Cardiacs: Classic or Dud?

i heard about the cardiacs long before i heard them. for whatever reason their records were impossible to get in america in the '90s, even as imports. if you could find them they'd run $30 for a cd, which was just insane pricing; i never understood how they managed things on the business end. anyway when mp3s got big the band put up an official mp3 sampler, which is how i first heard them - to be honest it was okay but not terribly impressive to my ears. "sing to god" was the gateway for me when i finally heard it.

The pre Seaside stuff *is* badly recorded and often played beyond their ability at the time.

In light of which I must say that The Special Garage Concerts might actually be the ultimate Cardiacs artifact for me, if I had to pick only one. Some days anyway. A remarkable feat wherein they buff up the very earliest songs (including much of The Seaside and some dating back to 1976, when they were babies) and present them in joyous nat's chuff guitar heavy arrangements over twenty years later. More than a live album or retrospective it's like endless victory laps and more fun than just about anything. I'm trying to avoid excessive hype speak here!

It's surely an almost unique achievement, though? And to top it off there's the prospect of the 'rehearsal' film!

Their stuff was largely out of print for fuck knows how long, which is why they were prohibitively expensive - it was years before I heard a full album of theirs.

I Still need to get The Seaside

The Garage Concerts are wonderful I agree

Thanks y'all, I'll probably try Seaside next. I'm skimmed these threads before and Sing to God was the only album with a poll and detailed Wiki page, so I started there! Plus, I kind of like starting in the deep end. STG has enough cool moments that I'm convinced this is a band worth checking out more of. One awesome one that I didn't mention before: the solo on Fiery Gun Hand - what a scorcher

Another nice David Minnick acapella track gone up recently, possibly not for the first time, but it's new to me

https://soundcloud.com/david-minnick/fairy-mary-mag-cardiacs-cover-by-the-180-gs

his comments suggest it's a first-time post; apparently he takes them down after a while. david's covers i have around from the albums: tracks 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 18, 21

Wish I could hear the whole thing

did he finish it yet? perhaps he'll release it when he's done? i'm reminded of lewis taylor's attempt to remake trout mask replica... he only got about halfway through but those tracks are circulating in certain quarters.

It must take an awful lot of work, I mean Fairy Mary Mag alone would be a fucker to arrange, even without the squiggly interstitial at the end.

wow thank you

david minnick is a prince

Loving that Sea Nymphs Peel session

I expect a few of you have seen already but the shed rehearsals DVD is finally finished and on sale now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adx6YVI_Z0g

Hahaha awww! He also does I've Seen All Good People ^______^

we may have the world's coolest music teacher on our hands here

I know, it's lovely, isn't it? There's a couple of other Cardiacs things on his channel, I was equally compelled watching a brace of School of Rock kids chewing through Yes' Awaken too recently, proper seat of the pants stuff.

omg that's perfect! and that song virtually invents Cardiacs too

From FB today :(

"Hello everyone. This is Sharron here on Tim's Facebook page. Please think positive thoughts for our beautiful leader today. Please don't ask why or raise a panic. He needs you to focus. xxx"

oh

have dreaded this kind of announcement for ten years and am kind of unsure how to respond

I could tell from the overall tonality of the FB page that he's been 'poorly' recently and there are people I could ask, but I'm not sure if I should.

Okay, so it's not grave news thank goodness, although shame on whoever for that shittily constructed FB post, it's something to do with an article on a website called INews (which I can't find yet) and a GoFundMe page for Tim's healthcare. https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/timsmith

ANd here's the article - https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/tim-smith-cardiacs-singer-brain-injury/

That'd be Mrs Fortnam you're badmouthing! Cheers for the link though :)

Sharron Fortnam, Craig’s partner, recently asked him to put his current state into words, and then watched him spell the following out at a painfully slow speed: “Imagine if you were wearing a skintight bodysuit made of fishnet all around you, with electrical pulses going all the time. This is what my body feels like unless I fall asleep.”

I've seen him use his word-board. This message would have taken half an hour to spell out

Funding is going really well, I just hope it can get over the goal amount before it hits a plateau.

That's a relief, I feared the worst when I saw new posts. I've been thinking about Tim/Cardiacs a lot since yesterday's revive. Will donate when I get home.

Funding page isn't loading for me?

loaded for me Ned in Chrome.

I donated -- when you read stuff like this, it's not usually accompanied by "and if he gets the care he needs, he'll be able to make music again." Such an inspiration, and he's already got more than half of the goal!!!!!!

a little heartbreaking to see that a decade was essentially wasted :/

I donated roughly what I probably should've paid for all those albums I pirated, back before any of this stuff was even remotely available

Wonder what the % will be by the time I'm home later. Hopefully about 170

I think more than a decade 'wasted' alas - I doubt much more than LSD will be completed, and even that would feel miraculous and special above all things. Extremely heartening that they're going to try.

not really getting my hopes for that either, but a man can dream

tragic part of all this, as the article touches on, is that the band really did seem to be breaking through on a larger scale in '07 - Cardiacs used to be one of those "music's best kept secret" sort of things, but from say 2006 to 2007 it seemed a lot of very enthusiastic fans were pushing them out to the right people and I started seeing them blow up on sites like RYM or last.fm. had they completed the album I think it would have been massive.

Still could be!

When I clicked on it, about 5 hours ago, to donate it was at £4000 odd, now it's up over £23,000, brilliant!

Very cool, 40K+ in 10 hours, nice to see some interesting names popping up in the comments section too.

JG ThirlwellJan 8, 2018
All the best to Tim and I hope this cause makes a big difference in his life. Thanks for the years of amazing music.

£100.00

I've spotted a few others too

Weasel Walter just chipped in :)

They've announced they're going for 100K pounds, which will cover him for a full year, and that they have it set up so that way they'll have the full year to raise that amount. Currently at 48K

alright fine I'll kick in another tenner

It'll get there by Wednesday!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXf8HB6uUoc

One of the great toys of rock music, along with The Top

Wonder if someone could build a track around a full Screwball Scramble run

Hello everyone,

This message is sent as a means of explanation for the non-arrival of stuff you may have ordered from The Consultant's Memorabilia Collection.

Tim Smith has been in the hospital since last Sunday and I have been part of a team of close friends and family supporting NHS staff to provide the best care possible in a severely overstretched system. He is never without someone to advocate for him or hold his hand from early morning until late at night. This means that it has become almost impossible to send out orders. As soon as there is a moment in my schedule, I will start posting - I promise!

In the meantime, the love that is still pouring in is being transmitted directly to him through any channel deemed efficacious at the time. Sometimes, we just tell him with wormbs.

Please know that your purchases are important to me and will be sent as soon as is humanly possible.

Stay focused!

With love and respect,
Mary

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/timsmith

More than 80% of the way there, truly great to see.

He'll make it fairly soon I'd have thought, if only maybe because of the ppl that will throw in a little more after their next few payday cycles.

...and the goodwill messages are getting more and more random too, which bears out my theory lol.

Wow even Mike Love got in on the action