The Cardiacs Society

Depends, I think A Little Man and a House and the Whole World Window, On Land and In the Sea, and Sing to God are all easily 5-star albums.  Sing to God is a bit less lushly arranged, more hard-edged, but still has a lot of that Tim Smith charm. 

Yep, you can read my rather gushy review here!

Marc Riley did a special edition of his 6music show in honour of Tim's birthday last night. He played three Cardiacs live session tracks (including the never-released song Silvery!), as well as tracks by "family" artists William D Drake, Levitation and The Trudy's superb cover of Day Is Gone. Well worth a listen.

Tim is 50 today.



Get well soon Tim!

Yoinked from another forum:

hello all
i will be presenting a one hour internet radio show to promote the "leader of the starry skies" cd
on sun march 13th at 8pm uk time on http://www.phoenixradio.co.uk (esoterica with dave hewitt) the show is one whole hour of all things tim smith.
i hope this will increase awareness of his needs and help sell a few more cds.
please pass the word
thank you dave

I'll be tuning in tomorrow and I hope some of you will be too!

Cardiacs are unique. I love their playfulness, their skill and the mind-blowing tunes.

Would love to have seen them live!

I too am saddened to hear that Tim is still debilitated, but whether or not he ever makes any more new music he has ensured himself a place high up in the (short) list of genuine music greats.

I've been watching Maresnest over the last few days and will write a review of it soon.

Edited by russellk - March 09 2011 at 14:03

It's good to hear Tim's condition isn't as bad as the article says.

This was posted by Mr. Kavus Torabi over at Progressive Ears (in the thread he opened about the Tribute album. 
Yes, it does paint a rather bleak picture. Tim is not paralysed, nor can he do little else than 'be hoisted in and out of a wheelchair' (sorry if this is a little inaccurate, I'm quoting from memory here) however a lot of what was written is true and a lot more realistic than some of the missives and speculations that have been come out. 

I have been fairly tight lipped about the situation, as have all Tim's friends, but if I'm honest one good thing about an article like this is does clear up to some extent what a lot of people have feared and the amount of fairly inane, although mostly genuinely well meaning, emails I've been bombarded with over the last couple of years from fans has slowed down a little. 

You know; 'Hey are you and Tim Jamming again' and 'Why don't you put out Maresnest on DVD' or 'Are you working on finishing the new album again' etc. I've just found the whole thing extremely painful as you can imagine. 

Also the sales of Leader Of The Starry Skies went right up after the feature. 

We would love to make the entire back catalogue available again and are well aware everyone wants this and also the ridiculousness of a situation where interest in Tim's music is at an all time high, there is a big demand for it AND it will raise a lot of money 

All I can say here is that it is proving EXTREMELY difficult right now. I can't go into the details unfortunately. We are doing our best to sort this out. 

To re-affirm though. Tim is still the wonderful Tim in himself. He is still extremely funny and perceptive and as full of sh*t as he always was. He listens to music continually (including a lot of his own stuff) and enjoys regular visits from his pals. He just can't really do or say much right now but the money raised by this album is already going into more help for him. 

He has good days and bad days as you might expect but is incredibly positive in his outlook....giving all of us around him hope. 


xxx 


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Gerinski wrote: Strange band for me, I have only "A Little Man and a House ..." and the double "Sing To God" and I very honestly admit they are really great musicians, and yet the style is not my cup of tea. I would be hardly pushed if I should rate these albums, I realise they are f*k good and yet reality is that I play them very very seldom.

I wouldn't worry about it. I encounter bands that are technically proficient but do f**k all for me on a personal level pretty much every day. Cardiacs are pretty much the epitome of an "acquired taste".

Padraic wrote: Tapfret wrote: My wife actually has an account. Maybe I will go that direction. Clearly I must have more Cardiacs. I share your disgust at iTunes...but I finally held my nose and acquired some albums.  Burned to a CD and then transferred to my media library...and won't load up iTunes for a long, long time hopefully.

Agreed - I downloaded them through iTunes, then converted the files to my preferred computer listening style (basically anything that plays through Winamp, but iTunes will only convert to mp3), and never opened iTunes again (unless buying more quality Cardiacs music).

Saskia wrote: I was astounded by this: http://www.youtube.com/user/gilliamband Israeli prog band Gilliam covering a number of *EXCELLENT* Cardiacs songs: RES, Tarred and Feathered, All His Geese are Swans,  Good stuff indeed. Equally as enjoyable was this cover of The Everso Closely Guarded Line: http://www.youtube.com/user/1szoba2pal

I've watched a video of Gilliam covering R.E.S. on Youtube, it's definitely well done: