Cardiacs: Classic or Dud?

The great one is gone.

It's in The Mirror now

https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/breaking-tim-smith-dead-frontman-22395892.amp

RIP :'(

RIP Tim

As you've probably noticed from my Facebook feed. Yes, I got (got back into, actually, just never talked about it here) into Cardiacs in a big, big way recently. Yes, I am devastated. My condolences to his family and friends (and you imago, since you actually met him.)

Best thing gone did ever have

what the actual heck? terrible news

Oh crap. I have been listening to and thinking about Cardiacs quite a bit this last couple of weeks, from the earliest four-track Canterbury / Zappa infused Piffol instrumentals Tim and Dominic Luckman recorded as teenagers to the prog pop majesty of STG and marvelling yet again (when not simply in a condition of pure joy) at what a thing they were and are, and at why they are not more widely recognised as one of (I mean, THE, really) greatest bands ever, even though of course I know it is the very definition of not for everyone and wouldn't have it any other way.

Kavus Torabi once said or wrote a thing about how with Tim's songs there was never a single part where he wished Tim had done something different. Such audacious, individual but seemingly effortless composition and not once an error of judgment or anything out of balance. That by itself might be worthy of the highest laudation, but there was more even than that to Cardiacs.

Fucking bummed.

Every time I saw this thread, or heard "Is this the life?" on the radio, I'd think...

(as opposed to any other Cardiacs track, which I'd assume meant it hadn't happened...)

On the one level, it's great he managed to supervise the last album and even give a spirited interview (via adapted keyboard) about it.

On the other, glad he did have enough time and spirit to live etc....

sorry, babbling now I know. I'm out.

you mean the last Sea Nymphs album? doubtful whether his true final message to a world that barely deserves him will ever be heard now

Our consolation is all the other messages he did leave. Play 'em loud

awww rip genius :( I was sooooo obsessed. for years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbBuvhuZO8c

Absolutely devastated, that's all I can really say.

RIP Tim

gutted right now. admittedly I've had some trouble listening to them lately because the whole story with Tim has just been so fucking sad. but I did play StG just last week and had the same reaction I always do, the music is just too good to be true. like "Manhoo", just an unbelievable tune. idk what else to say. this sucks. but its also kind of a relief. I hope he was happy in his final years.

RIP man. Lots of Brighton friends affected right now, very sad.

from one of the obits:

In 2017, Smith described his condition: “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.”

jesus, it's all so sad. what a terrible fate. I guess it's a little relief that he's no longer suffering.

Tim was around after a Spratleys Japs reunion gig about three years ago and me and imago blurted out some things about how important his music was, and he managed to give us a thumbs up. I felt guilty in retrospect wondering what kind of effort that might have required, but it still meant a lot, and his being there (and at other such gigs, despite the assumed difficulty) was testament to his unwavering commitment to the Cardiacs universe.

He was truly visionary in the way he stitched songs together (and unstitched them, and sewed them back together again in the wrong order) and in those beautifully lysergic lyrics that dissolve and reform in different interpretations no matter how many hundreds of times you hear them.

I wrote a bit here

https://critterjams.wordpress.com/2020/07/22/the-leader-of-the-starry-skies/

I agree there is something utterly unique about the way he wrote songs. Like geniuses in other fields the more you study him the more you feel like his brain was just wired a different way. He's influenced so many people but nobody can really write the way he does. The only thing that comes close is Magma, or maybe Zappa at his absolute best. You feel like you're listening to pop music from an advanced civilization or something. And I'm still amused that for all his boundless creativity he still decided end the first disc of StG by ripping off Faust, one of the few tunes in existence with that same tilted sensibility

Sad to hear all this. I didn't really know much about the nature of his condition.

It's so fucking weird, after all these years I'm still having conversations about Cardiacs all the time and I'm still foisting various tunes onto friends and colleagues whom I think/hope might be receptive.

Only yesterday I was chatting with a mate about Jon Poole/Bob Leith's pre-Cardiacs band 'Ad Nauseum' who were one of a small tribe that appeared to be beholden to that early Cardiacs sound and how great their record, 4 Little Boys is.

its weird for me too, as I wrote about up there I really haven't listened to a Cardiacs LP in full for a long time, I'd hear bits and pieces here and there but it made me feel too sad to actually listen to one of their albums. at least until a few days ago, when I put on StG and figured, "okay now's the time to get into all this stuff again"

frogbs, I nearly posted something earlier about how I don't usually think of In A City Lining as a favourite Cardiacs tune but it has the unfailing ability to make me forget about any silly fug I may be dallying with, often to the point of actual laughter.

I've been deep in a Spratley's Japs phase recently and only a few days ago was frantically scribbling out the notes and timings for the solo to 'Don't You Aill...' because I'm making a little lockdown cover versions EP and fancied having a go.

listening to A Little Man right now, god this is brilliant....DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DIVE!!!

16 of us cared enough to post something. That isn't enough, but it's better than zero I suppose

I think, for ILM at least, it's about what I would expect, spent the whole day yesterday talking/thinking about Tim and listening to his music.

Oh of course (and me too!) - nothing against anyone here or really anyone not here. Just the eternal anguish towards a largely unfeeling world

Everyone posting here probably knows but the board recordings of three songs from the Panixphere / Japs concert in December might not be available to download indefinitely.

https://theconfinementtapes.bandcamp.com/album/confinement-release6

XXXXXXXXXXP - There's a nice, long interview with Kavus on YT, filmed only two weeks ago in which he talks about LSD with a 'never say never' attitude, ideas of another singer and getting Craig Fortnum in to orchestrate and so on.

Obviously, Tim's estate is now to be curated and considered in the past tense more definitively once Jim or whoever decides what is best.

yeah I always held out hope that we'd eventually hear it

Aside from that, the fight to ensure his music gets its rightful dues goes on

I bounced back and forth between Facebook and the discord server yesterday, since I was working a double and wasn't busy at all.

the more you study him the more you feel like his brain was just wired a different way

This is pretty much what I come away thinking whenever I listen to Cardiacs. Sometimes I wonder why more bands haven't tried to copy their style, and I think it's mainly just that no one else can write like that. Always loved those Special Garage Concerts rehearsal videos where it's like seeing actual people playing this stuff in this setting somehow makes it even harder to understand how these songs can exist:

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

RIP Tim

Do you think that the lack of clear spatial positions in the shed was always the idea? I know Tim didn't finish the editing. But if course it's easy to say it's totally in keeping with the concept.

The first three things mentioned here that Carl Dreyer does 'wrong' in The Passion of Joan of Arc apply to the Rotten Shed I think.

https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/passion-joan-arc-carl-dreyer-style

Kav's interview explains that they wanted it to be uncomfortable, full of junk and sweaty, loud.

Oh weird, I posted that clip without having any idea that was one of the main topics of the Kavus interview! Really have to watch that

Yeah, it's a kind of potted history of his time with the band and beyond.

maybe an unpopular opinion but there is one guy whose melodic sensibility reminds me of him - John Linnell

Got up the other day and learned this news and just thought "Huh". Couple of hours later put on a file of radio sessions which is on on my phone in case I'm in the mood on a late night walks home or whatever & the first song it throws up is Duck & Roger the Horse which starts with the ABC ident and I immediately start crying. The closest musical relationship I've ever had is with this man and this band. The music, the lyrics, the performances, all the visuals and the newsletters and the whole conceit of what they were doing, everything about it just made so much sense to me. Spent the past day listening to albums and catching up on live videos etc on youtube. I'd give anything to see them all again, backlit and lined up at the edge of the stage, low keyboard drone, wind machines blasting confetti all around and the audience losing their minds wondering what's going to happen now?

^^^^

thank you for introducing me to this band back in 2006, everything

Just want to say i really liked your write-up Frogbs.

I think Rhodri Marsden's eulogy was really very good and spot-on in a lot of ways.

I was lucky enough that for a few years Tim and I had quite a lot of mutual friends, ne'er-do-well musicians mostly, so I got to meet him a fair bit, usually at gigs and/or in pubs.

The two bands I was in at that time were tight with The Monsoon Bassoon and we played the same bills or would go see each other's gigs and Rhodri is dead right, Tim would stand down the front at your gig with his big, lovely Cheshire cat face. You did get the impression that a lot of his favourite music was indeed made by his mates.

He was charming and would give you huge unexpected bear hugs and kisses whenever you saw him.

A favourite memory, one night, walking from the tube to see The Monsoon at a gig up near Dingwalls and seeing Tim heading the same way I asked him how things were going with the next Cardiacs release - which would have been Guns - and instead he was excitedly jabbering about Spratley's Japs, I remember asking him about the Incredible String Band song Cosmic Boy, mentioning how it had reminded me of Sea Nymphs and we geeked out over how good the album 'Liquid Acrobat...' was.

My proud claim to fame, we got asked to support The Sea Nymphs at The Bull and Gate - iirc, it could have been The Monarch - I remember looking to my right, mid-song and seeing Tim watching us from the side of the stage, he was checking out our fancy pedal-work and I got all nervous incase I muffed up.

I never saw him after he got sick. He had an amazing circle of old friends around him, as you all know and I'm sure a visitor's queue of people from his periphery would have been never-ending.

But, my wife and I sent him a care package once he was settled in the care home, a box of CDs and box-sets that my wife had brought home from her record company job, I remember calling Kavus up and asking if Tim liked Jethro Tull and Bill Nelson's Red Noise. I hope he got them.

Some friends I was in a band with in the early 90s were good mates with Sidi Bou Said and I guess other people in those circles. One of them was part of this Lewisham (?) crowd and the other was responsible for me first seeing Cardiacs in 1990. Saw the band often over the next few years but having caught the tail end of the big line-up the gigs innevitably changed when four (?) people had left and the band was playing with backing tracks and a new guitarist and drummer. Well, you know. Not that it was bad, just different.

I only met Tim once AFAIR. I may have mentioned it was in a pub in Islington, I just happened to be wearing a battered yellow daisy Cardiacs t-shirt and he came and sat opposite me and said "alright."

Was the show with The Sea Nymphs at The Falcon? That's my memory, it was the last time I went there before it closed as a venue.

It *was* the Falcon, my bad. Sean Organ was playing Selling England By The Pound in between bands.

I was always a bit torn about them playing with backing tapes. Sacrificing a certain amount of spontaneity and generally complicating things seems unnecessary when it would've been just as good or possibly better just doing it live as a four-piece.

thank you for introducing me to this band back in 2006, everything

― imago, Friday, July 24, 2020 5:17 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

You're welcome. Wouldn't have done it for anyone else hahaha.

:)

still wondering who the guy was that introduced me to them and if they post here or are in the FB group

My introduction: bought the Nighttracks EP without having heard them, judging from the photo that they must be some kind of relatively mainstream, female-fronted indie band that I hadn't heard of before because that was the kind of stuff Janice Long played on her show. When I put it on I was a bit crushed at first that Sarah Smith wasn't the singer and that they didn't sound like Girls At Our Best. But, like frogbs, I got hooked by "In a City Lining" and played it about a hundred times and then got into Buds and Spawn and played that about two hundred times. Played it to my friend who said she hated them and that we'd both seen them when they were on The Tube so that must've went over my head. I'd also seen the Marillion tour years earlier, which was my first big concert I ever went to but I arrived while Marillion were already onstage and I don't know if they even played at the Glasgow show.