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https://writerchick.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/worditout-word-cloud-284025.png?w=300

who stole the body of the president of cyprus??? was it you!?? (rolling graverobbing thread)

well you see nakhers chum

cardiacs' music is extremely intense with unusual melodic sensibilities but a demented punkish energy - the former putting off typical punk types and the latter putting off classical or prog fans

they sit uneasily within the rock in opposition venn set - it's like asking why henry cow or koenjihyakkei don't have more fans. they demand lots of close listening and a level of commitment that most listeners just do not have

they also alienated every single major music magazine during their heyday and the press famously loathed them, probably because they did not want to make the effort to understand them & it was easier to demonise the freaks

they have had something of a revival in the discourse of late, mostly because it's being publicised just how many popular musicians are into them

they aren't remotely like 'henry cow or koenjihyakkei' though, they make quirky indie rock music which is in a fairly recogniseable idiom to anyone who is familiar with indie rock

it would be more apt to wonder why they couldn't get at least some of the support that british sea power or whatever do, different generations but it isn't as if this country has a problem appreciating odd melodic rock music

played a few of their tracks on that youtube yesterday and there were quite a few comments from people who had heard them on radio 6 and been enraptured

this would seem to be a natural audience for them and it would be possible to imagine them being marketed a 'national treasure' to that set, had they not had the mark of cain from the trad music press

they demand lots of close listening and a level of commitment that most listeners just do not have

Come come, Louis.

they evidently receive a lot of close listening and commitment, though it's scarcely as if this is a necessary condition to appreciate them

Their wiki is pretty funny

Cardiacs are also renowned for their startling performance style, which has been historically integrated (via video work, publicity, interviews and onstage presentation) with a vague and oppressive band mythology. The latter involves Cardiacs' record label and supposed management company, the Alphabet Business Concern - a repressive, controlling organisation (with a marked Edwardian character) which supervises (and restricts) Cardiacs' recording work and live appearances (as well as communicating band news and statements to the band's mailing list in florid and archaic corporatese). Several early 1980s video releases by Cardiacs – in particular The Consultant's Flower Garden and the clip for To Go Off and Things – provided video "evidence" that Alphabet ran Cardiacs' internal affairs in the manner of an Edwardian children's home (complete with behavioural problems and bullying).

The Alphabet Business Corporation shares some similarities with the "Cryptic Corporation" supposedly responsible for managing The Residents. As with the Cryptic Corporation, there is a strong probability that the Alphabet mythology is entirely fictional and that the band (often hailed as archetypal independent musicians) control all aspects of their work themselves. Alphabet's original representatives - or representative characters - were Cardiac's "sordid, waxy" manager The Consultant (real name James Stevens) and his assistant and band advisor "Miss Swift", both of whom made onstage appearances with Cardiacs during the 1980s.[1][17] In the late 1980s both The Consultant and Miss Swift left the Cardiacs organisation and were replaced by Mark Walmsley, who played a less public role (but did appear for inserts in the Maresnest concert video, expressing contempt for his charges and their music).

In performance, Cardiacs generally reject (or occasionally parody) standard rock band posturing. In keeping with the Alphabet mythology, the band's shows have instead featured behaviour which has been described as "therapeutic, surrealist pantomime", compared to absurdist theatre, and labelled "not so much theatrically eccentric as completely fucking neurotic". During any given performance, Tim Smith rants between and during numbers, acting out bizarre childlike ideas and emotions.[17][18][19][20] During the 1980s the band perfected a detailed stage act involving shabby lift attendant costumes, badly-applied clown make-up, Tim Smith's bullying of other band members (predominantly Jim Smith), and a final formal presentation of champagne and flowers by The Consultant and Miss Swift complete with confetti, taking place to "a euphoric sweep of saxophone and keyboards that wouldn’t seem out of place in a '70s cigar advert."[2][12][19] During the 1990s, the theatrical elements of the live show were toned down and the uniforms replaced by formal suits, although certain rituals (including the childlike mannerisms and Smith's ranting style) were retained.[3][4][6][7][12]

british sea power comparison -> 'they evidently receive a lot of close listening' = a level of trolling I can't deal with on a Sunday

(xp) Why oh why aren't they more popular?

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

british sea power

narcissism of small differences is the foundation of rock music appreciation it's true

How unpopular are this band?

if that is supposed to be the cardiacs at their most uncompromising then it really isn't, nevermind that the stuff on youtube is melodically akin to the more outré end of britpop

it's not all that far away from all sorts of music which is popular in this country

TheNcc1701xyz
1 month ago

BBC 6Music brought me here. Just flicked the radio on and this played. wow. Can't believe i've never heard this before. Now it's set up home in my head and i'm not going to ask it to leave.

Dystopia66
5 months ago

Bloody hell. Why didn't somebody tell me about this earlier! Can't believe this band were unknown to me until a few minutes ago.

= lots of comments like these and ref to normcore artistes like suede and radiohead who will have been influenced by them; this is music that has been rendered marginal rather than being necessarily marginal

They're only the band Stackridge could have been. They came around at the wrong time, I reckon.

ref to normcore artistes like suede and radiohead who will have been influenced by them

They have?

they sit uneasily with any comparison. i'd go as far as to say they've created their own fairly distinct lineage of music that has eventually given rise to stuff like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX2rUUcs0G4

of course, one can draw superficial comparisons in the service of aggregation

that video was supposed to be cardiacs at their most self-consciously unusual, yet if you want something a little more...avant-classical, try the closing 4 minutes of this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4j6q1Svf30

SOME of their music is redolent of a sort of supercharged britpop in some superficial sense, but even when it is, it is something utterly other:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a820Xo4XdB8

they're ACCESSIBLE to normcore discourse precisely because they are so melodic - in rhythmic/lyrical regards they are a far more forbidding proposition, and even then their melodies are highly distinctive in construction

i agree that they're not necessarily marginal, because i think they're amazing, and that their songs work beautifully - they've been rendered marginal by certain bloody-minded aesthetic choices which i would defend

my challenge to you nakhers is to find bands lying similarly on the periphery of the norm-rock discourse who have been similarly marginalised, with an equally fervent cult following

the choices that frame them as weird seem more peripheral than integral to the idiom, it's not like they are this heat

the framing is oppositional but in another life they might have become quite popular had they been less dorky

they serve as an interesting case for the types of eccentricity that are tolerable to the british middle classs (mostly those involving whimsicality or anachronism)

that north sea radio orchestra track is surprisingly good

Also sounds like the whims of certain tastemakers played a part

LJ's challenge makes me think of something like the tiger lillies, whose music isn't "difficult" or unusual at all but who still provoke a "fuck is this shit" reaction from ppl

Lay off the face paint would appear to be the message

tiger lillies?! dear god

anyway,

they serve as an interesting case for the types of eccentricity that are tolerable to the british middle classs (mostly those involving whimsicality or anachronism)

ARE they tolerable to the british middle class? the 6 music listeners who have flocked to their side strike me as a minority. traditionally the reactions veer from intrigued to horrified with a smattering of obsessive adoration - don't think that's changed, or that the whole cardiacs package is now 'tolerable' to the middle class normcore hivemind. i reckon they have as much working class support as anything else - they're certainly from that milieu - and their whimsicality/anachronism is smeared and smudged under tonnes of, yeah, facepaint, fabricated incest rumours, a sense of earthy menace and an oversaturated production style that's just too much for most people

their role within the british pastoral is important, i'd say, but if bagpuss can get voted the UK's favourite TV show, how can cardiacs not achieve similar? - it is the confrontational weirdness, the unplaceability of it, even if the heart is in a similar place

N.B. the acceptable middle-class eccentricity of UK music from the last 50 years = david bowie

http://thumbs.worthpoint.com/E8d_hkDpfi6lLOyxo95PHG2mDA0=/400x0/images/images1/360/0912/28/360_1ff10ab5ad83cc5e7c9dedab870f9486.jpg

that was the argument lj, that they are the wrong sort of eccentrics

though if they are abstracted from their rep and the overt dorkiness and oppositional framing, then just the music on its own terms is perfectly comprehensible or at least not insuperably weird to a bbc6 sort of audience

traditionally the reactions veer from intrigued to horrified with a smattering of obsessive adoration - don't think that's changed, or that the whole dulwich hamlet package is now 'tolerable' to the middle class normcore hivemind. i reckon they have as much working class support as anything else - they're certainly from that milieu - and their whimsicality/anachronism is smeared and smudged under tonnes of, yeah, communist sloganeering, fabricated transfer rumours, a sense of 'hardcore supporter' menace and an oversaturated fandom style that's just too much for most people.

something tells me dulwich hamlet is not a band that produces albums

Non League Day Saturday 6th September 2014

i am listening to a song by this band, and it is v. reminiscent of Queen, not in a bad way.

LJ -- does your avian have a favorite Cardiacs song(s)?

this is all getting taken out on the leg of a dulwich hamlet supporter next weekend, and it is all your fault, nakhers, all your fault

"probably dog-like sparky. I find it a very relatable song" she affirms, yet she also probably slightly prefers the tangentially-related work of north sea radio orchestra and their parent band shrubbies, which is ok coz they're pretty much just as good :)

btw we are sitting in a pub that used to be a building society and hasn't really changed the decor, it is extraordinary

whenever you use the nickname "nakhers," it makes me think of the homophone that calls to mind avians favored by Benny Hill

though it would really be something if he actually resembled the actress on the left

http://www.runstop.de/hospital06.jpg

nakho it is then

mamadou or diafra tho

http://i.imgur.com/uXXsg8D.jpg

:D they're all so happy!

a certain avian may have just unveiled a micro korg btw - can barely contain myself. just want to stay at home for the next year or two making sounds

hi

hope you're better deems

convalescence innit. HB.

ty, gl

meanwhile I step out and it's the first fucking day of spring

happy birthday to yourself too deems

thanks thanks and obv many happy returns

there will have been a cloud in the sky, although just the one

larva: haberdager/jgo/unfished business/country matters/acoleuthic
pupa: oawia

...

the entomologists gather with their nets

― THE SONIC UNREGULATED ELECTRIC CATFISH (imago), Wednesday, 2 October 2013 22:37 (1 year ago)

just got offed has got to be the prime era of early lj

http://www.lj.vn

it will be hided

http://www.youtube.com/user/poopdriver