Adrian Bell (known to many as ‘Belch’) is the Cardiacs fan’s Cardiacs fan. His memoir ‘Aylesbury, Bolton, Wolverhampton, Hove: A Little Man and 101 Cardiacs Gigs‘ was published in 2011 and since then he’s gone on to host The Progressive Alternative radio show, sharing his love for progressive rock (and Cardiacs) with the airwaves. We’re chuffed to have Adrian sharing some of his tunes with us at the upcoming Kugelschreiber gig at the Dorothy Pax on Sat 25th January 2025.
Was The Progressive Alternative your first foray into radio? Tell us how the show came about.
It was indeed my first show. At the time I was between jobs, having been made redundant, and I was getting some support from an employment specialist who asked me what my ideal job would be. I said, ‘Well, I want to play professional football for Sheffield United and professional cricket for Yorkshire and England’! And she went, ‘Yeah, well, let’s just bring it down a little bit from that, shall we? What else after that?’ And I said, ‘it would be fun to do a radio show.’ And that was literally the first thing after those two ridiculous ones. And she said, ‘Okay, right, let’s have a look at that then.’
So we got contact details for all these local radio stations in Surrey and I contacted them all, Brooklands Radio got back to me and invited me along for an interview – it’s a community radio station so it was a voluntary thing. I went along and sold myself and they said what you need to do is learn the tricks of the studio, but also we need to find out whether you have got the sort of charisma to come across. So for six months they had me doing the traffic and weather every Friday afternoon.
As I got more and more used to it, and Graham (the station manager) started to trust me a little bit more, he got me involved in the segment where he read out funny stories from the local newspaper and would ask me for my opinions on air. He always used to have his hand on the fader though, just in case he ever needed to bring me down! But after six months, he said, ‘right, well, I think you’re ready’. So it was 2016 when I started doing traffic and weather, and then it was April 2017 when I did the first show, and tonight it will be Episode 392!
Almost 400 episodes, that’s incredible! Do you have any particular favourites or highlights?
Well, people do tend to notice that not only do I put a lot of effort into the actual music that I play, but I put a lot of effort into the accompanying Facebook event pictures and the titles as well. I spend an absolutely ridiculous amount of time trying to think of a funny title or a pun, a good old pun, but I think my favorite shows have been my concept shows.
At the start of lockdown, I did my Apocalypse special, which started with the theme tune from the 1970s BBC TV show Survivors, then went into the Four Horsemen by Aphrodite’s Child and so on. I was very proud of that one. But also my Christmas special that I do where I’ve got this old recording of A Christmas Carol, with Bernard Miles narrating and playing the part of Scrooge, interspersed with relevant music. So whenever the Cratchett family are doing the bit about the goose, I play Goosegash by Cardiacs – not Christmasy at all, but worth it? Then my segue where Marley’s ghost appears to Scrooge on Christmas Eve and all the bells start ringing in Scrooge’s house, I segue into Time by Pink Floyd.
Also there’s my World Cup and European Championship specials, where I set myself the ridiculous task of having every country represented. So yeah, trying to find a progressive or psychedelic rock band from every single country can be a challenge but I don’t skimp and I always find them. And I really, I really like those, because those have led me to some fantastic discoveries as well.
So what’s on your current list of artists or tunes that you’re really enjoying playing?
At the moment, I’d say Wizrd – not Roy Wood, but a Norwegian prog rock band. They sound a little bit like Yes, which equals winner, yeah? I’ve only just sort of started playing them in the last couple of weeks.
Also from the Euro 2024 special, my favorite discovery was Portugal’s representative, which was a guy called Luiz Speed. Oh, it’s insane. I don’t know anything about them. They’re on Bandcamp, at least their record label is but everything’s in Portuguese. And I’m not very good at Portuguese. It’s not, it’s not bonkers, like incredibly fast, stop, start, it’s just eccentric. And the guy, he doesn’t sing as such, he kind of narrates the words, all in Portuguese, very deep. A bit like the Necromancer by Rush from Caress of Steel. He does these quite short songs, and he does these 20 minute pieces, which are just utterly crazy, with these amazing guitar solos that come in, but all the time he’s sort of doing this, this very strange drawl kind of monologue. I haven’t a clue what it’s all about. Fantastic.
And then there’s Zenden Greenpurp. Haven’t played them for a while. They’re from Reading, I saw them live, and they just totally blew me away. It was actually Marina Organ that introduced me to them. She’s good like that, though, isn’t she? Marina has been introducing me to music since 1988 when I first met her and Sean, and they’re still doing it. Zenden Greenpurp are insane in that sort of flying-off-at-a-zillion-miles-an-hour way. But also what sold it for me was when I saw them live and Jack the singer just quoted a whole verse from The Cinema Show by Genesis. He didn’t know who was at the time, so he didn’t know, but I was jumping up and down!
Did you work out what your most played track of all time was?
I did, and that’s why I was a little bit late. It’s ‘Nurses Whispering Verses’ by Cardiacs, I’ve played it nine times. That doesn’t sound like much for 392 shows, but I’ve played most songs by Cardiacs about five times. I do consciously try not to play them sometimes, but if I’ve not played them for a couple of weeks.. it’s time.
Those nine are different though, it’s not all the same version. The one I’ve played most is the version from The Seaside, which is a favourite for me. The riff is never out of my head. Tim [Smith, from Cardiacs] once told me that the opening organ riff from Tarkus by Emerson Lake and Palmer was in his head permanently. If he were here now, bless him, I could tell him that actually, ever since he told me that, ‘Nurses Whispering Verses’ has been in my head, and he told me that in 1988!
I actually thought it was going to be ‘The Gates of Delerium’ by Yes. I’ve only played that five times but it is 22 minutes long, so maybe if you did it by the minute, yes, ‘Gates of Delirium’ might actually win.
Aside from your radio show, you have legendary status in the Pond. Not only have you been at pretty much every Cardiacs gig I have ever been to but, for a long while, you’d written the only book available about Cardiacs. How did the book come about and how do you feel about this new fancy schmanzy ‘official’ book?
So as you know, I’ve done a lot of hitchhiking in my time, and you meet a lot of people when you’re hitchhiking, you have a lot of adventures. And I think that you could divide out of all the hitchhiking I’ve done since 1984 through to the presentish day, it’s either been Stonehenge for summer solstice, going to watch Sheffield United play or going to Cardiacs gigs. And so I always figured that would make a trilogy of books, and I thought I’d do the Sheffield United one first, because I always thought football would be the most likely to get published. So I did that one in 2001 “Fever Hitch”
That was based on the 2000-1 season. I was a mature student, and I got a cheap season ticket. And I thought, I’ve got a season ticket. I’m living in London. I’m gonna have to do a lot of hitchhiking. And then I thought, well, actually, if I do it week by week and sort of go back in time with certain stories connected and all that, then yeah, there’s my book. So that’s what happened.
And then Kavus [Torabi, of Cardiacs] became a massive fan of it, which was wonderful. He told me that when Cardiacs were rehearsing, they used to sit in that tree house at Tim’s, all the rest of the band would be chatting and Kavus would be sitting there reading my book and and then when he found something funny or quotable in it, he’d read it out to the rest of the band. I just thought, oh, bloody hell, this is brilliant!
By 2006 I’d done 90 Cardiacs gigs, and then they announced that tour in 2007. Initially there were 10 dates, the Leeds one got added later on. And I thought, blimey, if I make all 10 that takes me up to 100 and then I thought, that works for the book – the 10 gigs that take me up to 100 with suitable flashbacks and what have you. So I texted Kavus and told him the idea, and he texted me back and said, ‘Oh! A la ‘Fever Hitch’?’ And I said, ‘Yes, that’s exactly it.’ And he ran it past Tim, who then called me when I was in the midst of doing overtime at Tesco putting Christmas decorations up with my colleague at the bottom of the ladder going ‘whoever that Tim is, get him off the phone cos you’re supposed to be working and I’m thinking ‘This is my all time musical hero. You don’t understand!’
After the tour, Tim said ‘ok, but I just need to read it first’. But of course, we didn’t know that the silly sod was going to get ill [for those that don’t know, Tim Smith had a heart attack and stroke in 2008 which left him paralysed and unable to speak]. So what actually happened was I sent the initial manuscript to John Daniel, first of all, who checked it over, and then he sent it on to Jim, and Jim read it a chapter at a time to Tim. And it took a year.
And then one night, I just got a message coming through, saying, ‘go ahead and publish with the boy’s blessing’.
It was brilliant to have the Sing to Tim gigs last year and have complete strangers coming up to me saying, ‘Oh, your book is just everything that I would want in a book about Cardiacs’ and other things like that. Even though it’s actually 13 and a half years since it was published, people are finally able to come up to me and shake me by the hand and tell me how much they’ve enjoyed it, which is great, because I spent 13 years thinking, was it all worth it?
And what do I think of the new Melodic Virtue book? Well, I haven’t seen it yet as the first one arrived as an empty box, but I think they’re trying to do different things. It’s like comparing Prog magazine to The Organ. My book, as well as featuring my little on-the-road tales, also every other chapter is about a fan and their journey into Cardiacs, but none of them are celebrities. Whereas this new one is testimonies from Mike Patton and Shane Embury and so it’s relevant, and I’m really interested, but it’s different. Am sure there’ll be some people who would read The Organ who would say, ‘I’m not going to read Prog magazine’ and some people that would read Prog magazine and think The Organ was a punk magazine, you know?
101 gigs is impressive. How many Cardiacs t-shirts have you got? Have you got a favourite?
Yeah, I really don’t know.. if you were to narrow it down to how many of them actually still fit me. I mean, I must have over 30. My favourite is one that I actually don’t wear anymore, because it’s pretty much falling to bits, but it’s got the best story behind it.
It was just after I’d had my Cardiacs tattoo done on my shoulder. I was at a Cardiacs gig at The Astoria with Pete Dee, and of course, I was talking about it, telling everybody I’ve got a Cardiacs tattoo. And, and somebody said, ‘Well, why aren’t you showing it off?’ And I says, ‘Well, because I ain’t got a sleeveless t shirt’. And Pete went, ’that’s no problem, I’ll remove the sleeves for you’. And I was like, right, okay, how are we going to do this?
And he got out his lighter. Now this was in the days before the smoking ban, you see, and he burnt off my two sleeves on either side. But the funny thing was, as the sleeve was flaming away – I’m still wearing the shirt at the time – he lit his cigarette off it. I mean, I don’t know how I remained so calm, but he lit his cigarette off it, and then, sort of patted it out, and then was able to remove it easily, because he’d burnt all round the seam, and then he did the other side.
That’s probably the one I’ve worn the most – I wore it for so many gigs, just because it showed up my tattoo and the accompanying story with Pete. Pete lighting his cigarette off my flaming shoulder is a wonderful thing!
You’re Sheffield, born and bred, but not lived here for a while, is that right? What were the venues and hangout spots that were worth their salt in your time?
That’s right, I moved away in 1988 which is ridiculous, right? So, one of the best hangouts is still there – The Leadmill – yeah, I went to loads of gigs there, but also, there were all the little venues like The Hallamshire, the George IV – Haze would always play weekly somewhere, either the George or the Hallamshire or Leadmill or wherever.
So our classic Friday night out when we were 18 or 19 was to go to the Yorkshireman’s Arms first, which was generally accepted as being one of the rock pubs, then we’d go just around the corner to the Wapentake, yeah, both of these now completely gone. Then, when the Wap chucked out, there was a bar across the road called Henry’s, and this was the divide between me and my sister, she’d always be making sure that her friends were looking the other way when we’d all pile out of the Wap, just in case she saw me wave to her, and then we would go off to Rebels nightclub, which was on Dixon lane, where we’d stay until we got chucked out of there at two in the morning. And if we were really lucky, there was one Indian takeaway called Jannath that used to be open pretty much all night. So that was our Friday night – Yorkie, Wap, Rebels, Jannath, nice.
If you could pick like your favorite gig you’ve ever been to in Sheffield, what would it be?
Despite seeing Cardiacs in Sheffield on three different occasions, I still think that Hawkwind at the Octagon Centre in 1984. It was absolutely brilliant. Prior to that, I’d only ever seen them at Sheffield City Hall, which is seated with circle and balcony and all that, whereas at the Octagon, all the seats had been moved away. For atmosphere and everything that would take a lot of beating.
We’re really excited to be able to get you involved in something and have you come and play some records for us on the 25th Jan, have you got any teasers for what people might expect?
Well actually, I’ll be up for the football on the Friday night, we’re playing Hull City, which is a funny coincidence cos Sharron [Fortnam, from Kugelschreiber] is also from Hull. Maybe we could do a reenactment of the game at the gig…
I was talking to a guy at work who listens to my radio show each week. He said, you want people to dance? And I said, ‘Yeah, I know that’s a bit of a problem, because about 70% of my record collection is some of the most undanceable music known to man’, but I said, ‘I think I’ve got enough amongst the other 30% to get away with it’. I know, you’ve got people coming that like to dance to undanceable music, I’m one of those people myself. I mean, I’ve danced to King Crimson, which is a job in itself.
So I’ve been sort of putting it together, a bit like I put my show together on iTunes first of all, and shuffle it around to make sure it all fits well together. There’s stuff like Astralasia and Ozrics, Nik Turner’s Inner City Unit, bit of a festie groove going on there. I will have to play some Cardiacs at some point. The night’s called Buds & Spawn. It’d be rude not to really, wouldn’t it?
Final question from our Frank (Wilkes) – who should Sheffield United bring in during the transfer window?
Hahaha, I thought he was going to ask me a music question. Ben Brereton Diaz from Southampton. We had him on loan last season. There’s a few other names that have surfaced, including somebody whose second name is Barry, who’s been banging them in for Stockport on loan. I think he’s from Liverpool. But yeah, Ben Brereton Diaz will be our signing. Hopefully.
You can catch Adrian every Tuesday evening from 10pm on midnight on Brooklands Radio on DAB or online, and you can catch up with previous shows on his Mixcloud site.
https://www.brooklandsradio.co.uk/progressivealternative.html
https://www.mixcloud.com/belch1889
Adrian Bell will be DJing for Buds & Spawn on Saturday 25th January 2025 at The Dorothy Pax, alongside a live performance from Kugelschreiber.
This gig is FREE ENTRY, but please come prepared to put your hands in your pockets to show your appreciation at the end.