Testimonial 16.

I hated the cardiacs for a couple of years. It was too mad. Just a bunch of random key/chord/tempo changes and a honking Saxophone that I couldn’t understand, follow, or dance to.

But my friend Neil kept saying… “The Cardiacs are great aren’t they?” Then one day it clicked. I think it was ‘Is this the life?’ that did it. I went from Hating them to loving them in 3.5 minutes. Since then (almost 10 years ago) I’ve seen them too many times to recall in some fantastic places. The first was the Church in Salisbury (I still didn’t like them then, doh!) and I’ve moshed with the rest and the best over time and through space.

Sometimes when times are hard and no-one understands, I’ll phone up Neil and say “The Cardiacs are great aren’t they?” and everything is alright again…

Live long Cardiacs. I for one will keep travelling across the planet to catch your gigs.

Everything keeps changing. They change but also manage to stay the same at the same time.

How do you do that then?

Eddie

Testimonial 17.

The first time I ever heard the Cardiacs was when I had heard, somewhat loosely, that they were an immense band and unlike anything else I had come across.

I went out and bought ‘Little Man And A House…’ and within one listen I was sucker punched. I remember then taking a tape to a party and playing it over and over and absolutely everyone but my friend Tom hating it.

Near enough ten years later and over a dozen concerts under our belts I am still surprised by the reactions of people to the Cardiacs – you either love ‘em or hate ‘em – there is no in-between.

One of the few bands that can create a tune to make you laugh and cry with their child-like nightmare visions and merry-go-round maniacism. A band to grow old remaining young to.

Chris King

Testimonial 18.

1978ish, somewhere in Yorkshire. Leaving behind the Kaleidoscope Community Project, (a retreat for social misfits like myself in Kingston upon Thames), and after a hilarious 1977 mostly at the expense of the social services, I found myself keeping tabs on friend Tim Smith by the simple expedient of mailing him tapes. For his part, Tim did the same. They contained exactly what you might expect; tasteless little vignettes… songs, the recorded conversations of my friends, etc. My tapes contained similar material- scatological references, montages and songs, even one called “Cameras” which you may have heard in one mutant form or another. All of this effort was necessary because I was living at home with my parents who had moved away from Worcester Park (where I grew up), to a dismal little Market Town up North. Try as they might, they could not offer the stimulation (or controlled substances) that I had come to expect. Hence, I was bored beyond all boredom. I should take this opportunity to apologise to Mum and Dad now; in those days I was an unlovely little bastard, (and actually still am). But anyway, these tapes… Tim fashioned pieces of surprising complexity by sound-on-sounding with Jim’s Akai DS4000; I particularly remember little snippets of clarinet music that reminded me of Lindsay Cooper, and a version of “Mighty Real” sung by Tim’s mum, no less. I was more technically challenged, reduced to bouncing between two cassette decks…

So anyway, one day a tape arrived with all the usual stuff, but with a message at the end… “oh yeah. Jim and I have got a band now. We’re called Cardiac Arrest”. And next I heard some of the first Cardiacs there had ever been, a track called Dead Mice. By the middle I was blown away; six bars of four that cycled round and round, but with these really great key changes that Tim likes, and a sound used for the main riff which I couldn’t immediately place. The tape was an early Akai job, I guess, and the quality a bit grim, but I realised after a couple of plays that it was the Korg and the guitar playing over each other. I say “the Korg” because this particular Korg (700 mini, and I’ve been after one for ages, so if you’ve got one to sell see me after…) had a history which I won’t go into but suffice to say it had been around since 1976, and became a big part of that early sound.

This same korg, (I bought it from Colvin Mayers and later sold it to Tim Quy), was mostly used to create a two part harmony between the synth and the guitar. Tim used this device a lot, and it always worked really well. If you want an example of it probably the best one is the intro to the first single, “A bus for a bus on the bus”. Anyway, we exchanged a couple more tapes, some time went by, and then something happened. Pete Tagg, the drummer, was off to form The Trudy with his brother Derek and another friend from school, Ralph Cade. These last two had been up to this point the Cardiac-ettes, and Derek’s input was to shriek “I bit the vicar” in a piece of the same name. Delightful, I can promise you. So, Pete was leaving, and to my surprise, Tim asked me to join, (surprise because I hadn’t played drums for a year or more, and lived 250 miles away). Nevertheless, it seemed like something I really ought to do, I’m sure you agree. This meant I was off back to Chessington, and life was very good. My brother lent me ?250, and I bought a weird old Hayman kit, plus roto-toms. We rehearsed, I played my first gig, I think it was in Bishop Stortford at the Triad… We also recorded; we found a bloke who had an 8-track studio under his house in Surbiton. We spent a couple of days doing stuff like “rock around the clock”, a favourite which is on the Archive Cardiacs album.

A little later on, I started doing engineering work for the 8-track bloke in exchange for session time which we made use of to record more of that Archive material – “Trade mark”, “Cold as can be…”, and so on. Both Tim and I did “solo” stuff there too, and even “Wooden fish” was recorded on the 16-track that had by now turned up. Sarah had joined, Colvin had left to join The Sound, and Dominic joined so that I could swop drums for keyboards, at which point I became the keeper of the korg. All terrific fun, but I did miss the drumming; too much as it turned out, as I left after a year or so.

Anyway, if all of this sounds more like a potted history than a testimonial, the point is this. Now that I have my own studio, and spend much of my time working on my own material, I realise that those early days provide the most inspiration for what I do now. But for those times, and even though I’ve always spent my life soaking up music of one sort or another, I still probably wouldn’t have grasped the simple truth that nothing, absolutely nothing is better than music. As Frank Zappa said, “Music is the best”, and I admit that each time a new Cardiacs album comes out, this statement is for me reiterated by something in what Cardiacs do that no one else’s music has to offer. I think this band is one of the most imaginative and creative on the planet, despite still being, I think its fair to say, largely undiscovered.

Really it’s no surprise that for the greater part the press have little to offer in explanation of the phenomenon; they just don’t get it, except for occasionally one or two enlightened individuals. I used to wonder that if one day Cardiacs finally did explode big style, and everyone was suddenly into them, whether they would still sound as brilliant as they do? I think so, and I say this because one day I mistook them for someone else, however unlikely that sounds. Here’s the story… I was in Jumbo Records in Leeds just browsing as one does, when the shop played “Manhoo”, which had just been released. I was miles away, but gradually I started to hear what was playing. I still hadn’t recognised Tim’s voice at this point, and for a moment I thought I had discovered something new and precious, a band I hadn’t heard before, and what a band…

Then I recognised the vocals, and it was like “oh, it’s Cardiacs…”, with just a hint of disappointment. As I listened the string section towards the end came in, then the brass bit, and so on. Of course it was Cardiacs, who else was it going to be? But for a moment there I thought I’d found another band as good; enough said, and when I finally heard Sing To God, (which I’m slightly ashamed to say came as a freebie from Tim- My favourite album ever, and I didn’t even pay for it…), it became clear that this was the most brilliant work I had ever heard by anybody, ever, shit you not. End of story.

Mark Cawthra

Testimonial 19.

One evening my flatmate came back after visiting a friend. He held in his sweaty palm a video. He slid it into the VCR with the immortal words – “You’ve got to see this!”.

That video was none other than Seaside Treats, and I was entranced. What I saw was an indescribable blur of colour, quirk, and curiously catchy tunes that twanged a chord buried deep within. Then he told me that Cardiacs were playing at the end of the month in London and would I like to go? I went, and was treated to one of the best live gigs I have ever (to this day) seen. The music started and unbidden a huge face splitting grin spread across my face.

And it stayed.

No other band before or since has compelled me to repeatedly make that 300 mile round trip just for an hour or so of music.

Disturbed of Moseley (Martyn)

Testimonial 20.

I first became aware of Cardiacs in about 1986 or 87. A gig of theirs at the Riverside Club in Fetcham was reviewed in the local paper, and I thought they sounded interesting. The reviewer hated them, but as it was someone I’d known in primary school, and our musical tastes had differed widely even then, I thought they might be a band I could get into.

I first experienced them when they did a version of Tarred and Feathered on Channel 4 music show The Tube, and I decided that the slagging off review was incredibly accurate, and that this was a band I could not only get into, but become almost obsessive about. I later saw the video for R.E.S. playing at the Underground Club in Croydon, a venue Cardiacs were due to play a fortnight later. Bizarrely I can’t remember if I actually went or not. I know I have seen them there, but it might only have been the gig I went to later in the year. I do however rememeber buying a fanzine (Organ 3) that summer for the sole reason that it had Cardiacs in it.

I definitely saw them at The Marquee in November 1987. I think I saw them 4 times that Autumn and winter, twice more at the Marquee, and once at the Croydon Underground.

The first Cardiacs record I bought was “Too Many Irons in the Fire”, which, coincidentally was single of the week in Sounds.

Over the next few years I saw them play lots and lots of gigs, mostly in London, though I also travelled to Oxford, Coventry, Grays (Essex), Cambridge, Salisbury and Slough on various occasions. They were, without a shadow of a doubt, my favourite band at the time, and I got to know most of the band members fairly well.

After several members left in the early 90s it seemed as if they were losing their way, they played far fewer gigs than they had done, I also moved away from London at this time, and so was less able to get to those few gigs they did play. I didn’t see them at all between about 1993 and 1999, though they remained one of my favourite bandsthroughout that period.

When I renewed my acquaintance with them at the Fleece in Bristol in May 99 I found that they hadn’t lost anything, as I feared they might, but were a mighty and most excellent band, who instantly re-instated themselves at the top of my personal list of favourites. After all these years Cardiacs are most definitely still worthy of laudation.

Chris