We begin this issue with the news that the legendary Deaf School have announced a short run of gigs for this December. Running from Thursday 7th to Saturday the 9th, this short tour sees the band visit Brighton, London and Liverpool.
Check out our “Showtimes” section for further details. Tickets for these gigs are bound to sell out quickly, so don’t delay!
“Don’t Let Them Catch You Crying” is currently a mere three gigs into its set-list residency. Suggs seems to be very much warming up to performing this track live, so all being well, by the time of House of Common he’ll know the words!
Check out the song here https://youtu.be/YnCrDPzE7cs. The footage was filmed at The Eden Project gig by subscriber Mark Bowen, and is now available on the MIS YouTube Channel.
Next, and if you’re in the Kings Cross area this coming Sunday you may want to get along to The Lighterman Pub on Regent’s Canal Tow Path, 3 Granary Square. The meet kicks off at 5:30pm ahead of the Madness gig at Spiritland.
Finally, before we get on. While some of the MIS team were down in Cornwall for the Eden Project gig, others were in the Devon Town of Torquay. We got chatting to a couple of ladies outside the Princess Theatre who were sporting some rather funky Our House T-shirts, and helping to promote the show.
We got chatting to them on the morning after their opening night, and they told us that they were blown away by the response from the audience and that the show finished off with a standing ovation.
Check out our “Showtimes” section for future Our House the Musical performances due to be staged up and down the UK.
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.
Madness
July 2017
Sunday 2nd July – Spiritland Talks – Madness Q & A ** SOLD OUT **
An advanced test screening version of the new Mockumentary comedy and life story film, hosted by Lee with A Q&A after the film and a special performance.
As we recently mentioned, Thommo’s film project “One Man’s Madness, A RockuMockuDocumentary”, is now live on Pledge Music
Lee Thompson’s comedy life story film, featuring multiple mad Lee performances, and starring all of Madness and many more well-known voices, is nearly complete and coming out this year. All that remains to make this possible if for your to pledge and help complete the project as planned.
11. Oranges And Lemons Again – Jools Holland & Suggs
12. No More Alcohol
13. Blue Day (feat. The Chelsea Team) [Stamford Bridge Mix] – Suggs And Co
14. I Feel Good
15. Alright
It collects all 8 of his top 40 singles, adding to that the original “Alcohol” and what was arguably the most like second single, if three pyramids had reached that stage, in “So Tired”
Adding 3 b-sides, the obscure “Same again” to two covers, “I feel good” (James Brown) and “Alright” by Supergrass, to no doubt try and encourage the casual music fan to buy this budget-priced release.
Finally, it pulls the two tracks from Jools Holland and Friends albums. The near single “Oranges and Lemon’s Again” and the more forgotten bouncy “Jack of the Green.”
If you’ve never ventured into Suggs’ solo catalogue it’s got the basics and some flourishes, and it may be a cheap way to pick up on CD some scattered tunes at only a fiver.
I’s the replacement for the deleted Platinum Collection (2007), a compilation that use to house a selection of 20 tracks covering his two albums and is now deleted.
The fact that it appears on the Unassigned label perhaps means Cherry Red aren’t continuing with Suggs after the Lone Ranger 2CD (2016), which could drive people insane with 9 mixes of Cecilia. So, the Six Pyramids Club is perhaps now unlikely to join the 2 CD collections we’ve already got. If you’re a regular fan or collector of Suggs there isn’t much to be excited about with this release, coming as it does in a very plain yellow lettered cover.
Jonathan Young
MIS Mad Meet
This coming Sunday, July 2nd
The Lighterman pub, Regent’s Canal Tow Path, 3 Granary square
Next to Stable Street, Kings Cross London.
At 5.30pm
Ahead of Madness at Spiritland, 10 Stable Street, Kings Cross, London.
From 6.30pm to 22.00
MIS Feature – Suggs’ Rage Playlist
On Saturday 18th June, Suggs was let loose on Australian music show “Rage”. Thanks to subscriber Michael Gillis, we have the playlist in full…
12:30am
MADNESS My Girl (Independent)
JOHN LENNON Stand By Me (EMI)
ROD STEWART and THE FACES It’s All Over Now (Warner)
THE KINKS Waterloo Sunset (Festival)
THE CLASH London Calling (Sony)
ECHO and THE BUNNYMEN The Killing Moon (Warner)
1:00am
WOMACK and WOMACK Teardrops (Universal)
CANDI STATON Young Hearts Run Free (MDS)
IAN DURY Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll (Fest/Mush)
IAN DURY Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick (Fest/Mush)
On a perfectly balmy evening for a night of skanking, Cornwall favourites Backbeat Soundsystem – who have been picked by Madness to support them before – proved why their sunshine grooves have now made them one, if not the, leading British reggae band. That members of the band have previously worked at the Eden Project must have made it a special night for them.
Then the benevolent but slightly naughty North London figure of Suggs led Chris Foreman, Mike Barson, Lee Thompson and Mark “Bedders” Bedford on stage, along with a brass section, and we were straight into the ska-pop classic Embarrassment. What followed was indeed an embarrassment of riches.
The Prince, their homage to Prince Buster which started it all for them in 1979, was accompanied by images of the ska pioneer and quickly followed by two modern variants on their music hall-meets-reggae-meets-Sixties pop schtick – NW5 and Mr Apples, both strong enough to sit alongside the classics.
And what classics – other bands can only read this list and weep: My Girl, Cardiac Arrest, Shut Up, The Sun and the Rain, Wings of a Dove’s mass singalong, Yesterday’s Men and Grey Day.
Peppered among them were new songs like the political cut and thrust of Mumbo Jumbo and a cover of Max Romeo’s I Chase The Devil, also purloined by The Prodigy for Out Of Space.
A visibly refreshed Suggs was enjoying himself – he’d move to Cornwall if we could promise more than one week of sun a year. He also did a passable impression of “Van Morrissey” who is also playing the Eden Sessions soon
As he commented on the state of the nation, he even gave us a snatch of Depeche Mode: “People are people, so why should it be, you and I should get along so awfully.”
With sax player Lee becoming more of a foil for Suggs since Cathal Smyth (Carl Smash) left, the band appear to have a renewed spring in their step.
That was certainly evident in possibly the most sublime run of songs Eden has yet seen: One Step Beyond, House of Fun, Baggy Trousers, Our House, Madness and Night Boat To Cairo. I’m sure I saw grey-haired men in pork pie hats shedding a tear or two.
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 685 – Sunday 24th June – Saturday 30th June 2012
With half the MIS team heading off to Westonbirt to see the band’s latest performance, we were hoping to blast out a full review of the gig in time for this issue. Unfortunately, with the band quite clearly staying backstage as long as possible to watch the football, the gig didn’t kick off until almost twenty to ten!
As, at the time of typing, we were now into the early hours of Monday morning, a review of the evening’s proceedings would have to wait until the following issue.
On to the articles, and we reported that the Suggs autobiography entitled “That Close”, which was due for an October release, now had a provisional web site, and a chance for you to win a signed copy and some Madness music.
A lawless brat, from a council flat, oh,oh.
A little bit of this, and a little bit of that, oh,oh.
A pigeon that was flying better than when it was alive,
A second hand suit and doctor marten boot,
Punk, two tone, infinity and (one step) beyond.
A life lived, given and taken.
No questions asked.
We were that close, it was scary,
We were that close, to getting it right,
Or, crashing and burning.
When time wasn’t of the essence,
When time didn’t mean money.
When time was an irrelevance.
Remember them summer days,
When we took whatever came our way,
And get away, hey, but not too far,
Took a spin round in that broken down car.
Moving on, and if you’d not yet taken advantage of the Retro Madness by three get the fourth free offer then you’d need to get your skates on as there was only one week left.
If you hadn’t checked the site recently, earlier in the month they’d added a massive 40 more Madness LPs from around the world that they’d never sold before, all were included in the deal. The offer was due to end at midnight on Saturday, 30th June.
Our House Musical news next, and subscriber Tony Stratton reported that the Young People’s Theatre, Essex would be staging their own performance of the hit show on Friday 6th, to Sunday 8th July. Tickets were a mere £16.50 for adults and £14.00 concessions.
Next, and those of you who watched Madness’ Buckingham Palace rooftop performance as part of the recent Jubilee Celebrations would have no doubt been impressed with the stunning animations that were projected on to the front of the royal abode.
If you’d like to take a look at these in more detail then thanks to the wonders of modern technology these animations had all been made available to view on Vimeo. There wasn’t any audio, so there was nothing to distract you from the hard work that had clearly gone into these creations.
Although the Westonbirt Arboretum gig review didn’t make it in time for this issue we did managed to cover the recent Newmarket performance with a large list of YouTube clips and a couple of short reviews from subscribers.
Mick Allen’s report suggested that Newmarket heard “I never knew your name”, “Sole e la luna”, and the debut of “In the hall of the Mountain King” Live. This was confirmed by another attendee.
Meanwhile, Patrick Clifford said of the gig.
“They were played and they went down well, good response from the crowd, great gig, and it wasn’t the Usual crush, I was very near the front and it was very tame, no pushing or shoving, no one had to be carried over the barrier and the rain stopped”
Continuing with live performance coverage, and we included multiple links to the band’s performance at the recent Isle of Wight Festival, and hinted that the title of the next Madness album may be “Circus Freaks”, as the Suggs and Carl replied to an Absolute Radio presenter that they thought that would be the title. Only time would tell.
Finally, we brought this issue to a close with another one of Paul Rodgers’ Madness Stats, Facts and Figures articles. This past week saw Madness have their second consecutive (and ever!) week with four albums in the top 200.
Here’s what Paul said at the time;
“A lot is made these days of the falling album sales market, but it is worth noting that 3 Madness albums sold in excess of 1128 copies each. I know this because Music Week magazine highlighted that figure as Madonna’s latest (and former number one) album MDNA sold that many at position 129 last week. It perhaps says something for Madness’ enduring popularity that three of their albums sold more than a record which had been number one barely three months ago.
This week’s chart will likely see between two and four of those Madness albums somewhere between 101 and 200, but in much depressed positions.”
10 years ago…
Issue number 425 – Sunday 24th June to Saturday 30th June 2007
No doubt the biggest news item this week was that is that in the early hours of the morning the MIS was due to go out Madness staged a live performance at Glastonbury – their first gig there since 1986!
The worries of the crush to see the band being so great that people would risk getting seriously injured seemed to have (thankfully) been unfounded. However, although the MIS team were unable to get there, a certain Chris Carter-Pegg was at the event as part of his stag weekend, and described the tent as ‘rammed’.
One gig where problems did occur was at the recent gig in Athens. A small snippet of news filtered into us last week, which we reported on. Since then there’d been an announcement from the Official Madness MySpace page, and words from Chrissy Boy himself.
Here’s the official press release from the Madness MadBlog;
As part of the summer prep for their forthcoming ‘lucky 7’ album, Madness alongside the Beastie Boys and Underworld played the Athens Ejekt festival.
Following their performance, the band were decompressing in the dressing rooms reflecting on another storming gig.
However, their high spirits were soon extinguished as raised voices, followed by angry shouting, crashing windows, maced security guards and violent explosions signalled total mayhem in the backstage compound. The Beastie Boys, who were half way through their set were forced to abandon their performance amid genuine fears for their safety.
Absolute chaos ensued, as 30-40 masked, baton wielding assailants carrying CS gas canisters labeled as ‘anarchists’ by the authorities, vandalised and robbed bars, attacked festival security workers, destroyed portacabins and petrol bombed vehicles.
Fortunately the bands very experienced crew kept the band barricaded in their dressing room whilst the attack went on. After 30 terrifying minutes, the group made a dash for it, stopping passing traffic to escape the scene.
Others were not so lucky, Rick Smith from pioneering British electronic out-fit Underworld was hospitalised after being allegedly hit with a brick! Thankfully he is now safe in the UK receiving treatment. Several other people including security guards were also injured, however, it’s not clear at this stage how many or just how badly.
Guitarist, Chrissy Boy Foreman said: “I knew something was up when I got on the plane at gate 13 and on seat 13 on the way there.”
On to more positive news, and reports came in announcing that the band’s performance at Newmarket Racecourse, scheduled for the 20th of July had sold out – 6 weeks before the show.
Lisa Hancock, racecourse managing director, said: “We are delighted to announce Madness as our first sell-out for 2007.
“Madness has been on our Newmarket Nights wish list for many years and we are very pleased that we can welcome them to the July Course for their debut performance to a sell-out crowd.”
We brought this issue of the MIS to a close with details of the forthcoming Madness Blackpool weekend. A mere £90 would get you:
– Your bedroom for the Friday and Saturday
– Cooked breakfast each morning
– Entry to see Los Palmas 6 perform at a local venue on the Friday
– A Madness/2-tone disco on the Saturday
– Access to numerous other Madness-tinged events
It looked like an event not to be missed!
15 years ago…
Issue Number 163 – Sunday 23rd June – Saturday 29th June 2002
We started off this issue with a blast back to 1984, courtesy of MIS subscriber Andy Clayden. Andy’s contribution was a review of the Liverpool University gig held on the 7th of July 1984. So, was Andy lucky enough to be at this gig? Not exactly. Instead, Andy had painstakingly reviewed the gig from an old tape recording he had of the concert, and a wonderful job he did, too.
With the latest MOT EP now doing the round, co-editor, Rob Hazelby treated the MIS readership to a track-by-track lowdown of the release, and commented that;
“It’s not Madness, but you can certainly pick out the Madness, Blockheads, Supergrass and early Blur influences.
One thing’s for sure, the boys have obviously got a bit of talent as they’re booked in at none other than Camden’s Dublin Castle, and they’re the main band!”
Slightly sadder news reached us, when we discovered that the Saturday evening show, ‘Night Fever’, had been axed by Channel 5. The cause of this seemed to be down to the appointment of a new controller of entertainment, Andrew Newman, who was keen to make his mark, and bring in change to the station.
Still, Suggs was keeping himself busy, as he appeared on BBC 6 Music along with The Blockheads where they performed 5 songs, of which Suggs appeared on the final two – ‘One Love’, and ‘Cowboys’.
Finally, after months and months of waiting we managed to get our hands on the re-vamped and re-released version of ‘Crunch!’, by The Nutty Boys. Following the in-depth review we declared that Lee, Chris, and the team at Almafame, who produced the CD had a release to be proud of.
We had another jaunt back in time this issue, where, thanks to Jermaine of Tour Madness, we went back to June 1998, and the legendary Madstock 4 concert in Finsbury Park.
Rob Hazelby
Time
That’s just about it for this week’s issue of the MIS, but before we go we’d like to point you in the direction of Chrissy Boy’s Zoom Cam TV YouTube channel, where he’s just uploaded Herbert at The Eden Sessions;
