Oh, my! What a fascinating digest! I couldn't put it down! Frankly, I hadn't even heard the news until David Moore's sarcastic letter, which will now always my entry into the "how did you first find out about Stuart David leaving B&S" conversations. And did anyone else realize how perfect it was that Mr. Moore points out that Sinister is "up it's own collective bottom" and then is more or less proved dead-on right? Like I said: Fascinating. So I'm sorry that Stuart #2 left the band. It's like Nick says: his presence more than anything will be missed. I think that's pretty much true for a lot of the members of B&S. Because frankly (I'm in a frank mood today), none of them can write songs that come close to touching Stuart M's songs. I know Struan is a really, really nice guy who loves his friends and is good at sharing and wants B&S to be a 'band', but let's face facts. B&S minus Murdoch equals a twee, moderately talented (I do *like* the others' songs) band that's not known outside of the UK, if they're *lucky*. Mind you, I'm talking about songwriting, not musicianship. Because in the latter respects, they're ALL winners!! But really, there are several other members who I think would be better off concentrating their efforts on their solo stuff (no names mentioned). Stuart D's just making the right move. Rather than trying to make B&S more like Looper, he's taking his ball and going home, which is how it should be. Because all this talk about more and more of the new album's songs being non-Struan songs is making me nervous. This departure news just makes me a little less so. What I'm wondering if there're any bassists around who are offended by the NME's implication that they're not replacing the Space Boy because, hey, *anyone* can play bass. That's the way I read it, anyway. Faced with the reality of it, in a dream, Reid +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the undead Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+