Cardiacs

Cardiacs

About last night: We had a bit of a mad dash to get to the the Astoria on time.  A helpful (and amusing) post on the Cardiacs website informed us that, because the venue was going to have a club that night "allowing some of God’s more delicate creations to hoof about to “ironic” music", the gig would start at the "well-mannered" time of 7pm.

Quite frankly the Astoria has been getting up my nose for some time.  It's surly bouncers, poor layout and their habit of treating their patrons like doorway dossers as soon as the band finish has resulted in something quite strange: the majority of London's gig goers don't give a shit that the place is going to be knocked down and replaced by housing for rich idiots.

We got to the venue in good time, and had drinks in our hands just in time for The God Damn Whores.  Featuring Ginger from The Wildhearts, Jon Poole from same and also Cardiacs, and a huge hairy bloke who used to be in Wolfsbane I suppose they could be considered a supergroup of sorts.  They played a set of songs that was a strange mix of heavy rock party music and twitchy stop-start art-pop.  Jon Poole makes a pretty good front man (being a loud and enthusiastic nutter with a love of swearing) and those guys can certainly play.  So yeah, I was pretty impressed.

And then, after a short break, Cardiacs came on.  I have to say that I only recently got into their music.  I had been aware of their existence for quite some time and figured that I'd probably like them, but only took the plunge recently.  Since then I've barely been listening to anything else, so you could say I was really excited about this gig.

For those who don't know, their music is a mix of prog-rock, punk and psych.  If you could imagine Robert Smith's more childlike moments mixed in with King Crimson and then speeded up a bit, not only will you feel nauseous but you might be a bit closer to understanding what they sound like.  Actually that's a terrible description, what was I thinking.  Go to YouTube and find out for yourself.

Now, me and Mrs Geezer go pretty much everywhere together apart from work and the toilet.  Naturally we go to all of our gigs together even though we have quite different tastes in music.  Tonight I was concerned about what she would make of this strange brew of disparate influences.  After about four songs she turned to look at me with an expression that said "you rushed me out of the house for this!"  Ooops.

I, on the other hand, loved every minute of it.  Everything was perfect.  The sound was excellent, they played brilliantly, and it was sonically and visually superb (big thumbs up to whoever did the lighting).

Go and check out Cardiacs: you'll either be completely baffled or be blown away.