Testimonial 41

Is the Tate asleep?
If music would know a Turner Prize the Cardiacs would be the winner - i.e. someone should nominate them anyway. The latest performance at the Astoria London demonstrated a dimension and grid of qualities that not only beats most of the works of nominees in the history of the Turner Prize: many of its past winners tried - and are possibly still looking in vain to push the boarder of what is culturally achievable to that cutting edge where the thinking man gets inspired and the rest just accepts that they are watching and listening to a piece of art with a qualified cultural impact.

The Cardiacs’ performance is not only fun music of the highest composer and performing quality it is art that opens some kind of a 4th dimension! It is like a chess game of works between Wagner, Stravinsky, Rothko, Kandinsky und Bacon, based on a language that was introduced by the likes of Led Zeppelin, Peter Gabriel and Talking Heads, executed in a way that - of course goes far beyond today’s rock music and should be recognised by the cutting-edge art world.

WFR

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Cardiacs Astoria 12th November 2004. 50-100-100000 who knows how many times this band have trod the hallowed boards? But last night it didn’t matter that dear Jon was fighting on another front in the far east. It didn’t matter that Kavus was too hairily handsome to be counted. Oh no. What mattered is that Cardiacs injected a freshness into songs older than time.

Musically

Beginning with RES. Still gifted with musicianship and timing that symphony orchestras would be hard pushed to equal. I must confess as a front-ish row moshee the set list got a tad blurred so if anyone can copy theirs to me I would be very happy. They did Toy World. A song older than Busted and yet fresher and all the more vital.

Staffing

Well Kavus was truly a god at guitar, but wait who are those females on backing drums and vocals (er sorry don’t know names) the added dimension this provided was exquisite and enchanting. Jim a towering powerhouse of bass and humility, Bob hidden from view but audibly perfect, Tim. Tim Tim Tim Tim? Why wouldn’t we sit down for you when you asked. You didn’t have as much to say to us as you usually do. Perhaps it’s because well we just know dont we? Bad bad Tim for ending the night :-(

The Crowd

Hey Skitzo Pete, Hey Yossi, Hey Steve, Hey Belch, Hey Val, Hey Victoria. But not hey the idiot that stood on Steve’s head while stage diving. Steve uses a wheelchair and the idiot broke his glasses which could have blinded him.
The moshers that were stage diving - shame on you. The moshers that were hitting with closed fists and kicking. Shame on you too.

Overall the gig was a roaring success. A great chance for the family to get together. To hear songs that made our lives as lives of their own. Thank you band. I have lost count the amount of bruises and dislocations over the years. But if you said you’d play today - I’d move big things to be there.

All my warmth

Testimonial 43

To whom it may concern,

In 1988, whilst I was engaged in the art of studying musical composition at a college in the not so distant Province of Devon and humming to myself "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" on the way to a lecture involving counterpoint of all things, I heard a mixture of sounds so indescribable, it shook my belief in the musical establishment. Was it a conspiracy? Were these lies that music professors spawned on young music students as to the nature of what was acceptable as melody, harmony? For on this very vinyl disc I was about to hear, these lies and laws were being broken and were actually being recorded for general release. Heavens help us I thought. Who else has heard this music??

In that moment as I crossed the road, I heard for the first time the glory that is now known to me as "Little Man and a House". I stood still, my heart beating in syncopation with the poly-rhythms. "Excuse me my good man" I shouted, "would you mind telling me who is the author of such sounds spilling out from your record player? In dulcet tones, the liverpuddlian replied "Err…the Cardiacs. It’s called a Little Man and a House". Hmmm, I thought, the cardiacs eh? "Thank you my good man" I quipped and continued shakily on my way. I did not know where to turn. I had never heard such musical invention, such lyrical writing as to amaze. I quickly tossed aside Monsieur Mozart, ne’er to return to him!

As luck would have it, I turned minutes later to a record vendor in the local town, desperately trying to seek out this very disc. Counterpoint be gone I said in defiance as I skipped my lecture. I went into the shop. A man stood alone behind the counter. I whispered to him. "Excuse me, but do you have a copy of the Cardiacs’ Little Man and a House please?" I turned anxiously around the store to see whether the morality police were lurking in the wings. Luckily, I was mistaken. It was only pictures of Rick Astley. (Hope the use of profanity is allowed on such a site) "The Cardiacs" spluttered the man, "who the bloody hell are they?" I could not answer, for I did not know. I had not even seen a picture of them. This you realise was before the days of the internet, days before the invention of the cardiacs.com. Who were these elusive creatures? I went on a quest to find out more about the members of this band who had shattered my musical education.

Within the space of a few weeks of receiving "Little Man" by special order which was wrapped in plain brown paper , my grades dropped dramatically. "Mozart…..be gone, Haydn….head off" I fumed as I poured out my spleen on this "classical music". Around this time, my harmony professor noticed little idiosyncrasies developing in my work. "You used to be such a nice student, you used to write such nice progressions" he said. "Now look at you. Damn those blasted tritones. Don’t you know that’s the devil’s music?" I did but I was addicted to the complex rhythms and wide melodic leaps found on my new piece of plastic, which I never left home without incidentally. My body was a quivering mass of this new music. I was a new disciple of the Cardiacs.

The rest as they say is history. I flunked college, my fellow students shocked at my transformation and the authorities incubated this sleepy little college from the infectious sounds from Surrey by my expulsion.
Mysteriously, the liverpuddlian remained.

On my return to London in the summer of 1988, I went to Cardiacs anonymous and learnt of others suffering from the very same nervous twitches, the very same desire to spend hours in front of their stereos glued to a speaker. It was a tough period. I’ve managed to wean myself off listening to their output for days at a time and limit myself to six hours a day. I’ve recently learned that this help group however has been disbanded as those leading the group have succumbed to the same effects. So a word of warning to those who have stumbled on this site by accident, "Beware the Rhymes of March". This music will change your life as it did mine.

Chris Stevens. An ex - "Cardiacs anonymous" member.

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I saw the Cardiacs when you guys were supporting the Wildhearts in Manchester - I was blown away, I’ve never heard anything like it before! I’ve been forcibly playing your greatest hits album to all my friends and DEMANDING that they love you as much as I do. You guys Rock!

Heather

Testimonial 45

A slightly angular way to start, granted. Tim Smith made me feel like a bastard (my response to his actions, not his fault etc) when he came to see a band I was in (Bunty Chunks) a long time ago. I was so in awe of what he had created, how it had made me feel and that he actually liked what we were doing that I could not communicate to him in any human way other than gibbering emotions that only made sense to me. He promptly chose to not talk to me after that.

The problem with aligning your feelings/emotions with the level of influence something has on you, is the possibility of separating those who have made that thing (e.g. music) from your own link as humans (e.g. see above). Music, for example, can tap into something very generic, and at the same time individualistic, within you which triggers something you, before hand, only saw (very fuzzily) out the corner of your eye.

The Cardiacs’ music made me understand more than any other form of communication the absolute necessity of finding the truth within you as a person (that what responds to the world and all that it can throw at you). It is when you find that (by doing whatever that helps to get it out) you can genuinely feel the life in you which is otherwise mostly tightly contained in your shell.

The Cardiacs made me question my motives for everything in a quest to obtain something that feels real to me in everything that I do. My meeting with Tim Smith oddly reinforced that. I don’t always succeed but I know I must try and for that I will always be extremely grateful.

Simon Starns