CARDIACS

Adored and detested in equal measure, Cardiacs defied classification for decades. Earlier this year, the late Tim Smith's brother Jim, William D Drake, Kavus Torabi and others looked back, and gave an update on what would be the band's long-awaited final studio album.

- Words: Rob Hughes

December 13, 1984. In a packed Hammersmith Odeon, awaiting their heroes, Marillion fans are growing increasingly impatient with support act Cardiacs, a bunch of outliers led by the charismatic Tim Smith. Wearing terrible makeup and customised bandsmen uniforms, neither they nor their deliriously unclassifiable music is going down well with the Marillion hardcore, who've begun to hurl insults – and objects.

Cardiacs are used to hostility, having been on the road with the neo-prog giants since early November, but tonight is particularly vicious. Marillion frontman Fish, appalled at what he's seeing, feels compelled to intervene. He marches onto the stage and reprimands his own followers with: “If you don't like it, fuck off to the bar and let them get on with their set!”

“The people at the front really hated it; they were shouting over us,” recalls Cardiacs' then-keyboard player William D Drake. “But we were revelling in it. At one point someone spat at Sarah Smith, our saxophone player, so Tim kicked this guy in the mouth – absolutely perfectly in time to the music.

“Marillion's management ended up cancelling the last few [support] gigs. But afterwards we got lots of letters from people who were really into us, who'd discovered us on that tour. Fish was a big fan. He used to come and see us at the Marquee.”

Such a polarised reaction wasn't uncommon for Cardiacs. Their music tended to inspire either fervent devotion or intense loathing. For Cardiacs, nothing was off limits. Weird and experimental one moment, brash and excitable the next, with a fondness for tricky time signatures, they alchemised prog, punk, pop and psychedelia into a spectacular sound.

“When Cardiacs came along, I realised that's what I'd been looking for,” says Kavus Torabi, a disciple long before he joined as guitarist in 2003. “Seeing them live was kind of a scorched-earth thing. After that there was no going back to normal rock'n'roll.”