OzTrax - She's The One For Me Music DVD Underappreciated…Glenn Cardier Glenn Cardier and the Sideshow Live At Lizotte’s Extras Interview, CD of concert Greg Hassall (The Guide, SMH 5/10/09) The music industry is a fickle business and few have felt its cold shoulder more emphatically than singer-songwriter Glenn Cardier. He had brief success in the early 70’s with intelligent, delicate songs that suggested a cross between Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits. As the decade went on he toured with Spike Milligan, had a song covered by Olivia Newton-John and, improbably, wrote the B-side to the 1978 novelty hit C’mon Aussie C’mon. By the early 80’s he was reduced to playing suburban pubs and a video from around that time casts him unconvincingly as Australia’s answer to Elvis Costello. Then he gave it all away. More than 25 years passed before he picked up a guitar again. Over the past decade he has released three albums and it is songs from these that feature in this superbly recorded live gig. Backed by a crack band, Cardier gives full vent to his gruff, bluesy side in songs such as Asylum Blues and Shing-A-Ling. But his introspective, Cohen-esque side is also in evidence on songs such as She Flew Away and Invisible Ink, which he performs more or less unaccompanied. Of perhaps greater interest than the live concert is the interview with Glenn A Baker that appears in the extras. With live snippets of songs from across his career and a wealth of archival material, it places Cardier in context and finally gives him the recognition he deserves. Glenn A Baker, Author/Rock Historian With captivating presence, a commanding vocal style and a gloriously perverse point of view that produces songs which take firm hold and linger long, he comes dangerously close to being certified as a national treasure.' Bruce Elder, Sydney Morning Herald 5/4/08 Glenn Cardier has been around on the edges of the mainstream Australian music scene since the early 1970’s when he worked mainly in the folk circuit. Over the years he has gravitated towards the blues and found his own very distinctive mode of gruff delivery. With Exiles From Eden he has delivered his best album ever. Good lyrics, interesting and original music, simple but effective arrangements. It is characterized by some of the finest songwriting this country has produced. Life Of The Party is a haunting, menacing tour de force. Angelica is one of the most interesting R&B compositions you’ll hear anywhere - very unusual and very clever. Watch Out (Love Gonna Getcha) is so delightfully swampy it could be covered by Tony Joe White and Invisible Ink is a magical ballad that lyrically draws a clever parallel between kids’ games and adult secrets. This is a very good album from a musician who has followed his own original muse without compromise. Anthony O’Grady (Weekend Australian) 12/1/2008 Glenn Cardier was a leading light of Australia’s early 1970s folk scene. He made two acoustic albums, did the wine bar uni circuit and played Sunbury twice. He used to be very confessional, sometimes uncomfortably so. What kept me listening was his mellifluous timbre and his wry, observant rhymes. He was a long-term opening act for comedian Spike Milligan and his music had more than a tinge of Milligan’s brilliant mania. These days, Cardier can get gruff with the blues but hasn’t lost his silken acoustic touch. His music is rootsy blues and folk, now beefed up by power chords. His delivery is chanson, European style of declamation where emotion is enunciated with savoir faire. On Exiles From Eden he’s both vulnerable and tensile - open to life, with a wary eye for storm clouds on the horizon. Flash Guitar is an unsentimental story of a long-time love affair with music, Watch Out is growling swamp blues, Uncharted Waters is a gentle love song, and She’s The One For Me has the album’s most playful and delightful rhyme: “ghetto, falsetto, Rigoletto”. Keth Glass (Capital News Magazine) March 2008 From the lost love reminiscence of opener and title track Exiles From Eden to the surprise happy ending of Flash Guitar there is plenty here to sustain interest. Glenn should be trumpeted as one of our finest, an original and a craftsman of the highest order. I don’t see any such awards flowing his way but maybe the work is compensation enough. That is the way it should be for this quiet achiever - only make a big noise on disc. Don’t worry Glenn, they will come. Lee Howard SUNDAY HERALD SUN Edition 1 – FIRST SUN 03 NOV 2002 In short//Rattling yarns Glenn Cardier possesses a warm, worn voice that is at once familiar and elusive. His music probably best reflects the styling and singing of Englishman Chris Rea. But where Rea is more concerned with issues at the heart of pop music, Cardier is drawing the listener into his story-driven songs. Titles such as Ringmaster Blues, Rust in the Tailfin and Sideshow Alley give fair indication that he casts his eye wide for topics. But then story songs need a sound basis for drama, power and humour. At the end of the 14 songs, the abiding question is: Where has this bloke been? The album is available from Fantastique Productions, PO Box 145, Brooklyn, NSW. Glenn Cardier plays Troubadour Weekend, at Campaspe Downs, November 15-17. Keith Glass Review of ‘Rattle The Cage’ Rhythms Magazine 2002 I guess people have to have heard of you in the first place to fall into the ‘whatever happened to’ category, but for a while in the 1970’s Cardier was a highly respected tunesmith. In Australia, unfortunately we didn’t value the song or writer all that much back then, and so he hasn’t so much come back as resurfaced. His forte is slightly, delightfully off-centre songs that owe more to Tom Waits or Captain Beefheart than traditional folk sources. Yet he knows how to make this palatable to those who might find such comparisons scary, so that the bluesy ‘Rust In The Tailfin’ or romping ‘Shing-A-Ling’ are just joyful , swampy groove pieces. ‘Love Song’ on the other hand, is a sensitive finger-picking muse on the mysteries of love, with some great lyrical work. On the 14 tracks, only two side-persons are listed - on cello and accordion - so the thumping drums and gritty electric guitar must be Cardier, along with some excellent slide and acoustic guitar. Fine work all around. ….. Keith Glass 4 stars In short: Razor sharp, state of the art and cut to size. Those with long memories might remember Cardier from the flowering of Australian singer-songwriters in the ‘70s. The more astute may have even noted his return via an interesting album of a few years back. On this new release Glenn doesn’t need such nostalgia. He is a man firmly embracing the new millennium with astounding electronically generated rhythmic bursts. A collage of keyboards and guitars mix with his biting vocal delivery and offbeat lyrics. Think John Hiatt or Captain Beefheart taken to the cutting edge. This is a triumphant, completely solo project deserving a bigger audience. But Cardier is near media-invisible. Lucky for him it is a worldwide wilderness punctuated by safer harbours negotiable with the new media we have at our fingertips. Sound bites online from this 10 original song CD should find the audience he so richly deserves. Bernie Howitt I’ve been hanging on to this one for quite a while before writing about it. If you’re going to unleash a barrel of superlatives, you want to think about it first. I’ve listened to this in all sorts of situations: driving, reflecting, working. I once even tried to have it on in the background, but that’s a path fraught with danger. This music is so compelling it demands that you listen. There’s nothing casual about the album, and if you just try to have it on quietly to hum along to, it grabs you by the throat and makes you pay attention. After listening to “Exiles From Eden” a lot, I think it just may be the best Australian release this century. Certainly if you’re adult, appreciate rock’s rich heritage and understand that music is about an array of emotions, experiences and opportunities. Put simply this is an essential album if you’re serious about music. Opening with the title track, the underlying themes are established early. This is an album of reflection, of paths taken and paths ignored. It is a tribute to life that could only be written with a wealth of experience behind you. No twenty year old is going to understand that “if it falls apart…them’s the breaks”. Underpinning that understanding is the affirmation that when all is said and done, life is a positive. We all come to a place where all shall be forgiven. If you’ve ever reflected on those big questions of life at 2am, you’ll understand that we are all exiles from Eden. “Angelica” is a call to arms after the pensive opening. Cardier’s call to “let the festivities begin, let the craziness commence” is the perfect set up to the rest of the album. With a hurrumpa tum beat driving the song forward, Cardier’s vocal moves from his patented growl through to moments of real tenderness as he addresses his sweet Angelica directly. As his guitar work swirls and drives; two songs in and I’ll be surprised if you’re not already hooked. To these ears “Cold Out There” is perhaps the best song on the album. Cardier juxtaposes a scene outside that’s “colder than it’s ever been”, with an interior where there’s a fire roaring to keep you safe. It captures the album in a song: no matter how bad life seems, no matter how desperate the circumstances, there’s always our sense of belief that can pull us through. The melody stays with you, finding that place in your brain where all memorable moments eventually come to stay. With a mini “wall of sound” highlighted by the introduction of keyboards, this is a song that enters your head and your heart. Love emerges as the ultimate redemptive force on this tour of the human condition, and Cardier rumbles a smiling warning to “Watch Out (Love Gonna Getcha)”. This is the sound aficionados will recognise from the previous two albums. There’s all the confusion and excitement of falling in love, a warning of what it can do to you, but ultimately when that meteor called love hits you, it “give the big, bad world a rosy glow”. If you’ve been with Cardier since the 1970’s, you will be well aware of his capacity to write songs of such tenderness and sensitivity that in a just world they’d be on constant rotation on every romantic radio station in the world. “Invisible Ink” is the latest, and deserves to be acclaimed as a classic. I have heard this performed live, and it had a dramatic impact. The audience, hearing it for the very first time, were absolutely spellbound. There was a stunned silence as the song finished, no one daring to breathe in case the spell was broken. On disc, it reaches through the speakers and grabs you by the heart. Once heard, instantly loved. There’s obviously been a lot of thought gone into the sequencing of “Exiles From Eden”. Just as “Invisible Ink” has you starting to melt, “Drive That Car” brings back the rockin’ good ol’ boy with his guitar slung low, just ready to rock, and kick a little ass if necessary. We all dream of escaping to “who the hell knows where”, and Cardier lets us join him in his fuel driven romp. The real world is kept at bay in “Life Of The Party”. The redemptive power of love becomes the means to “live it up like there’s no tomorrow”. Tender, hopeful and beautifully sung, “Life Of The Party” is a glimpse into our secret desires as we dream of that perfect relationship that will enable us all to experience “a love that will last forever and ever”. “Flash Guitar” is the story song Cardier has always excelled in. In less sensitive hands this would’ve been a grumpy old man story, but Cardier has a lot more class than that. Telling the story of the discovery, loss and rediscovery of his “flash guitar”, he could’ve simply turned it into a nostalgic romp. With the single line, “I had a big old stupid grin”, he instead creates the universal joy of capturing the lightning of a past memory in a bottle. “Water Into Wine” swaggers along with a grunt that makes “Uncharted Waters” seem all the more vulnerable. That heart wrenching moment of self doubt as you find yourself falling into a new relationship is captured perfectly in “Uncharted Waters”. Is a human ever more vulnerable than at that moment when they’re playing the possibilities out in their head? This song takes you exactly there, when you simply “want to gaze into your eyes and never wonder why…” The dream that keeps us all living. The tenderness and humanity Cardier finds in “Uncharted Waters” helps sustain him when “you come undone”. That’s the time to “Face The Day”, and eleven tracks in we’re all as ready as we’ll ever be. There’s an optimism that shines through the doubts, and when you meet the object of his desire in “She’s The One For Me”, you can celebrate the joy and laughter as she dances on the table. The frailties of self doubt aren’t quite conquered as there’s still a need to “Catch Me If I Fall”. The album is a human story, and you know he really means it when he sings, “I promise not to break the promises I make”, but you also know that he needs his love to “get me off my knees, lean me up against the wall”. By the album reaches a conclusion the jury’s still out. Redemption or the path to hell? If you’ve lived life to the full, then love is redemptive, and ultimately “All’s Well (That Ends Well)”. This is the perfect closer to an album that is powerfully and unashamedly emotional. “Exiles From Eden” is a great album for a number of reasons. Cardier has never played, sang or written better, and that in itself is really saying something. More importantly, he has crafted an album that is cohesive, compelling and utterly captivating. He lets you inside his head and his heart. It is that dazzling combination of intellect and emotion that helps make this a truly great album rather than a collection of wonderful songs. And after listening to it in so many places, where is the best? A comfortable chair in front of a fire on a winter’s eve has its claims, but if you really want to feel the impact of “Exiles From Eden” play it loud on a lonely, moonwashed and misty night, driving a country road with a hint of menace lurking just outside the arc of your headlights. You’ll never forget it. Michael Beaumont 2NSB FM 99.3 Glenn Cardier Rattle the Cage. I dont review albums I dont like. So if you have scanned down the list and noticed the comments are largely favourable, that's why. However, that does make it tough to let you know when something really special arrives. Glenn Cardier is a long time musical hero of mine. It was his song 'Lovers Alias Fools' many years ago that motivated me to play music. So I owe him a debt of gratitude that I will never be able to repay. His album Rattle the Cage is magic. I have had it on my headphones for a week now and each listen gives me a new thrill. This is a world class singer-songwriter at his strongest. A strength that only seasoned performers and seasoned writers are capable of. His voice is not too far away from Tom Waits with a bit of Chris Smither. His song 'She Flew Away' was an instant favourite and I will enjoy playing 'Close encounter with a UFO' for years to come. THANKS GLENN. Danny Drew “A Follow-up That Won’t Disappoint” I can’t help but feel there is a bit of Spike Milligan in Glenn Cardier’s new album House Of Mirrors. This new 10-track CD, containing all original material, journeys through moods of melancholy and joy, freedom and confinement and hope and despair. Track seven Mr Happy was even inspired by Milligan, a brilliant comic and one of the original Goons, whom Cardier toured with for six months in the 1980’s. Milligan was a man who felt the highs and lows, personally and professionally and there are certainly traces of that all through the House Of Mirrors CD. Cardier has fond memories of Milligan saying: ‘He was very gracious and very good to me.’ Of Mr Happy, Cardier said: ‘The song is about humour and how it works on different levels.’ Notwithstanding any Milligan influence, House Of Mirrors has the trademark gravely voice, echoing somewhat of Tom Waits, and the lyrics are definitely signatures of Cardier. The imagery of dance is also prominent through the album in songs of love lost, found or yearned for. In the cover photo you can also see a reflection in Cardier’s dark glasses of an elegant dancing couple. House Of Mirrors also reflects Cardier’s willingness to embrace electronica in his music with some thumping, bustling rhythms. Cardier picks up the pace with the rollicking Wild In The Summertime, which has a happy-go-lucky, back-to-the-70’s beat and Asylum Blues, which has a similar up-tempo rhythm, admittedly with a vastly different lyrical content. This album is the second in the rebirth of this renowned guitarist, vocalist and writer. Cardier’s Territory fan base can take some of the credit for sparking his enthusiasm to tour and record on a wider scale. His 2003 shows at the Groove in Nightcliff sold out and on that basis ABC Radio made his comeback Rattle The Cage their CD of the week. It took off and the ABC was inundated with people wanting to know more about the CD. Cardier’s fans certainly won’t be disappointed with his follow-up effort. House Of Mirrors is an Elbow Room production. All songs were written, performed and produced by Glenn Cardier. Darwin fans can get a taste of Glenn Cardier’s new material, as well as plenty of old favourites, when he performs live as a headline act at the Nightcliff Seabreeze Festival in May. Chris Spencer Glenn Cardier - Still Upbeat Last year, when I reviewed a "comeback" CD of Glenn Cardier's, I was enthusiastic about his talents, his gravelly voice and his new direction.
Late last year he released another album, as a follow up and the results are just as good. Mike Daly Glenn Cardier: there's a blast from the past, although the name will be familiar to baby boomer folk who used to frequent the Troubadour music restaurant in Brunswick St, Fitzroy from 1978 to 1990. This weekend the Troubadour turns 25 and Cardier is one of a host of musicians, both familiar and emerging, helping celebrate the occasion. Cardier is an interesting character, a gravelly voiced singer with a stinging guitar technique and a resume that ranges from Sunbury appearances to tours with Frank Zappa, Fairport Convention and Spike Milligan. Now based on the NSW Central Coast, he has recently released the self-produced 'Rattle The Cage'. a feisty CD that deserves a far wider airing than much of the commercial pap filling radio time today. The 14 tracks are originals, ranging from the bar-room electric boogie of Ringmaster Blues to a touch of Berlin cabaret on the bittersweet acoustic solo Sideshow Alley. The perceptive Wouldn't Wanna Change A Thing and rueful She Flew Away remind me of John Prine. Cardier shares Prine's ability to distill personal emotions with a sense of self-deprecatiing humour. Bill Holdsworth There was a time when Brisbane singer-songwriter Glenn Cardier looked like making it big. But despite being regarded by some critics as one of the great originals of Australian music, along with a handful of albums in the seventies and an extensive stay in Britain, it was not to be - he went into limbo for a long time (actually, he went to Sydney). This is his first recording in over twenty years, but his trademark combination of incisive observation and skewed wit is still intact here, wrapped in a blues-infused rock that shows off his seasoned voice. The years have made his voice gruffer and occasionally craggier but he hasn’ t lost his knack of juggling a genuinely sensitive moment with one that raises a wry smile. So, on one hand, you get the moving simplicity of Love Song. But then, on the other, there’s the swampy stomp of Rust In The Tailfin and the 50’s-ish rock romp of Shing-A-Ling. Next (we’re up to three hands now), his humour shifts into gear for Close Encounter (With A UFO). Then it’s back to a touching but uplifting lilt about an escape from loneliness in She Flew Away. Meanwhile, a cut like Hawaiian Sands, running on drum machine, muted keyboards and spangly but stately guitar sounds both nostalgic and sardonic. It’s been a long time between drinks, but Cardier shows here why some think so highly of him. |
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