Following last month’s temporary move over to Mailchimp, we’re here for a second week as we work to get a new mailing list up and running on our own MIS server.
While we’re finding Mailchimp to be an amazingly versatile platform to run and maintain a mailing list on the prices are absolutely eye watering. So, as soon as we’re ready to move the list over to our own we’ll be doing just that. You won’t need to do a thing.
On to the Madness news, and if you’ve not yet purchased your tickets for the forthcoming House of Common concert in August then you may be surprised to learn that the tickets have now gone up in price to the next tier.
See below for all forthcoming Madness and Madness related gigs and events. If there’s something we’ve missed off or you feel should be added then please let us know.
The tank was dug up from beneath Denbies Vineyard as part of a new series commissioned by the History Channel.
Madness lead vocalist Graham “Suggs” McPherson helped to dig up a World War II tank in Dorking with the help of the Discovery Channel.
The Canadian “Covenanter” tank was dug up from beneath Denbies Vineyard on Tuesday (May 23) as part of a new series commissioned by the History Channel and is one of two tanks buried at the site by the Canadians at the end of the war.
Andrew Wright, a countryside manager for the National Trust, went along to Denbies to watch the excavation and said that it was “a sight to behold.”
Click on the link above for the full article.
Live and Intensified
An Evening With Suggs and Friends
An Evening with Suggs and Friends in support of Pancreatic Cancer UK is back for the 5th year and will be held at Porchester Hall, London on 19th October 2017.
We are taking it back to the Porchester Hall where it all began for a spectacular evening of music performed by some of the UK’s most renowned and respected artists soon to be announced, including Madness frontman Suggs. The musical entertainment is preceded by a champagne reception, three course dinner with wine and an exciting live auction. This is a ticketed event for up to 450 special guests.
Tickets for the event are now available.
A note from Suggs
“For the last four years I have held an event called An Evening with Suggs and Friends to raise money for Pancreatic Cancer UK in my sister-in-law Alanah’s memory. Previous friends that have joined me on stage have been Madness, Rudimental, Roger Daltrey, Wilko Johnson, Jools Holland, Anne- Marie and many more!
This year’s event will be the 5th anniversary so we are taking it back to the Porchester hall where it all began, a really intimate venue for just 450 people so it really is a unique opportunity to enjoy first class live music, delicious food and wine and to support a fantastic charity that is very close to my heart.”
It’s not often these days that we get to celebrate the starting of a new Madness website. In the speedy days of social media, we thought the web was all but forgotten, let alone Television, an even older medium. Do you remember it? Flat screen and you can’t click “like” immediately underneath the picture and send out cartoon hearts or apply dog ears to everyone who’s in view of the camera.
So, somewhat marvellously in an old tradition, a nice new Madness Blog has been born, with the expressly the desire to chart the early years (to begin with) of Madness on Television. Inspired by previous records like most notably Tour Madness, It’s got the meticulous interest, with a succinct and stylish flourish, to document a golden era of the small screen and what it did in the presentation of our favourite band. Which marks it out as a cool project. It’s already corrected and revised some history on the band and collated a wide list of reference source work, and while it’s not directly hosting every clip, it boasts links and promises future uploads. They welcome information but already host a comprehensive set of listings for the first few years of Madness with more promised soon. It even is the first time we’ve seen the Australian listings unified into a list with the European footage known about.
As they say in their own words during the web blogs introduction…
“There was much to be excited about, growing up as a kid in the late seventies and early eighties; Subbuteo, Kilimanjaro ice pops, Grange Hill…but especially music. There was such a diverse mix of music to be heard in the charts – with an accompanying variety of styles to be seen on the streets. When I wasn’t kicking a football out on the road, I spent much of my time listening to the family AM radio and recording songs with static interference on my trusty tape recorder.
We had only a handful of television stations and you’d have to scour the newspapers or TV guides to see which programmes may offer up some music. Thursday evenings meant Top of the Pops and it would mean so much to see the band you followed climbing up the charts. Fortunately for me, ‘my band’ had an uncanny ability to notch up hit after hit. From 1979 to 1986, [Madness starred on TV]
And here’s the list. I’m not claiming it’s complete however hopefully it’s not far off. The dates provided are either when the appearances were filmed or broadcast, sometimes shows were broadcast live of course. There are gaps to fill in and I’ll try to do updates from time to time, any extra information would, of course, be much appreciated!”
Top Job. Top Blog. Top of the pops.
We look forward to its updates and urge every Madness fan to tune in their web browser now. It’s better than the Radio Times, Look In and TV comic all rolled into one.
Voice of the Beehive, who make their comeback at Indie Daze in October, have already stated there won’t be a tour or anything of a world hopping nature surrounding their comeback gig.
That said, this week the band placed a cryptic Beehive tube stop picture on their websites and social media..
Could this Londoncentric sign bee an early nod to where one might make a bee line to get to the warm up pub gig for the band before the oncoming indie all dayer.
Stay alert little bees!
Jonathan Young
I Remember Way Back When
This week, MIS co-editor Rob Hazelby, goes back in time to report on what was going on in the world of Madness 5 years, 10 and 15 years ago this week.
5 years ago…
Issue Number 682 – Sunday 3rd June – Saturday 9th June 2012
This issue kicked off with an article from British newspaper, The Daily Mail. Rather than declare something to be the end of Middle England, as they so often do, they seemed genuinely excited that Madness would be perfuming on top of Buckingham Palace as part of the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations.
Next, it was over to Retro Madness, who announced that on Monday they’d be adding more than 40 different vinyl LPs to their site that had never been listed by them before. Not only that, but with the previous month’s “Buy 3 Get the 4th Free” offer proving so popular they extended it and included these 40 LPs in their offer. Very nice!
Following this, we moved over to The Blockeads as the This is Somerset web site were reporting that the band would be performing in Frome on Friday 8th June.
We went over to Suggs next, as he’d appeared on the Independent web site taking about his secret life. Our favourite frontman revealed that he was actually a pretty good sculptor but no good at bee keeping.
It was on to The Ska Orchestra for our next article, as we reported that it was just over a year since the birth of the band and that they now had a stack of radio sessions, gig and festival appearances to come.
We brought this issue to a close with the news that the next Lee Thompson Specialized track would feature on a 4-track Specialized EP due to be released in the next week or so.
Priced at £7 it featured King Hammond, Roland Gift & The Values, Lee Thompson & Orange Street. The first few would be on clear vinyl.
Finally, it was over to Suggs, who, earlier in the day tweeted;
“Yeah just finished rehearsal on roof of palace. What a view, what a goddam scene!
See yous all mon! If I don’t fall off.”
10 years ago…
Issue number 422 – Sunday 3rd June – Saturday 9th June 2007
This week was a rather special one, as Chris Carter-Pegg reminded us, with a write-up elsewhere in this issue, that it was now a whopping 25 years since the release of the legendary chart-topping single, House of Fun.
Elsewhere, we took another leisurely walk down memory lane, to the week of Sunday 2nd June to Saturday 6th June 2002, where the Chas Smash single continued to be a topic of conversation amongst the on and offline Madness community.
We also had further details surrounding Madness’ appearance at this year’s Glastonbury event. Whilst Chris confirmed when and where the band were due to perform during the course of the festival. It was slightly worrying that the Glastonbury off-shoot site – Lost Vagueness didn’t seem to list any bands at all. We’d just have to go on Chris’ word (which we were certain was more than reliable!) for the moment.
15 years ago…
Issue number 160 – Sunday 2nd June – Saturday 6th June 2002
This issue arrived slightly later than subscribers would normally expect, following one of the MIS staffers deciding to go on a 12 hour drinking binge the night before.
Thankfully, although the issue was delayed by just a few hours, the content was still up to its usual standard, even if the issue was a little shorter than it had been in recent weeks, due to the majority of the UK basking in some glorious late-spring sunshine.
Coverage of Chas Smash’s footie single continued, this time with an article on the Sheffield Football Club web site relating to how he’d teamed-up with the legendary England supporters band to deliver what the site referred to as “the unofficial World Cup anthem for Sven’s lads jaunt into the Far East this Summer”.
It’s not unusual for the subscribers over on the Madness Trading Ring to unearth a long forgotten live recording. This time, MTR subscriber Andy Clayden went one step further and was kind enough to knock-up an in-depth review of the Newcastle Mayfair gig from the 9th November 1979.
Andy finished his excellent write-up by declaring;
“This tape represents 40 minutes of British pop music history. A great performance, essential for any self respecting Maddie’s collection”.
Those of you who’d been subscribed to one or both the MIS and MTR for over five years would no doubt be aware of the Madness fan over at the BBC. Little was, and in fact, still is known about this individual, but it seemed as if every so often they tried and succeeded in cramming in tracks from the Madness back catalogue for use as background and also ident music.
This un-named and unknown Madness fan went into overdrive with the soundtrack to BBC2’s “Your Money or Your Life” with no less than five nutty tracks cropping up during the half hour programme. Subscriber Graham Whitfield commented at the time that;
“If there isn’t an MIS Order of Merit, then there should be, and this chap (or maybe even lass) should be awarded the first one, for outstanding services to the cause of Madness”.
Rob Hazelby
Time
We’re almost done for this week’s issue of the MIS Online Bulletin.
It’s possible that by next week we’ll have migrated everything and everyone over to the new list server hosted on the MIS web site. If we’ve not managed to do it by next Sunday we’ll be sending another issue out via Mailchimp until we’ve got things up and running.
You don’t need to do anything during any part of this transition period. The issues should continue to land in your mailbox on a Sunday evening regardless of what list software we’re using.
Next, and we’ve been contacted by Roderick Joe Viterbo who you may remember appeared with his band “Joe Viterbo” on the ‘Trembling Earth’ Scottish Ska compilation CD released last year.
Roderick tells us;
“Its our fourth Studio album and it’s called ‘The Jakey Shakes’. It’s the usual mix of Ska Dance, Glenrothes love sonnets, Piano ballads, good old Punk Rock and defamation of former Bay City Rollers. You know the type of thing.”
