Hometown Heroes
I’ve been thinking about famous bands and artists from my hometown a bit recently (I’ll explain why later). When I say ‘hometown’, I mean the town that I live in at the moment, which is Carshalton. Or is it a village? That doesn’t matter for now. If I was talking about the definition of hometown meaning the place where I was born – Oxford – I could reel off a long and impressive list of bands from there, that would include Radiohead, Supergrass, Ride, Slowdive and Foals. If hometown means the town you grew up in – in my case Bexhill-on-sea – then the list would be much shorter, and consist of Keane and The Mobiles (what do you mean you’ve never heard of them?), although members of Slade and Bay City Rollers lived locally, supposedly.
And while we’re on the subject of Glam, that brings us nicely back to Carshalton, my current hometown, and Mud. Yes, Mud are the band who a lot of people will cite as being the most famous band or musical artist to hail from the town. In terms of records sold & ‘household name’ points then it’s hard to argue. Carl Cox was also from Carshalton, and in Club & DJ circles that name would carry a lot more weight than Les Gray & co. There have been others: The Merton Parkas were from Morden and may or may not have had a connection to Carshalton, and apparently Tracey Ullman lived in nearby Mitcham, but that isn’t Carshalton so now we’re stretching the point a little too far. According to the website AllMusic, the list of musical Carshalton luminaries also includes jazz pianist Jason Robello, classical composer Liz Lane, and fellow composer & musical polymath, David Hackbridge Johnson.
But there is one glaring omission from that list, well two actually: the brothers Tim and Jim Smith, the founder members of the band Cardiacs. I realise that they might not be a household name in the way that Mud are, but I would argue that their influence is just as big, if not bigger. I shouldn’t be at all surprised when somebody admits to never having heard of Cardiacs, but a small part of me always is – that same small part that can never quite believe that very few people seem to remember the 1970’s kids TV series ‘Issy Noho’, or didn’t realise that The Vapors big hit ‘Turning Japanese’ was actually about something quite rude – these things are so much a part of my knowledge and life experience that a tiny bit of my brain can’t compute that anyone else that lives on the same planet, in the same country even or, in the case of Cardiacs, the same town, hasn’t acquired that same knowledge. What that tiny bit of brain doesn’t acknowledge is that if it hadn’t been for a good friend of mine (thanks again Stu) introducing me to their music years ago, perhaps I might never have heard of them either.
Although they never achieved chart success, certainly not in the way that Mud did, they acquired a solid and passionate following in the late 1980’s, and their reputation has grown exponentially in the intervening years, prompting everyone from Dave Grohl, Blur and the aforementioned Radiohead & Supergrass to acknowledge their influence and genius, and in particular that of Cardiacs creative driving force, Tim Smith. Their music won’t be to everyone’s taste. It’s complicated, uplifting, chaotic, exhilarating, anthemic, unhinged. It is all of those things, sometimes all in the space of one track, and I think it’s safe to say that they didn’t write conventional pop songs, certainly not in the same mould as ‘Tiger Feet’ anyway. But I think everyone should give them a listen, at least just so that they know who they were and what they did, especially anyone who lives in, or hails from, Carshalton. So, I’ve added a few links at the bottom of the page by way of an introduction.
Anyway, now back to where we started: the reason I’ve been thinking about hometown bands is because I went to see Cardiacs on Sunday, for the first time since 2007. Tragically, Tim Smith fell ill in 2008 and passed away in 2020, having never fully recovered. Consequently, I never thought they would play another gig, but they re-united for some recent dates, now lead by Jim, in order to pay tribute to their leader and, bless them, they were great. I’ve written about Cardiacs before on this blog, and no doubt I will again. The majority of Carshalton’s residents won’t have heard of them, let alone be aware that they hail from their hometown, and learning that fact may not alter their lives in any way, but I think it’s nice to know that, in terms of popular music, there is more to Carshalton than Mud.
