistent recurrence of > references has slowly piqued my curiosity, so... > > What's it like? Where would you recommend me starting, were I so > inclined? > > Any and all advice and guidance gratefully accepted! > > peace, > Edward > > > > > See your new look Tiscali Homepage - http://www.tiscali.co.uk > > ___________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:38:51 -0400 From: FSThomas Subject: Re: Master Debaters Nectar At Any Cost! wrote: > ...The > very idea behind the Community Reinvestment Act may have been well > intended,but it was abused and now we're dealing with the Law of Unintended > Consequences.> > > ferris, you made this same claim in february I was right then and right now. > you'll notice that the banks themselves aren't arguing that it was > "legislation" that did them in -- they're simply saying that they need a > bailout, but that they should be careful to use language that makes it look > like they're asking for something other than a bailout. If you ran a bank and you wanted to either expand your operations or merge with another bank you have to show that you've complied with the CRA. That approval process can be held up -- or derailed -- by complaints filed by groups like ACORN. Under the fear of public intimidation, calls of racism, and threats to use the CRA to block the actions (or would-be actions) of the banks ACORN has been able to systematically extract millions in loans from banks who otherwise wouldn't have lent the money because the borrower was too risky. Fannie and Freddie act as loan purchasers to the banks. The banks themselves don't want to lend out money for thirty year terms so they make the initial loan to the customer and then sell the paper to Fannie and Freddie. If the banks are making bad loans there's an excellent chance (and it proved true) that those loans will all eventually find their way to Fannie and Freddy. Under the Clinton administration Fannie and Freddie reacted to executive (read: White House) pressure to expand homeownership numbers among minorities and the poor. It's a nice idea but lead to the abandonment of normal credit standards. People weren't asked to prove income -- much less employment -- or even citizenship. No, all of the blame can't be put on the legislation, but the start of the whole ball rolling can be. > you'll notice that the republicans controlled both houses for much of this > period, and did away with plenty of legislation they didn't like -- why not > the onerous CRA, "compelling" the banks to make risky loans? Something about the threat of ... what's that word? Oh. Filibuster. > you'll notice that the legislation has not been repealed...yet the banks > have stopped (or at least curtailed) their risky lending practices. how'd > that happen? why could they do it now, but not then?<< Because the bottom fell out of it. If the market stays as tight then there won't be much mention of it. If the markets rebound quickly enough then give it five years. If the markets come back and there's no CRA complaints filed against banks for discrimination then I'll buy you a beer or something. > to which could also be added that if the CRA were responsible for the > housing bubble, then we would expect that the housing bubble were unique > (that is to say, that speculative bubbles are not endemic to american > capitalism, and un-regulated markets generally). The trends in lending -- the nature of the loans -- crossed borders, not the legislation. Bad notes are bad notes. ARMs are evil things as are the Make-Your-Payment-Up loans and that's what Europe seems to be learning now. > what i'd > like to know is whether limbaugh was warning, a few years ago when the > market was at its height, of the impending CRA-impelled doom? That I don't know, but McCain was. - -f. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:40:40 -0700 From: "kevin studyvin" Subject: Re: Miles on BSDR (I know - I keep changing thread names...) On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 2:44 AM, (0% rh) wrote: > Michael B. says: > > I'll add "The Lizard" as one of my favorite BSDR songs that don't pop out > as much as "Acid Bird" and the others. > > i love "the lizard". and it's really funny if you think it's about > jim morrison (is that what everyone thinks that song is about, or do i > just think everything thinks that?) > I've thought for a while it would be fun to get Manzarek & Krieger's Doors cover band to play it, but since Manzarek appears to have nothing remotely approaching a sense of humor... ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:45:59 -0400 From: FSThomas Subject: Re: Master Debaters Oh, and Eddie, these are good reads. They're a bit long, but pretty entertaining when compared/contrasted. - -f. From the LA times, May 31, 1999 (http://tinyurl.com/3q5upg): - --- Minoritiesb Home Ownership Booms Under Clinton but Still Lags Whitesb Itbs one of the hidden success stories of the Clinton era. In the great housing boom of the 1990s, black and Latino homeownership has surged to the highest level ever recorded. The number of African Americans owning their own home is now increasing nearly three times as fast as the number of whites; the number of Latino homeowners is growing nearly five times as fast as that of whites. These numbers are dramatic enough to deserve more detail. When President Clinton took office in 1993, 42% of African Americans and 39% of Latinos owned their own home. By this spring, those figures had jumped to 46.9% of blacks and 46.2% of Latinos. Thatbs a lot of new picket fences. Since 1994, when the numbers really took off, the number of black and Latino homeowners has increased by 2 million. In all, the minority homeownership rate is on track to increase more in the 1990s than in any decade this century except the 1940s, when minorities joined in the wartime surge out of the Depression. This trend is good news on many fronts. Homeownership stabilizes neighborhoods and even families. Housing scholar William C. Apgar, now an assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development, says that research shows homeowners are more likely than renters to participate in their community. The children of homeowners even tend to perform better in school. Most significantly, increased homeownership allows minority families, who have accumulated far less wealth than whites, to amass assets and transmit them to future generations. What explains the surge? The answer starts with the economy. Historically low rates of minority unemployment have created a larger pool of qualified buyers. And the lowest interest rates in years have made homes more affordable for white and minority buyers alike. But the economy isnbt the whole story. As HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo says: bThere have been points in the past when the economy has done well but minority homeownership has not increased proportionally.b Case in point: Despite generally good times in the 1980s, homeownership among blacks and Latinos actually declined slightly, while rising slightly among whites. All of this suggests that Clintonbs efforts to increase minority access to loans and capital also have spurred this decadebs gains. Under Clinton, bank regulators have breathed the first real life into enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act, a 20-year-old statute meant to combat bredliningb by requiring banks to serve their low-income communities. The administration also has sent a clear message by stiffening enforcement of the fair housing and fair lending laws. The bottom line: Between 1993 and 1997, home loans grew by 72% to blacks and by 45% to Latinos, far faster than the total growth rate. Lenders also have opened the door wider to minorities because of new initiatives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Macbthe giant federally chartered corporations that play critical, if obscure, roles in the home finance system. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy mortgages from lenders and bundle them into securities; that provides lenders the funds to lend more. In 1992, Congress mandated that Fannie and Freddie increase their purchases of mortgages for low-income and medium-income borrowers. Operating under that requirement, Fannie Mae, in particular, has been aggressive and creative in stimulating minority gains. It has aimed extensive advertising campaigns at minorities that explain how to buy a home and opened three dozen local offices to encourage lenders to serve these markets. Most importantly, Fannie Mae has agreed to buy more loans with very low down paymentsbor with mortgage payments that represent an unusually high percentage of a buyerbs income. Thatbs made banks willing to lend to lower-income families they once might have rejected. But for all that progress, the black and Latino homeownership rates, at about 46%, still significantly trail the white rate, which is nearing 73%. Much of that difference represents structural social disparitiesbin education levels, wealth and the percentage of single-parent familiesbthat will only change slowly. Still, Apgar says, HUDbs analysis suggests there are enough qualified buyers to move the minority homeownership rate into the mid-50% range. The market itself will probably produce some of that progress. For many builders and lenders, serving minority buyers is now less a social obligation than a business opportunity. Because blacks and Latinos, as groups, are younger than whites, many experts believe they will continue to lead the housing market for years. But with discrimination in the banking system not yet eradicated, maintaining the momentum of the 1990s will also require a continuing nudge from Washington. One key is to defend the Community Reinvestment Act, which the Senate shortsightedly voted to retrench recently. Clinton has threatened a veto if the House concurs. The top priority may be to ask more of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The two companies are now required to devote 42% of their portfolios to loans for low- and moderate-income borrowers; HUD, which has the authority to set the targets, is poised to propose an increase this summer. Although Fannie Mae actually has exceeded its target since 1994, it is resisting any hike. It argues that a higher target would only produce more loan defaults by pressuring banks to accept unsafe borrowers. HUD says Fannie Mae is resisting more low-income loans because they are less profitable. Barry Zigas, who heads Fannie Maebs low-income efforts, is undoubtedly correct when he argues, bThere is obviously a limit beyond which [we] canbt push [the banks] to produce.b But with the housing market still sizzling, minority unemployment down and Fannie Mae enjoying record profits (over $3.4 billion last year), it doesnbt appear that the limit has been reached. All signs point toward a high-velocity collision this summer between two strong-willed protagonists: HUDbs Cuomo and Fannie Mae CEO Franklin D. Raines, the first African American to hold the post. Better they reach a reasonable agreement that provides more fuel for the extraordinary boom transforming millions of minority families from renters into owners. - --- And from Investor's Business Daily, 9/24/08 (http://tinyurl.com/4v6rkh): - --- How A Clinton-Era Rule Rewrite Made Subprime Crisis Inevitable One of the most frequently asked questions about the subprime market meltdown and housing crisis is: How did the government get so deeply involved in the housing market? The answer is: President Clinton wanted it that way. Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac, (FRE) even into the early 1990s, weren't the juggernauts they'd later be. While President Carter in 1977 signed the Community Reinvestment Act, which pushed Fannie and Freddie to aggressively lend to minority communities, it was Clinton who supercharged the process. After entering office in 1993, he extensively rewrote Fannie's and Freddie's rules. In so doing, he turned the two quasi-private, mortgage-funding firms into a semi-nationalized monopoly that dispensed cash to markets, made loans to large Democratic voting blocs and handed favors, jobs and money to political allies. This potent mix led inevitably to corruption and the Fannie-Freddie collapse. Despite warnings of trouble at Fannie and Freddie, in 1994 Clinton unveiled his National Homeownership Strategy, which broadened the CRA in ways Congress never intended. Addressing the National Association of Realtors that year, Clinton bluntly told the group that "more Americans should own their own homes." He meant it. Clinton saw homeownership as a way to open the door for blacks and other minorities to enter the middle class. Though well-intended, the problem was that Congress was about to change hands, from the Democrats to the Republicans. Rather than submit legislation that the GOP-led Congress was almost sure to reject, Clinton ordered Robert Rubin's Treasury Department to rewrite the rules in 1995. The rewrite, as City Journal noted back in 2000, "made getting a satisfactory CRA rating harder." Banks were given strict new numerical quotas and measures for the level of "diversity" in their loan portfolios. Getting a good CRA rating was key for a bank that wanted to expand or merge with another. Loans started being made on the basis of race, and often little else. "Bank examiners would use federal home-loan data, broken down by neighborhood, income group and race, to rate banks on performance," wrote Howard Husock, a scholar at the Manhattan Institute. But those rules weren't enough. Clinton got the Department of Housing and Urban Development to double-team the issue. That would later prove disastrous. Clinton's HUD secretary, Andrew Cuomo, "made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country's current crisis," the liberal Village Voice noted. Among those decisions were changes that let Fannie and Freddie get into subprime loan markets in a big way. Other rule changes gave Fannie and Freddie extraordinary leverage, allowing them to hold just 2.5% of capital to back their investments, vs. 10% for banks. Since they could borrow at lower rates than banks due to implicit government guarantees for their debt, the government-sponsored enterprises boomed. With incentives in place, banks poured billions of dollars of loans into poor communities, often "no doc" and "no income" loans that required no money down and no verification of income. By 2007, Fannie and Freddie owned or guaranteed nearly half of the $12 trillion U.S. mortgage market b a staggering exposure. Worse still was the cronyism. Fannie and Freddie became home to out-of-work politicians, mostly Clinton Democrats. An informal survey of their top officials shows a roughly 2-to-1 dominance of Democrats over Republicans. Then there were the campaign donations. From 1989 to 2008, some 384 politicians got their tip jars filled by Fannie and Freddie. Over that time, the two GSEs spent $200 million on lobbying and political activities. Their charitable foundations dropped millions more on think tanks and radical community groups. Did it work? Well, if measured by the goal of putting more poor people into homes, the answer would have to be yes. From 1995 to 2005, a Harvard study shows, minorities made up 49% of the 12.5 million new homeowners. The problem is that many of those loans have now gone bad, and minority homeownership rates are shrinking fast. Fannie and Freddie, with their massive loan portfolios stuffed with securitized mortgage-backed paper created from subprime loans, are a failed legacy of the Clinton era. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:47:51 -0700 From: "kevin studyvin" Subject: Re: The "Eye" debate... > I turned round and glared at him again, but he just grinned back and kept > on hitting the drums. > > Tony L. > Bruford! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:48:32 -0700 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: song for natalie On Oct 10, 2008, at 3:16 AM, (0% rh) wrote: > apologies if this was already posted, but i came across this by way of > the elliott smith boards: > > http://forums.viachicago.org/index.php?s=b052fbcfe548af2013bae3b3152bd90b&showtopic=32865&st=240&p=1209320&#entry1209320 > > (download the *.wav file) > > i thought some fegfolks might like to hear the wilco guy sing a song > for her. Holy shit - I'm crying again. Fuck You Natalie Jane! - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:48:59 +0200 From: Sebastian Hagedorn Subject: Re: Okay...Jazz Butcher? - --On 10. Oktober 2008 13:31:09 +0100 edwardofsim@tiscali.co.uk wrote: > Okay, fellow-fegs, thou guiding lights of inspiration and taste... > > I am a total complete neophyte when it comes to The Jazz Butcher. Over > the many years I've been reading (and sometimes posting to) the > feglist, I've seen this artist come up numerous times, but to my > knowledge I've never heard anything. But the persistent recurrence of > references has slowly piqued my curiosity, so... > > What's it like? Fun! More so live, but also on record. Although there were various phases and the later ones are more sedate, but pleasing just as well. > Where would you recommend me starting, were I so > inclined? That's a question that's easily answered, because there isn't much choice these days! Most of his records seem to be out of print. In the UK there are basically these two compilations: I'd personally rate the earlier one a little bit higher than the later one, but YMMV. ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V16 #747 ********************************