The Special Garage Concerts

The three shows marked the replacement of Jon Poole (left, 1999) with Kavus Torabi (right, 2005)

Tim Smith hadn't felt comfortable making Cardiacs's early cassette albums public due to their rough sound, but due to the demand for the unavailable songs, the band made the decision to play and record the songs to create high quality versions and a unique concert experience.^[5] Prior to the shows, guitarist Jon Poole left Cardiacs due to a tight schedule with the Wildhearts. He was replaced by Kavus Torabi, who had been the band's guitar technician since the months before Sing to God (1996), as well as a member of Die Laughing and the Monsoon Bassoon.^[6] Shortly after joining the band in 2003, Torabi had to learn a number of songs from the band's early years for three shows at The Garage in London.^[7]

The line-up for the three shows was a four-piece of Tim Smith, Kavus Torabi, Jim Smith, and Bob Leith, with horns and keyboards provided through backing tracks.^[5] Though Smith brothers were the only members who had been present since the 1980s, the shows focused on period material, drawing heavily from the demos The Obvious Identity and Toy World and also including some previously unreleased tracks from that time period.^[6] Many of the tracks feature on The Seaside and Archive Cardiacs.^[8][7]

Torabi called learning the songs an interesting experience which had him find out a lot about himself.^[7] He compared the process to revising for an exam, and recalled that he forgot how to play roughly half of the pieces two weeks after the concerts.^[7][6] Tim Smith gave Torabi and Leith, who weren't around in the early days, a free rein to do what they wanted with the songs.^[7] The album was recorded over the three nights at The Garage in the autumn of 2003.^[9] Mike Quayle is credited for recording the album using the "SallyBirthdayHouse mobile recording unit", and James Larcombe for mastering it at Securisound.^[2]

The Special Garage Concerts album consists of the best takes capturing the three-night stand at The Garage: 35 songs recorded before 1984.^[5] It revamps nearly all of Cardiacs' material prior to A Little Man and a House and the Whole World Window (1988).^[10] Benac called the live performances of "Rock Around the Clock", "Dead Mouse", and particularly "Pilf", highlights of the album.^[11][12][13] The songs "An Ant", "Hello Mr Minnow", "Hopeless" and "Gloomy News" were audience favourites that had never been released.^[5] Before playing "An Ant", Tim has moments of fun interacting with Poole, who was in the audience that night.^[5][3]

Mike Vennart, writing for Prog in 2015, named "Let Alone My Plastic Doll" "an early example of Cardiacs’ more dramatic, epic moments; a style they’d eventually master to full effect with 'Dirty Boy'".^[14] The live version drones on further than on The Obvious Identity, stretching out the psychedelic feel that Tim produced with sustained notes and distortion.^[13] The Garage Concerts version of "A Game for Bertie's Party" is partially sung by drummer Bob Leith in what Venart described as "a deranged, most-likely drunk and haunting manner, giving way to more changeable prog runs and whimsical ska, punk sections sung by Tim".^[14] Benac noted how the version came across particularly harshly.^[15]

The two volumes were originally released separately on CD in 2005, and collected in a single edition in 2014, under the title The Special Garage Concerts.^[6]

Credits adapted from the liner notes of The Special Garage Concerts.^[2]

• Jim Smith – bass, vocals
• Tim Smith – guitar, main vocals
• Kavus Torabi – guitar, vocals
• Bob Leith – drums, vocal (Vol. 2)^[3]

Production

• Mike Quayle – recording
• James Larcombe – mastering

Quick facts Some Fairytales from the Rotten Shed, Directed by ...

Some Fairytales from the Rotten Shed
DVD cover
Directed by	Tim Smith
Produced by	Tim Smith
Edited by	Tim Smith Paul Morricone
Music by	Cardiacs
Production company	Alphabet Business Concern
Distributed by	The Consultant's Memorabilia Collection
Release date	7 September 2017 (2017-09-07)
Language	English

Close

A recording of the preparation sessions for the 2003 concerts held in the band's shabby rehearsal space was released in 2017 as Some Fairytales from the Rotten Shed.^[6] Filmed just prior to The Special Garage Concerts of 2003,^[8] it shows the band rehearsing for the show, playing and practising 15 of the show's 35 tracks, crammed into the tiny shack and constantly getting in each other's way. Benac noted that the bickering is likely staged or improvised to play into the band's mythology.^[5]

The moments Benac highlighted were Jim playing in his underwear while fighting for space against one of Leith's cymbals not in use, and Jim nailing soundproof padding with his microphone, causing Tim to storm off.^[5] Jim had first been made to wait outside in the rain;^[8] in one scene, a stoically deadpan Jim tries to put his lead back into his guitar with fuzzy crackles.^[17]

Clips of the footage surfaced online years before the complete footage was made available for the first time in 2017.^[8] The film received a cinema world premier in September 2018 as part of the prestigious Raindance Film Festival.^[18] Record Collector's Alun Hamnett noted the "excellent sound" of the DVD, the "surrealist vein running through the footage", and the pronounced psych, punk and prog influences throughout the earlier material, with "vocal harmonies that recall early Pink Floyd" on "hopeless" and "Icky Qualms" being "stuffed full of riotous energy".^[8] Chris Cope of Prog called the DVD "part musical genius, part oddball comedy" and said that it showcased the "now-dormant band’s penchant for prog-punk peculiarity [...] in fine form".^[19] He noted the "true sense of theatrical performance" and called Tim Smith an "absorbing presence" on several tracks musically and " also in his snarling looks and grumped-up, off-the-cuff snaps".^[19]