[MIS] NEWS AND INFORMATION – SUN 24TH SEP – SAT 30TH SEP ’00
IN THIS ISSUE ... 1 - THE EDITOR WRITES - Latest news and information in brief 2 - MORE MADNESS AT THE BEEB - Following on from last week's excellent `Young Guns` programme featuring Madness, the BBC have very kindly uploaded some extra footage to their website, which didn't make it to the final product. 3 - MADSTOCK 3 NEVER HAPPENED - Hot on the heels of the recent `Young Guns` documentary, Peter Gardner gives us his views on the long awaited BBC programme. 4 - THE DODGY GEEZER LIST - Many of us have swapped or bought Madness items from people who we have either got in contact with over the internet or through a classified advert. The majority of transactions have gone through as smooth as you could wish for, but on the odd occasion goods have not turned up... 5 - THE LONE REVIEWER - Suggs makes sure that his debut solo album gets some praise. He reviews it himself! Taken from issue 4 of that excellent Madzine - `Madness Unsugged`. 6 - TIME - Thanks and closing words. [1] - THE EDITOR WRITES After months of waiting. the long awaited BBC documentary, `Young Guns`, featuring Madness was finally aired last week. Since then, the online Madness fanbase seem to have gone into overdrive with views, comments and general analysis of the show. I've been reading some excellent review of the programme from a great many people over the last few days, with the legendary Peter Gardner (amongst others) making some really interesting comments indeed. You can find Peters views elsewhere in this issue. >From the posts I've been reading, it seems that the majority of you enjoyed the show (one or two glaring errors aside!) but felt that that it needed a bit more depth. 40 minutes just didn't seem long enough to chart the progress of Madness from their birth, up to the present day. Still, looking on the bright side, it's not every day we have an entire programme dedicated to Camden's finest is it? One thing I was pleased to see was right at the top of the end credits, the BBC gave special thanks to Chris Carter-Pegg who I know loaned the majority of his collection to the production team to aid them in the making of the program, and was interviewed on a number of occasions, but the footage unfortunately didn't make it into the documentary. Well done Chris! Onto some news now, and the legendary Mr Smash reports that there is indeed some Madness activity going on as we speak. Here's Cathal with the details; "We have begun working on a Madness Musical and it will take some time to develop, but I know I can say that this is something we have wanted to do for ages, and I am sure that we are brimming full of ideas and enthusiasm for it. So that's going to be one we can sink our collective teeth into". Sounds like things are in the very early stages at the moment, but as soon as any further details are announced, I'll be sure to print them in a subsequent edition of the MIS. Many thanks to Cathal for keeping us all up-to-date. Much appreciated! I'm sure the majority of you Maddies in the UK can't have failed to watch at least one programme of `Who Wants to be a Millionaire`, hosted by ex Tiswas presenter, Chris Tarrant, but did anyone catch the Madness question the other evening? Here's Simon Roberts; "On 'Who wants to be a millionaire' on ITV: 'which band has a lead singer named 'Suggs' ? (choice of four answers-) The contestant got it right! 'It's Madness Chris!' 'Right Answer for £8,000!' Chris Tarrant quipped ' Hehehe- I cant see Suggsy fronting Culture Club! hehehhe ' (exact phrase!!!)" Thanks go to Simon for spotting this one. Before we get underway with this weeks collection of articles, a quick reminder that if you've not secured tickets for the Crunch gig in Highbury on October 14th, you really should start to think about getting some ordered. I've found that the easiest way to do this is via the Ticketmaster website which can be reached at: http://www.ticketmaster.co.uk Simply find the gig you're looking for (in this case, Crunch) and enter your name, address and credit card details. Service is very fast, and tickets should be with you within a few days. This looks to be one gig you really do not want to miss, so plug in that modem and get on the website right away. Hope to see some of you there. All the best, Robert Hazelby (MIS Online Editor) [2] - MORE MADNESS AT THE BEEB Following on from last week's excellent `Young Guns` programme featuring Madness, the BBC have very kindly uploaded some extra footage to their website, which didn't make it to the final product. To get straight to the video clips, simply click on the link shown below... http://www.bbc.co.uk/youngguns/madness/extra_interviews.shtml Here's what the pages say... EXTRA, EXTRA - bits you won't see on the telly.... MIKE BARSON was one of the founding members of Madness. In this extra footage he talks about getting the band going, his influences and what he did to make it work. Mike says the part he enjoyed the most was getting Madness started, "coming up from down under" and officially blowing The Pretenders off stage at one gig. Mike always had the confidence that Madness would make it, they were good, they were unique and they were under 65. They had to convince people that a bunch of white guys could play reggae and Mike was really inspired by Elvis Costello's Watching the Detectives, music that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. After the punk era came New Wave, music became accessible to all, you didn't have to be a brilliant musician. In fact, Mike turned a saxophone player away for being too good. Madness was about variety and spontaneity. Mike quickly changed his tune, and with his help the rest of the band soon mastered their instruments - including Chris. SUGGS How did Suggs and the others feel when Mike Barson decided to leave Madness? How and why did the band carry on? Suggs talks frankly about Mike's leaving and the effect it had on him and the rest of the band. Suggs admits that although sad, subconsciously, Mike leaving the band was quite a relief for him. Madness had lost its sparkle and he was enjoying it less and less, he hoped that Mike's departure would signal a break for the band. Some of the other members felt bitter and thought this would spell the end for Madness. Communication within the band had broken down and rather than saying that it was time to call it quits the remaining members continued along the Madness treadmill. The continuous touring and album releases became boring, they tried to spice up the band by adding more members. But it was a futile attempt at keeping the band alive - the fun had gone. But Suggs remained positive, believing that when things go wrong it can lead you in a direction you wouldn't normally take. The loss of opportunities through Mike's departure, such as a scheduled TV programme, drove Suggs on hoping that it would force a change - with hindsight he believes that the band should have split up at that point. They didn't though, they stumbled on and remained successful. Suggs remembers the moment he'd had enough and that it was the end of Madness. In desperation to regain his life and individuality Suggs decided to call time on Madness, it was 1986 and he was 25 years old. Madness released 'Wonderful', an album of new material in 1999, although it wasn't a financial success. The future for Madness remains unsure and singer Suggs now has a career in presenting on both radio and television. Many thanks to Vince Foley for pointing me in the direction of this little lot. [3] - MADSTOCK 3 NEVER HAPPENED Hello all in Virtual Maddieland, I was quite disappointed in the whole tone of the show. The interviews with the band were great. It was brilliant to hear the honest feelings regarding the split and the resurfacing as THE Madness. It made it all the more remarkable to think that was all put behind them 4 years later when they rediscovered the true magic of Madness at Finsbury. But back to the show. First off, major reeespect to our fellow Maddie Chris Carter-Pegg for getting a big thanks in the credits. As Vince said, this man is unbelievable. A walking treasure trove of Madness facts, figures and goodies. I owe him big time for selling me my prized picture disc of "Michael Caine". Those that were in the Dublin Castle that day in 1998 know how much it meant to me. So come on Chris, tell us what a buzz you got out of helping them out with the programme;-) However I felt the show didn't do Madness justice basically. Other than the band interviews it was very "Dragnet" in style. Just the facts. Very Joe Friday! And some of the facts were a bit out at that! As mentioned, Madstock 3 never happened according to the show. Had I dreamt that I was there? I don't think so. Nightmare, maybe, as I was surrounded by thousands of English folk singing "Three Lions" continuously for an hour (or was it ten hours?;-)). Personally I'd rather have seen another half hour from the Mike Flowers Pops, who do some mean cover versions! Also, according to the show, in three years Madness recorded 16 hits and 5 albums!!!??? Are you sure? I know they were prolific but that's going a bit far. "Complete Madness" wasn't really "recorded" as such, was it? And "Tomorrow's Just Another Day" was hit no. 15. But now I'm beginning to get a bit Statto-like. But I felt the whole show played down how brilliant Madness were, and still are. It was all so superficial. It didn't even begin to scratch the surface to find out what made them so brilliant and what made so many people love them so much. Even that guest interview with the journalist, Adrian Thrills! It didn't seem to me that he really GOT them. I don't expect them to interview a bunch of fanatical nutters like ourselves but they could have found some celebs who could sound enthusiastic about what Madness have done over the years, don't you think? I watched the episode on Spandau Ballet two weeks ago and they seemed to really bum them up to be a far bigger band than they actually were. They went on about Spandau dominating the charts throughout the early 80s. Bollox! They dominated the charts for a whole TWO singles in the summer of 1983 when they hit No. 1 with "True" and No.2 with "Gold". And they made out that they had a continual battle with Duran Duran. Utter bollox! This was no competition. Duran shat on Spandau from a very great height. I remember how amazing it was that they went straight in at No.1 in 1983 with "Is there Something I Should Know". That was a remarkable thing in those days. Only The Jam ever did it, but they were strange in that they went straight to No.1 or struggled to make the top 10! I digress. So having seen how Spandau were bummed up I felt they certainly played down Madness' success last night. Stuff like being the first act ever to have top 20 hits with all of their first 20 singles, spending more weeks on the singles chart than any other band in the 80s, having the No.1 single, album and video all in the same week in 1982, the phenomenal success of "Divine Madness" 10 years later, the incredible return to the top 10 in 1999 with "Lovestruck". That gave me as much joy and pride as "House Of Fun" getting to No.1, but last night all they said was they released an album called "Wonderful" but the singles, while classic Madness, didn't set the charts alight! Outside of the words from THE BAND, my favourite other bit was down to that canny Scottish seismologist;-) I loved her story of how the police phoned up with all the stories of an earthquake in North London in August 1992 and she took the measurements and told them she thought it was because of the Madness concert in Finsbury Park. The police thought she was talking garbage until the same thing happened again the next evening. The police called back and said she might have been right!;-) I also found it amusing when they were discussing Mike leaving. Could Suggs *use* any more words to say "Well we were mates first and foremost, so we could accept his decision"???;-) Ranting over. Sorry for the negativity, but I just felt the show wasn't as great as a show about the greatest band that ever lived *should* have been. There have been plenty shows over the years fawning over The Beatles and what "geniuses" (or should that be "genii"?;-)) they were, which I've never quite seen, frankly. Last night was the chance to honour real genius and the magic of Madness, but they failed to hit the mark IMHO. Cheers for now, Peter Gardner [4] - THE DODGY GEEZER LIST Many of us have swapped or bought Madness items from people who we have either got in contact with over the internet or through a classified advert. The majority of transactions have gone through as smooth as you could wish for, but on the odd occasion goods have not turned up, the cheque has been cashed, and the person no longer replies to your communications. For those of you who regularly use that online car boot sale, `Ebay`, will know, you can see how reliable a buyer or seller is by looking at his/her feedback comments. At present, there's nothing like this for the Madness community to go by. Here's John Lawrence; "I just wonder whether someone somewhere, official or not, should keep a record of such people - perhaps a 'dodgy geeza' list as well as a 'decent dude' list where such experiences could be noted. No more than that. Then anyone could check the list before trading with an unknown individual, and decide how to proceed. We all know about the bloke from Bolton, and on the other side I could put a few names forward for decent dudes with whom I've done business with no problems. As others put forward other stories, again good or bad, you'd soon build up a decent list. I think all maddies would find this a really useful service. Any thoughts??" Well, it certainly sounds like an excellent idea to me. If you are interested in such a service, please get in touch with John at the following address: john_lawrence at lineone.net so that we can see if it's worthwhile setting a system like this up. Now, would someone be willing to put in the time and effort to host and keep a service like this up to date? I'm sure all Maddies would welcome a service like this. Robert Hazelby [5] - THE LONE REVIEWER Suggs makes sure that his debut solo album gets some praise. He reviews it himself! The Lone Ranger is an old dub reggae song that I've always liked. CAMDEN TOWN I wrote Camden Town sitting outside a bar in Camden Town and obviously I was aware of all the talk about Camden Town and it just struck me that it's somewhere I've lived for about twenty years and it's somewhere I hadn't written about. I did the first half of the album on my own, as in the production of it. You have to go in and tell yourself you're out of tune and then tell yourself to bugger off and then go back in and tell yourself "Don't speak to me like that, I'm the producer". "Well, I'm the singer." ALCOHOL This is a song called `Alcohol`, strange mysterious substance, it's a stranger to me, anyway, I've heard it's very popular. There's a line in it that says "I come from a long line whose only fear is closing time", which is true. I came from a long line of people embroiled in the demon alcohol. Actually, it was a very difficult song to write. The thing about getting drunk is that you can't remember much the next day, so I could just remember about one line. There's about sixty lines in that song so it took me about sixty nights out. That's how much it cost me. Imagine how many brain cells I had to lose, to sacrifice for my art. I had finished the song pretty much and then one time I was playing it, I suddenly heard the tune from the song `Tequila` fitting in which is an old instrumental by The Champions. HAUNTED "Haunted" is one that I really did write a long time ago, about four years ago. "Haunted", funnily enough, is about "Camden Town" as well, the other side of Camden Town. It's about the homelessness of Camden Town and that is one thing about Camden Town that has changed dramatically. Every doorway is full of people who are homeless and I love all this stuff at the moment about how they're gonna give `em "Short Sharp Shock". What's it? "the ones who are taking advantage of homelessness" I read in the paper today. Taking advantage of sleeping in a doorway, that's a tremendous thing isn't it? Boy those people must be sneaky, eh? "No, no, no, I'd much rather sleep in this doorway" and it's just about the horrified bit of getting your girlfriend or boyfriend and getting away. OFF ON HOLIDAY I did "I'm Only Sleeping" as a cover version on a TV show and the record company really loved it. I wasn't really sure about it being the first single, in fact I wasn't really sure at all and I wanted "Off on Holiday" to be the first single, so we compromised and put out a double a-side with `Off on Holiday` on the b-side of "I'm Only Sleeping" and of course, "I'm Only Sleeping" got the big push and "Off on Holiday" got pushed under the carpet. I actually made a video for "Off on Holiday" and they spent hundreds of thousands of pounds, well, not exactly, on the video for "I'm Only Sleeping". Me and my mate had to make a video for "Off on Holiday" with a Super 8 camera. But it's all about my mother-in-laws in Whitstable. GREEN EYES Green Eyes is about my wife Ann. There's a woman in this book and she's a really free spirit and it's all kind of mad because it was written about a time when women weren't supposed to have that outlook in life. It really reminded me about my wife Ann who used to be a singer called Bette Bright. She certainly is very much a free spirit and that's what the song is about. When I first went out with her, she had bright red hair and green eyes. FORTUNE FISH Fortune Fish was the alternative title for the album actually. The little things you get in Christmas crackers and you can get them in joke shops. Little red fish that you put in the middle of your hand and curl up or not, depending on the passion or not that's in your body at the particular time. If they curl up right over you're very passionate, if they lie completely flat you're a dead one. You know those fantastic things that happen to you, If you could dwell on those moments, but they're only there for a moment and that's the thing about the fortune fish. It curls up and then it's gone or not. And then the chorus just came "Somewhere down the crazy river, me and you and a dog named Blue". I think I was listening to a lot of the Happy Monday's at that point. I feel more in common with someone like John Betcheman than I would with someone like Blur because I really am keen on some aspects of this society and a lot of it is really rubbish, but some bits are alright on this grey, windswept island. The third title for this album was going to be "The Greatest Pop Record Ever Made", but it just sounded a bit shy, a bit self depreciating! Taken from issue 4 of that great Madness fanzine, "Madness Unsugged". For further information, please contact the editor, Vincent Carden at: dripfedvin at yahoo.com or visit the fanzines section on the MIS Online website. [6] - TIME That about wraps it up for this week. Many thanks to everyone who's material appears in this weeks edition of the MIS. If you've got a fast connection or you don't mind running the risk of viewing a set of slightly jumpy videoclips, I recommend you get along to the Young Guns section of the BBC website (site address in section two of this issue) as there are some absolute gems there. As for the Crunch date, if you can make it down to Highbury on the 14th of October, you'd be mad to miss it - you really would. If you have any material you would like to submit for a future edition of the MIS, please get in touch and I'll be more than happy to put it in. Until next week. Take care, Robert Hazelby