I was living some four hours’ drive from London in the mid-1990s. There was nobody I knew in the West Country of England who had heard of David Sylvian, yet alone followed his musical activities. Discovering news was difficult and I was always concerned that I’d miss something significant. Bamboo magazine had finished, its Winter 1992 edition being the last. For nearly a decade this fan-run labour of love had been a much-valued source of information and insight, its closure marking the start of Medium – an excellent official newsletter and label concentrating on the activities of Steve Jansen, Richard Barbieri and Mick Karn.
The internet was yet to reach my consciousness – my first email address was provided through freeserve, which didn’t launch until 1998. Then would come the sylvian arastar mailing list through which fans could share any information they’d come across, these snippets of news then delivered either immediately by email or in a regular digest. In the intervening years, Sylvian’s activities seemed distant, all the more so since the final edition of Bamboo recorded, ‘At the beginning of November [1992], David finally moved to America after months of waiting for his visa and Green Card to come through. He is now happily settled in Minneapolis.’
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