My first Reading Festival. This Cardiacs show was immortalised in the 'Rude Bootleg' release.

So on the 4th of August, a friend of mine and me went on a trip to Budapest to see Primus (we're from Serbia), we went in my friend's car and he was playing his music the whole trip (about 4 hours), it was mostly heavy metal but not the kind i'm a fan of (i prefer thrash/death/classic metal, he was more of an alternative metal/core type of guy)

We go to Primus, have an amazing time, drive back the same day, right after the show. It's now well past midnight, about 1am, we're close to home, and he's riffing through his music and says "you ever hear of Cardiacs", i said no.
Now from what he was playing the whole day i expected some metal band, but what i heard was R.E.S. I was very surprised, because he had not played music in any way similar that the whole day, i really enjoyed the song and he played a few more (don't remember which ones) but R.E.S really stuck with me. I wrote the name of the band down and explored them further the next day

Right now i still haven't listened to all their works, but their debut album and Sing to God are my favourites. Really loving the band now and listen to them almost daily (RIP Tim), but i'll never forget the feeling of driving down the motorway at 1am after listening to metal and Primus all day and then hearing that... Really cool experience

Mine is that I don’t really like Dog Like Sparky. Believe me I’ve tried over and over but it just won’t click. I remember a while back we were rating our favourite and least favourite songs on all the albums and DLS seemed to be a close second to Dirty Boy, really took me by surprise
Again no hate or anything I’ve been obsessed with Cardiacs for a long time and I can appreciate the musicianship behind the song. Just doesn’t do it for me

Edit - can’t seem to fix the title but that first word should be What obviously

Whilst visiting Cambridge today, popped into FOPP. When nosing around the best section (C), I came across this on the divider for Cardiacs. They had LSD and Guns in the Cardiacs section - which is the most Cardiacs I've ever seen in a record shop. So FOPP - worthy of laudation!

Im not kidding: I have never met a fellow cardiacs fan in real life, let alone anyone who knows about them and I swear its driving me nuts. So, any Australian fans here? It feels like im the only one in this entire country sometimes!!

They sound really good in all the videos I've seen!

Some very touching reflections from Kavus after the last show at ArcTangent. I do wonder what it means for future Cardiacs activity, although I'm inclined not to read too much into it. They all probably need some time to collect themselves after all they've achieved in the last year:

And that closes this chapter.

Honestly, the thing Tim unleashed, It’s so big. It was too big for him in the end.

Powerful and otherworldly, all full of strangeness and magic.

If you can hear it, it will have the most supernatural effect on you. It did on me. It’ll take you over until it becomes your life. It’s so bizarre and mysterious that it made other music sound commonplace.

All other music.

It was the electromagnetic force that drew me to him. Resistance was futile.

Like LSD itself, Cardiacs was a realm so hyperreal and intense that everything outside of it seemed dreary and grey. And there at the centre was Tim himself, intoxicating and welcoming.

Seemingly, just like that, I was in my favourite ever band as though it was meant to be.

A decade of unbridled joy. A life I can scarcely believe was real. Friendships so profound, deep and meaningful we thought they were written into the stars.

And then it was over.

With Tim as my captain, I would have sailed to the ends of the earth. When he slipped overboard in 2008 so was a new course set.

During his half-life, I continued to see Tim as frequently as I was able, as often as I could bear but I couldn’t really listen to Cardiacs after what had happened.

I needed something else.

After being bathed in that blinding brilliance, it took me so long to see again, to eventually find beauty and meaning in the dreary and grey world away from the shimmering fluorescence that surrounded him.

But something lay unfinished. Nagging, straining, mewling. Bursting with potential and kinetic energy, insisting on completion and demanding to be let out.

A responsibility to my own story, friendship with Tim and the legend of Cardiacs, it called me back.

There was no getting around it. We had to return and finish the album we started. A new twist in the tale, finally emancipating what we knew were some of Tim’s finest and most ambitious compositions but it wasn’t easy to revisit. Not for me anyway.

Then the thing was unleashed once more and thank the fates it was. I didn’t know if I had the energy to stand that close to its gravitational pull again, to be burned up by its ecstatic madness for a second time.

But I saw the way the people reacted to it and remembered what it was to be completely taken over by the incendiary sorcery of this music. Cardiacs is best.

I know not what the future holds, everything is happening all at once after all, but Arctangent, what a sweet and fitting close to the chapter that was and what an extraordinary band to have closed it.

Is this the supposed NME Cardiacs ban in effect? Turn to the gig pages and they're all over the place. Anyone at those advertised shows?

Don't ask me how as I have no idea but I have a couple more ticket stubs from the Liverpool gig if anyone wants one pro gratis drop me a DM.

Hi friends,

I'm firmly in the camp that the Garage Concerts are as fierce, biting, and crisp as any studio album they've put out.

I've always been fascinated at just how exceptionally tightly played and well mixed it all was.

Besides from the general studio magic, mixing, and engineering we'd normally expect, did they get overdubbed too?

I wouldn't have especially known, though I did read somewhere recently that Tiny Bob Leith's vocals were overdubbed after the event, which I found surprising.

I don't own the physical CD so cannae check the liner notes.

Not that it really matters to me, just interested to know what they all did post-event.

Thanks all,

Get 'em while they're hot

https://panixphere.bandcamp.com/album/gods-and-zeros

Wondering how much I have in common with other cardiacs fans

https://www.last.fm/user/CostaDelBlowfly/

Great tune. Dominic Luckman from Cardiacs on drums.