Cardiacs: Classic or Dud?

I befriended a musician (singer lass from a band called Spiritwo) who's mad keen about Cardiacs, and claims to have visited Tim Smith and heard some unmixed tracks off LSD - affirmed that they're mindblowing, awesome etc - then mere weeks later our poor dude stood a bit too near the amps during You Made Me Realise :(

(every legend needs embellishing)

Why stop there? Can the rumour at least say that it's a double album too?

I'd be happy with a cracking good hour-long single, tbh. Or even a 45-minute one like Guns which is still one of their most spectacular achievements

If you've stumbled on this thread for no reason, don't come back until the music stops -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zvCKKw_DQk&feature=PlayList&p=FFE33A2F7A065655&index=0&playnext=1

Ahh, I still think the rehearsal film would've been amazing, based on the tantalising clips that were released. I liked the fact it was all part of the same elaborate meta-gag as the "diary" that was posted on the band website(shame they didn't bother updating it after 2005).

I could happily put up with a whole disc of this kind of nonsense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AC8Z9uGe0A

dammit um erm ok well the entire Sing To God album is on a Youtube playlist - connect the dots - play all -

http://www.you tube.com/watch?v=3zvCKKw_DQk&feature=PlayList&p=FFE33A2F7A065655&index=0&playnext=1

Acoleutic, are you yet on-board with the fact that Come Back Clammy Lammy is awesome?

YES TOTALLY

if I ever dissed that song, it is a 5/4 time romp through all that is joyful about music, horrendous about war and amazing about cardiacs

Ha-ha. Somewhere upthread you said something vaguely non-commital about it and that has always bothered me.

Guns and OLAITS are their most flawless records, STG their most incredible, HBAEB their rockingest and ALM... their cutest

...but the first three are the desert-island ones for me (given a top 10)

Guns doesn't have a single moment that drops beneath awesome, but CBCL is probably one of the best 5 songs

argh I'm posting about Cardiacs again! coals to Newcastle

'will bleed amen' is the killer on guns for me. I love the whole album but that track just floors me every time.

Wait, what do you consider to be their first album? I usually think of The Seaside as their first, even though it was really their third. And Big Ship as their second. Toy World and The Obvious Identiy I don't really need, and rarely listen to, especially now all those songs are redone in fine fashion on the Garage Concerts. Big Ship is cool though.

^^^YES, that's top 2 or 3 along with Jitterbug and Spell With A Shell and Signs

um

maths, eh

xpost

I consider their first albums to be things I haven't heard, which I ought to change but feel weirdly unmotivated to, mostly because I have this baseless suspicion they're not as good as the albums-proper (which aren't the albums-proper, but seem that way)

Basically there was this long gestation period where they became the greatest band ever, then they released ALM.

Now thinking I should at least hear The Seaside, even if their journey away from still-very-awesome Tarred And Feathered twee-freaky-circus music into serious compositional brilliance is to my taste

I mean, R.E.S. kinda marks the moment where twee-freaky-circus music JUST GOT REAL

RES was on the Seaside too. There's some great stuff on The Seaside, (To Go Off And Things! Its A Lovely Day!) and the production is pretty good. I totally caned it back in the day but it pales compared to A Little Man. That material sounds so awesome on the Garage Concerts though. It's totally obvious that it's not so much the compositions that's at fault, so much as the way it's played and the production. Fuck, 2005 version of RES on that album kills all other previous versions. Hard to believe it, but it's true.

ok what I am sensing here is a need to acquire the Garage concerts - you're not the only one to tell me this

"Will Bleed Amen" is a great ending track, but always a bit disappointing live I felt. I think I would say "Signs" is my killer. The way it just builds and builds in the final chorus - gets me every time.

The Seaside should definitely be heard, but try and find a download of the cassette version if possible, as the CD reissue was short of four tracks and "Dinner Time" should really be included.

Cardiacs did songs that built, built and then fucking flew better than anyone - opening tracks of Guns and OLAITS especially start at quite a lick and then just accelerate and soar and jesus christ (that's a verb, I think) until all is ecstatic in the purest sense

Signs does this too, but into an ectasy of torment rather than euphoria - Cardiacs knew light AND dark, the sweeties

Yes my friend. Yes you do need to acquire the Garage concerts. Everyone needs this album. It's got a horrible title, a bad cover and the concept behind it sounds pretty lame. I grant you all of that. But it's a couple of dozen awesome Cardiacs songs you don't know yet, plus a handful you do know, performed with ferocious intensity.

It's like one of those Zappa albums where it's live with tons of overdubs so you barely register the liveness except here and there or when there's a distant cheers at the end of the song. They should've packaged it like Zappa did- without all the "LIVE IN CONCERT! - US DOING OUR ANCIENT MATERIAL YOU DON'T REALLY CARE FOR". The marketing of the album really sucked. The contents are great.

My favourite, play-it-three-times-in-a-row-almost-every-time song on Guns is "Sleep All Eyes Open". Especially the last bit. I can never work out how the hell they do what they are doing without fucking up. After that it's Clammy Lammy, then all the rest.

oh look, the Garage concerts are on iTunes

Sleep All Eyes Open is amazing but for some reason it's the one song that never gets stuck in my head *rechecks* oh wait no it does, sometimes. The bit starting at 1.45 especially. Another slow-builder! Mixes minor and major chords in a quite ridiculously good way

God, the synths in Clammy Lammy...and when the bass drops as the sax piles in...and the key-changes...

Arghh, now I want to hear the weird extended dirge bit at the end of "Jitterbug" again. Fuck it, I'm just going to have to put the whole album now, aren't I?

I'm cueing this up to listen to this on my walk home. Havin' an old fashioned Guns parteee!

it'd be nice if it wasn't just us folks having the love-in time after time but i'm not gonna complain :D

hang on why is Is This The Life playing, killitkillit - damn with Eating In Bed instead of that song ALM would've been something

(the reason it's playing or rather was playing is that I listened to Wind And Rains Is Cold, marvelled at how ska can be done so goddamn well, and headed for In A City Lining which also takes ska by the short 'uns and shakes it into something transcendent)

the garage concerts are indeed great.

can I just mention that I have the seaside on cassette? OH YES. much as the production on this album is very thin and ropey (prob. not helped by the format), it features TO GO OFF AND THINGS in its first incarnation and is therefore beyond criticism.

have frugged to that song live - can't remember for the life of me what it sounds like, but it is intense

my favourite *REALLY* early Cardiacs song is the Stonehenge recording of their introduction/farewell fanfare - one keyboard playing the most beautiful hymn, band hold hands and sing -

Holding these things in my hands, and I
End up singing everything

...it's the only manifesto they or anyone has ever needed

xp it sounds a bit like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N3RZqcYxXY

I've got Mares Nest live already! But yeah :D

Holy fuck those interview snippets! Sarah's description of what happens when you die is one of the scariest things I've ever heard a musician say!

And oh yeah, THAT'S what it sounds like. FRUGGGGGG

lol his hair

Alternatively, it could sound like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YtFI6AAZ4U

FRRRRRUGGGGG

newer version is of course tighter + louder but then this is a band who released the ditzy scene ep a mere 30 years into their existence

'To Go Off...' was the start of it all for me. Ten years ago, my bandmates at the time were huge Cardiacs fans, and one of handed me a copy of Mare's Nest. Being a huge Monsoon Bassoon fan, I'd heard OF Cardiacs, but never actually heard them, as bizarre as that sounds.

"this is OK," I thought. "not bad. nothing special. don't really see what the fuss is about. oo, hang on. I like this fast one."

AND THUS A SEED WAS PLANTED THAT BECAME A FAIRLY SIZEABLE WILLOW.

my face is on fire

^^^drunk posting to the cardiacs thread = behaviour that should be encouraged imo

if you can cure my hiccups then by all means inform me of the brilliance of this band alternatively I can sit here hiccupping my fucking head off

if you play this song very loudly, and dance to it, then you will not have hiccups any more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLoe4DGT3hk

haha it's just struck me, even while sober, how fiery gun hand must sound like literally the greatest thing ever while drunk

at the moment it's all blah blah the clean who cares about them we just saw Broken Bones they're so old

I have:
Guns
A Little Man..
On Land and in the Sea
Sing to God pts 1 + 2

One of the best bands I've ever heard, of course. What else do I need to hear, from their whole catalogue, or from side-projects/Cardiacs family? Acoulethic?

Haha, I'm not the one to ask (re: Cardiacs, we'll get to the family later)! Because I'd basically name everything you have there + the Ditzy Scene single. As a few posters intimate upthread, the Garage Concerts (available on iTunes) are totally worth getting hold of, and I'll be giving them a proper listen in the immediate future.

As for the family, well

um

Unknown, vaguely Cardiacsy prog-pop that only MaresNest and I actually like

The Sea Nymphs
Tim Smith's Extra Special OceanLandWorld
The Monsoon Bassoon
The Shrubbies
Bill Drake Solo
Stars In Battledress

For starters anyway.

Excellente! Thanks, if only I wasn't on ratio watch..

Katherine In a Cupboard
Ring
Zag ANd The Coloured Beads
Ad Nauseum
KnifeWorld
Ablemesh
Levitation
Lake Of Puppies
Sleepy People
North Sea Radio Orchestra
Mikrokosmos
Buntychunks
Mad Uncle Jane
Hayestack
Brain Of Morbius

Send me a PM Davek and I'll post you over some bits.

yeah even I haven't heard most of those - the ones I have heard tend to be the ones that didn't originate as Cardiacs side-projects, mostly because I have a slight suspicion of side-projects

everyone assures me that The Sea Nymphs are great though so yeah I need to get hold

The Monsoon Bassoon and Stars In Battledress are of course awesome, the former more so, although the latter have some stellar moments (as it were)

oh look some more bands - have only heard Zag & TCB (GREAT TRULY GREAT live) and Levitation (groovy psych-prog-shoegaze)

Sea Nymphs albums are truly great, like mind fuckingly great.