Alan’s story:

In 1986, after showing me a video of Cardiacs performing Tarred and Feathered on ‘The Tube’, I was initially put off. Before I wrote them off as a bunch of piss-taking weirdos, my friend persuaded me to go see them perform a gig. We went to see them play at a pub in Walthamstow, and I was so amazingly impressed with what I witnessed that I became, at the time, to be one of their most avid fans.

I can recount seeing them some 30 plus times between that first fateful gig and about 1993(ish). Admittedly, the natural process of growing old and lazy has tarnished my reputation of being there for every gig I could possibly get to. I do, however, remain a huge fan.

Right, the point of my email is this: Some 22 years ago, my friend and I went to see Cardiacs play at a venue in Wood Green, London. From memory, I’m pretty sure that the venue was called ‘The Dog Club’. After arriving in Wood Green some 2-3 hours before the gig was due to start, we made our way to the venue, proudly wearing our Cardiacs t-shirts. We crossed paths with a bunch of people who gave us knowing looks of acknowledgement. After initially wondering ‘what was that about?’ we suddenly realised that these people were most of the members of the band!!! Being 17 years old and cringe-worthy, we double backed to catch up and introduce ourselves as Cardiacs ‘biggest fans’. Rather than being told to piss off, we got invited to the pub with them where we were allowed to buy Tim as many bottles of Grolsh as we could afford!!!

Now for the interesting bit: During out time at the pub, I managed to secure on a single piece of scrap paper, the autographs of every member of the Cardiacs at that time. This included:

Tim Smith, Jim Smith, Sarah Smith, Tim Quy, Bill Drake, Dominic Luckman, The Consultant and Miss Swift