Testimonial 56
 
I was browsing on the web and read an interesting review then got some tracks from cardiacs.com.
 
I was immediately aware that this was a momentous discovery; I knew that Cardiacs were forever going to be one of the biggest things in my musical life. I listened to nothing but these clips back to back for the days until I got hold of my first albums. I’ve since got all of them and they are well worn.
 
I still can’t believe that a band like this exists. Honest, pure, strong, beautiful, fantastically English (and I’m a Scot), technically ferocious, hummable, just wonderful. They really are one of the handful of great bands in the world.
 
Alasdair

Testimonial 57

Lots of Cardiacs and Cardiacs related memories . Some beautiful and some shameful. They are :- My first ever Cardiacs gig at the ULU ( 91/92?) when I asked some bloke in the Kharzi how he’d managed to get a backstage pass. He said " I’m in the band ".Turned out to be Jon Poole. Cambridge late nineties. A gig at the Boat Race. I went into a nearby pub in the afternoon and as nature took it’s course went for a pee. Jon bloody Poole was in there too. I thought I won’t say hello in here as it’s a bit suspect randomly (no pun intended) chatting to someone in the gents. Blow me if he doesn’t turn around and say in a voice as loud as thunder ‘Look at my cock’ and he waved it about- true. I believe it was in that very toilet that I also confessed my undying love for a girl with an artificial leg I’d spoken to at the ULU gig.Chatted to the delightful Miss Lemmon at the Woughton Centre in Milton Keynes and told her her much I loved Sidi Bou Said, they subsequently split up.Went to a Bill Drake gig in London and made a complete tit of myself. I got drunk and climbed up on stage to play Bass with the support act, then I tried to nick Bill’s copy of a video recording he had made of the show, then i allowed a lovely unknown female to write her name and e-mail address on my arm but totally forgot the fact and woke up next to my fiance in the morning with it still there. Sorry Bill . I have to say that it was a particularly unpleasant period of my life at the time but apologies anyway.At various times i have spoken to many people at the gigs including the tall bloke from the eleven o’clock show (Ian something ?), Jim-who is him? A mature couple who apparently went to school with Tim.The nice chappy with the birthday flower tattoo from up north.The other nice chappy in the wheelchair down the front of the Pond (and his ‘minder’ pal).Throughout it all the Cardiacs (and Friends ) have made the most beautiful,amazing music I have ever heard and continue to do so.See you in the Pond at Brighton and London,

lots of love, little M.

Testimonial 58

1986 it were, and we descended on the Reading festival mob-handed and up for mischief. We’d been mates for years but we’d recently formed a seven-piece band that we thought was the cat’s arse; the dog’s bollocks and all animal genitalia inbetween. We called ourselves Poisoned Electrick Head, and we felt we could hold a glove on most of the headlining acts there, being cocky drug-addled northern oiks.

And then we saw Cardiacs. Our beloved high-speed riffs and chops and catchy melodies suddenly felt lumpen and slovenly, laboured and sloppy. For we were in the prescence of genius, and the spellbinding performance, thankfully immortalised as the Rude Bootleg album, sent us scampering back up north with a bloody nose and a renewed work ethic.

Some years later, fate decreed that we would share the stage with Cardiacs on more than a few occasions, and every time it was an honour; a privilege and bloody terrifying. As for other bands, we merrily continued to make mincemeat of them but Cardiacs always pissed all over us, and never was a trouncing more pleasurable.

Brian Carney

Testimonial 59

I forget exactly when I first saw the Cardiacs, but it was 16 or 17 years ago at the Astoria, and was one of my first alternative gigs. I remember thinking who are these bloody wierdoes, and why is he so horrible to the bassist? I also got goose bumps when they played ‘is this the life’ and was instantly hooked. Fast forward to sunday 6th nov 2005 at the Concorde in Brighton, and things are pretty much the same. Even a hangover from hell did not stop me getting goose-bumps again and Jim is still getting adulation from the crowd and abuse from Tim.

There have been many happy experiences in-between, with people and events coming and going, but my passion for the Cardiacs has never diminished, with lots of happy Cardiacs memories over the years. Here are a couple; I was hitching out of Streatham one day to go to a Cardiacs gig in Brighton, and having no joy at all. Just as we were about to give up, a car slows down and a long haired chap sticks his head out and shouts something unintelligible at me. I put it down as random abuse, shout something unprintable back and get on with hitching. However 5 minutes later, the same car comes back round and stops, and who should get out, but Tim Smith, who saw my Cardiacs T-shirt, and then gives us a lift to the gig! The main thing I remember was Tim telling us how poor he was, which made me too guilty to ask if we could get on the guest-list for that night’s gig, and my friend asked for me!

I was also at ULU for a Cardiacs gig, and took along my younger brother to introduce him to the pond. I lost him during the gig, and got the shock of my life when I saw him walking on stage up to the mike, and thought he was gonna get himself thrown out. However he raised both arms above his head and calmly said into the mike, ‘all that glitters is a mare’s nest!’ Tim promptly grabbed him and gave him a big sloppy kiss, and I now have the event immortalised on a bootleg tape of the gig (sorry guys!)

Anyway I’m glad they’re still going, as they have always been a constant in my life. I may now be firmly ensconced in the ivory towers of academia doing research in psychology, but I feel that being a Cardiacs fan has helped me understand that life is better with such quirky bands and quirky fans. There are even other Cardiacs fans in my department, so hopefully we can pave the way for a new generation of fans. Finally from reading other testimonials,I can see that I’m not alone in wanting their music played at my funeral!

Lets hope it stays all snowy in the pond

Dr Chris Cocking
Research Fellow in Crowd Behaviour
University of Sussex

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I think I was about 21 when I went on tour with Cardiacs singing in support act The Trudy .My boyfriend at the time was really into dance music (!) and we made a pretty odd couple on the nights I made it home:him pilled-up and gibbering and me going on about This Band, all covered in sweat and confetti.(that bloody stuff got everywhere - every time I pulled the ribbons out of my punky-hairdo showers of it came out!) There were some magical,drunken nights, so magical and drunken that I’ve no idea what actually happened, but I do remember finishing our sets in forgotten clubs and student-dives and just standing out-front transfixed by them.Those mad,pounding anthems and beautiful/strange/fragile lyrics:all a bit odd but utterly bewitching!

NME(?) printed pics of me and Tim side-by-side captioned "Crazy Guy/Crazy Girl" and I was SOOOOO PROUD! Although not with-it enough to actually keep a copy! Ha Ha!

I’ve done much singing stuff since then (aarrgghh ’twas years ago!) but remain passionate about music - an obvious but much overlooked ingredient in life these days,I find.Of course Cardiacs still have it in spades. I was at Their Astoria gig last night and it was fantastic.Amid the sea of (sorry,slightly balding!) heads-in-black-daisy-shirts I jumped up and down squealing in my hi-heeled clogboots like I didn’t have a care in the world.(I think I remembered to get a baby-sitter.) Still,a little piece of my heart was breaking for days gone by and first falling in love with it. Wierdly,The Trudy have been recording again, with Tim at the controls,and it sounds Blinkin’ Marvellous.It’s a great-big-fat-full-circle from wearing out my copy of "Is This The Life".Mental!

Melissa Jo Heathcote, The Trudy.