October 2005

Your Vexed Questions this month answered by Tim Smith.

Stephen Cranch. asked:
Who is him ?

It’s Jim isn’t it?

Julian Sandell. asked:
Did Tim enjoy Sunday school as a child and has that experience helped him to write such ear loving hymns?

Why would you want to go school on a Sunday? Hymns…It’s a strange thing loads of people all singing the same thing at the same time…think about it. I like it a lot. I always wonder what someone who’d never heard a tune before would make of it if they suddenly heard a whole bunch of people all making the same noise with their voices all at the same time. We like that noise, so every now and then we make it, but to one of our tunes.

The Bodge asked:
The Questions, they are many. The Answers, number few.
The clearer mind soon ascertains that neither are necessary.
That is all.

I won’t answer that vexed question then. If it was a vexed question, it wasn’t though was it.

SeaMonkeyBoy asked:
Is it true that Tim once did a plop and never flushed? Then told everyone it was Jim??

Can’t remember.

Matt asked:
My vexed question is this: When are more CDs of ‘A Little Man…’ going to get made? Someone nicked my vinyl, and my old tape is knackered.

Soon.

Dapper Swindler asked:
What’s your relationship with Mike Patton? Would you ever consider a project together and what’s the crack with these rumours about Cardies joining Ipecac records?

Us and Patton are mutual fans of each others tunes. He wanted to release our stuff on Ipecac in the Americas but was then advised against it for the time being. It might happen yet though.

lincoln jefferson asked:
Are you planing to release you new album anytime soon???????????????????????

Working on one or two right now.

Meen G Meenie asked:
Is the television organ a real physical thing or did you just make it up in a dream? If it is real what are its components and what does it look like, a picture would be nice (of it, not just a nice picture) Also WHAT THE BLIMMIN ELL DOES R.E.S. STAND FOR!!!!

The Television Organ is as real as being alive is real. It’s components are probably television components, I don’t know. An isolated sound clip of it will be plonked up on our interweb computer site at some point so you can actually hear what it sounds like all on its own. You will recognise it. It hasn’t been used for a while because it’s on the blink. The TV repair man just looked at it and didn’t even touch it and left it lying there on the ground still on the blink and I can’t remember what RES stands for and there’s no need to swear.

Barry asked:
I just want to add this to the pile of ‘When is "…Maresnest" coming out on DVD?;’ And I wish to make it known that I am, in a few short weeks, going to see Cardiacs for the first time. I am near-incontinent with the giddiness of it all

Maresnest will be out on DVD soon. Please don’t be giddy.

Josh asked:
Who are the THE ALPHABET BUSINESS CONCERN?

Don’t really know.

Emily asked:
What sort of a noise do Cardiacs think a sentient chair would make upon seeing a tree for the first time? (It’s a queen anne style chair and it’s probably got a padded seat with fleur-de-lys or some such shit) Thanking you, in anticipation of your answer.

Don’t know Emily.

Marmun Pressung asked:
That long bit of noise that makes us pee ourselves with anticipation at the start of EVERY show. Is it really a recording of an engine that has been super-slowed down???

Can’t remember what made that noise. It’s not an engine though. It’s always us wot gets blamed for that pee smell you lot leave behind.

Suzanne M. asked:
I saw copies of your live concert "Mares Nest" going for loads of money on ebay. Why don’t you release it on DVD?

We will…soon.

Rob Aird asked:
Will the song called ‘Silvery’ see release one day, perhaps on the new album?

Silvery is a song that we started recording with a whole bunch of others in about 1999-2000. Things got broken and we couldn’t finish the album. We tried to fix things but it didn’t work. I won’t re-record things once they have been started because too much of the atmosphere and god knows what else is lost. That’s why we don’t demo songs. You end up preferring the demo even if the ‘proper’ version shits all over the demo (which it always does). So a whole album was lost. But, we might put it out one day as it was left. All broken and unfinished. We tried hard to fix it all but got fed up with doing that so moved on to new tunes instead.

Mark Aston asked:
If you had the chance, would you soundtrack a film?

Probably. I like it if a film has good tunes and I would do my best to do good tunes for it. I’m not so keen on it the other way around though, images being put to tunes, tunes make their own strange images that can’t be topped by someone’s visual interpretation of it…I think…sort of…but then sometimes I think something else.

Lish asked:
When will you be releasing a line of your own "classic fizzy drinks"?

I don’t think we will be.

Ruth P. asked:
Will you please re-release Mares Nest on DVD

Ok.

Doc Greyhound asked:
Is there ever going to be a DVD release of "Mares nest" to sink my eyeses and earses into?

No.

Helen Gough asked:
I heard your live session on the radio and the DJ said you weren’t exactly a ‘constant’ and you just said there’s never any hurry. Does this mean we have to wait years and years between each album release?

We are very much a constant, and there is also no real hurry either. We release things when they are finished. Every single day is Cardiacs day. Every day. Our loyal fans only get to see the tip of the iceberg. We’ve been given permission to record a lot more things now so watch out kidz! (I spelled ‘kidz’ with a "z" at the end).

Kev Pike asked:
Have Cardiacs ever been into space?

No.

Rachel Howat asked:
What is your new album going to be like and are you pleased with it so far?

It will be what it will be. If we aren’t pleased with it then it won’t come out until we are. A lot of our loyal fans will be disappointed with it as always, and a lot will think it shits on the rest of out albums put together as always. In Cardiacs minds it will rule.

Sally Stockton asked:
Were you really ever called "Philip Pilf and the Filth"?

No never. The story must have gotten confused. Years ago we used to refer to our songs as ‘Filths’ and my stage name at one point was ‘Philip Pilf’.

Alan Sherman asked:
I love the Garage concert albums! I can’t believe you used to play that shit when you were so young! Don’t sound that different to what you guys do now! I’m intrigued though, can you tell me what were the songs you played when you were 16 or 17 because my band were shit when we were that age? (Getting more and more people into you guys here in the States!)

Hang on I’ll have to go look…thank you though in the meantime…right, when we were really young they’d have been Sctatching crawling scrawling, Aukamakic, Leaf Scrapings, Rock around the Clock, Pip as uncle Dick, Let alone plastic doll, Balloon for Berties Party, my trade mark, the Obvious Identity, Pilf, An Ant, Dead Mouse, Visiting Hours, a Game for Berties Party and Icky Qualms. All the rest were done a couple of years later I think. We were very bad at playing them back in them days though and we had no idea how to record them. When we dug them all up again we didn’t change them, they are the same songs and same arrangements. Just a bit louder. Now they sound more like what they were intended to sound like in the first place.

Mr. Sheridon asked:
Do Cardiacs have a collective or individual favourite work from their own vast and mighty catalogue, and Westone guitar versus Kavus’s expensive ones….discuss.

I’m personally extra fond of the Spratleys Japs album wot got us into so much trouble and who fuck all people own a copy of.

Cheap guitars, expensive guitars, I give not a toss.

Del asked:
Will u ever record and release "Dream Dress"? It was a song u played at your solo gigs, may have a different name tho? It’s amazing all the same.
with respect,
Del.

It’s already recorded. Sitting around a-waiting to be plopped out. Got a little brass band on it…it has.

Adrian asked:
Who is in the mouse? And what, if any, do the legs have which we don’t?

Sorry Adrian I don’t know what you mean.

Bez asked:
When was the last time you ate?

little while ago.

Karl asked:
Why do all my zombie mothers defecate on their impish lovers?

Don’t know.

Jason Pegg asked:
When oh when will the ALPHABET BUSINESS CONCERN deem it appropriate to release The Sea Nymphs song ‘On The Dry Land’?

There’s a whole lot of Sea Nymphs stuff that isn’t available yet. When we recorded the first Nymphs album we recorded about 3 albums worth of stuff at the same time. Most of it is still unfinished. It will come out one day soon. When the moment seems right. So much superstition surrounds them recordings and the whole Nymphs thing. Over fifteen years -a- waiting to be released…I quite like that.

Jason Thornberry asked:
As an American fan who has spent years slowly collecting everything I can get my hands on by The Cardiacs, I am very sad to learn that "Little Man…House…" is unavailable, along with "OceanLandWorld". What are the chances of finding either of them down the back of the sofa? Yours I mean.
Respectfully,
Jason

I’ll go and have a look, hang on…no…I’m at Mary’s, she doesn’t have a sofa or any other furniture for that matter.

Eric asked:
Why did the chicken deem it necessary to traverse the main thoroughfare?

I don’t know, why did the chicken deem it necessary to traverse the main thoroughfare? Is this going to be a funny joke? How will I ever find out the answer? This is unkind. Why did the chicken deem it necessary to traverse the main thoroughfare?

More of your vexed questions answered next month… (maybe).