Madness Information Service Online Newsletter Issue Number: 860 – Sunday 1st November to Saturday 7th November 2015
It’s less than three weeks until the 2015 Madness Weekender in Minhead gets underway, and judging by the number of Facebook posts we’ve seen regarding the forthcoming event excitement amongst the Madness fanbase is growing and growing as each day goes by.
As you’ll see from our ever-shrinking (gigs are drying up as we get closer to the end of the year) Showtimes section, this is likely to be your last opportunity to catch the band before 2015 draws to a close. We just hope that it won’t be too long before the band start to announce gigs for the next 12 months.
Earlier today the band took to the stage to perform at the Lions-Chiefs NFL game at London’s Wembley Arena. If you missed what went on we have all the information you need elsewhere in this issue.
And, speaking of this issue. Let’s get on with it!
Enjoy the read,
Jon Young, Rob Hazelby, Simon Roberts, Paul Williams
SHOWTIMES
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
2015
November 2015
November 20th – 23rd 2014 – Minehead – The House Of Fun Weekender Five
The Weekender also features sets by Woody Woodgate, Crunch!, Clang and much, much more….
The Lee Thompson Ska Orchestra
January 15th 2016 – Jazz Cafe – Camden Town London
The Silencerz Featuring Lee Thompson
December
19th – Saffron Walden Town Hall – 9pm **New**
Deaf School
November
27th – Preston 53 Degrees
28th – Newcastle, Think Tank ** DATE MOVED, NOW DEC 11TH **
28th – Buckley, The Tivoli ** REPLACES ABOVE DATE **
29th – York Duchess
December
9th Liverpool – Kazimier
10th Liverpool – Kasimier ** SOLD OUT **
11th – Newcastle, Think Tank ** MOVED FROM 28TH NOV **
12th – London, Hoxton, Bar & Kitchen
Near Jazz Experience
More info at: https://www.facebook.com/NearJazzExperience
November
24th – The NJE + Support + DJ @The Indo 133 Whitechapel Rd, London E1 1DT – 8.30pm, free entry
More info at: https://www.facebook.com/NearJazzExperience
28th – The NJE + Louis Vause + DJs @Kino Teatr, 43-49 Norman Rd St Leonards, E Sussex – 8.30pm, free entry
More info at: https://kino-teatr.co.uk
BUY IT
Madstock – CD / DVD Edition ** OUT NOW **
Just over 23 years after the famous comeback gigs, and just a month before the live album’s 23rd anniversary of release, Madstock is back.
Last available on DVD in the guided tour boxset only, and last on CD via a crappy on demand print service option many years ago. For around £12 you can now get both together.
The CD contains Razor Blade Alley as a bonus track for the first time on CD from the weekend’s concerts, and collects tracks previously only available from the concerts upon the CD single of The Harder They Come. These 4 bonus tracks have been included at the end of the album, Chrissy Boy has pointed out they aren’t part of the Live Album’s original mixing by Clive Langer being sourced elsewhere and masters are impossible to find nearly 25 years on, so appear as the final bonus tracks on the album.
The album features a new montage of photographs from the weekend as it’s cover, much like the recent CD/DVD edition of Take It Or Leave it.
Grandslam T-Shirt Sale
Did you enjoy this summer’s concerts but perhaps forgot to pick up a souvenir, especially if you went Silverstone where the F1 merchandise overshadowed taking home any Madness goodies. The remaining Grandslam T-shirts are now just £10.
If you’re small you can get them in grey, and all three main sizes are still available in Blue.
http://madness.sandbaghq.com/home/navy-grandslam-t-shirt.html
Lincoln and Pompey specific football T-shirts are also still available at £15.
CRUNCH! Hats and Polo Shirts – Get Ready for Their House of Fun Return
** BACK IN FASHION **
Crunch beanie hats and polo shirts (most sizes available Small / Large / XL / XXL) get them now from the official band page on Facebook, which is run by the ever reliable Mr Swanns.
Order now for pre HOF delivery. Last day November 16th.
If you’re going to the HOF Weekender you can have your itenm delivered directly to you as Swanny will be there from the Friday afternoon.
£19.99 polo shirts delivered. £17.99 collected at House of Fun.
Beanie hats £8
https://www.facebook.com/crunchbandofficial
Punch and Judy Madness Toy Theatre
A pop-up miniature theatre, in card form, featuring Punch & Judy. The collage by artist Peter Quinnell was commissioned by British band ‘Madness’ to celebrate their single ‘Lovestruck’ – it features characters from Music Hall, Punch & Judy and Madness videos. Folds down neatly to the size of a 7 inch single, it can be sent as a card. £8.95
http://www.pollocks-coventgarden.co.uk/index.php/toy-theatres/punch-judy-lovestruck-diorama.html
SIGN OF THE TIMES
Woody Supporting Decembeard
Dan ‘Woody’ Woodgate, 55 a drummer in legendary British pop group Madness talks about his very personal reason for supporting Decembeard.
He said.
“This campaign and the charity, Beating Bowel Cancer, mean a lot to me as my dad, Crispian, a photographer , died from the disease in 1997. He’d been constipated for about a year but he just said ‘he was bunged up’ and continued to use laxatives. However, he’d had a fall downstairs and had slight brain damage so he wasn’t always clear in communicating and some of what he meant to say could have been lost.
When he eventually went to the doctors and was diagnosed, he was told it too late to do anything for him. He was basically sent home to die.
My younger brother, Nick, and I have been checked out every 5 years since we were 40 and I now lead a healthier lifestyle; with no drinking or smoking etc.
I’ve raised over £1000 for Decembeard in the past and I’m keen to continue raising awareness of the disease and helping to prevent people from ‘dying through embarrassment’.
I’d urge anyone to get involved with the campaign. It’s so easy and the money you raise will really help the charity to support those with bowel cancer.”
Woody on Ireland AM
http://www.tv3.ie/3player/show/809/100270/0/Ireland-AM
On October 15th Woody appeared on Ireland AM television to talk about his life in Music and raise awareness for mental health issues, talking about his experiences with coping with his brothers illness. Having recently launched with rethink charity the Steps towards independent living programme.
It’s a serious interview and well conducted. We do have to point out as an aside that the researcher was a bit of a fool though. Pictures of the ska orchestra and tribute band One Step Behind appeared on screen in a photo montage at one point! Keyboard player Brendan Phipps says thank you for the latter of these!
The interview is watchable again at the above link but seems to only work on some windows laptops, other wise complicated Ireland AM apps are required etc.
| Music legends Madness to perform at Lions-Chiefs NFL game at Wembley |
Music legends MADNESS will get the Wembley Stadium crowd on their feet before the NFL’s International Series game between the Detroit Lions andKansas City Chiefs at Wembley Stadium on Sunday (November 1).
One of the most successful acts in British pop history, with 15 top-ten UK hit singles, Madness will turn Wembley into a ‘House of Fun’ when they perform the pregame show before the NFL’s third UK game of the autumn.
NFLUK Managing Director Alistair Kirkwood said: “We are very excited about Madness bringing their unique brand of music and showmanship to our final London game of the year. They have been synonymous with the best of British entertainment for more than three decades and we know the fans at our game are going to love seeing them. It will be a fantastic way to kick off the event.”
Formed in London in 1976, Madness have been a consistent presence in the charts for more than 30 years. Their total of 214 weeks in the singles charts was a record for any group throughout the 1980s, including their first UK number one, “House of Fun”. They have won Ivor Novello Awards for “Our House” in 1983 and for “Outstanding Song Collection” in 2003.
They have maintained their reputation as one of Britain’s best-loved live acts and in 2012 performed on the roof of Buckingham Palace as part of the Queen’s 60th Jubilee celebrations and also at the closing ceremony of the London Olympic Games.
This year Madness have performed on their largest UK tour ever, Grandslam Madness. In November, the fifth annual House of Fun Weekender will take place at Butlin’s in Minehead, where they will be performing brand new songs as well as the hits that everyone has come to know and love.
Sunday’s game will air live on Sky Sports 2 from 2:00 p.m., and is also available on BBC Online and its Red Button service.
NFL UK . Com
MIS FEATURE – THE ART OF PUNCH & JUDY’S MADNESS
I’m standing in a cold abandoned tube station private office area, deep underneath Covent Garden tube station. The winding dark corridors leading to further disused rooms. “It’s here somewhere” says the employee of Transport for London who is escorting me to collect an item of Madness memorabilia that must rank as one of the largest, this side of the fruit machine, and has much in common with a large record store window display stand I once saw that stood 3ft high and depicted, in card, the nutty train of the utter Madness cover.
This item I am collecting today is the large 4ft high version of The Lovestruck Punch and Judy Pop up theatre display and this is the story of that art and how it might have come about.
It was 1999 Madness had a top 10 hit with Lovestruck, a playful song about booze. Then last year that song became a beer. And this year that tune became a limited edition 7 inch record marking Record Store Day. Was it something about the word “Struck” being compounded with the word love that first made Punch and Judy a pictorial element of the Lovestruck bottle label? Possibly, but purely speculation on my part. Nicely fits the misbehaved lyrics of the tune to a degree I feel. Either way like Gladness’ circus elephant, it seems a fitting choice to join the collection of Madness pictorial art, just like the musical hall heritage Madness claim lineage within, any traveling entertainers of any comedic kind with British traditions seems to fit them like a glove (puppet!)
Somewhere between the beer bottle label design and the release of the 1000 limited edition 7 inch records, deepest Covent Garden comes into the picture. The reason I am stood in a basement locker room, is all the fault of Samuel Pepys in the 1600’s long before this tube station even came to be. If you don’t know that name he is a famous London Diarist, his writings studied still. A blogger of his time perhaps, but he is the first man on record to mention the tradition of Punch and Judy within British culture (following it’s Italian roots). Very pretty he remarked the best of it’s kind. That passing reference is all it took to start traditions in this area that to this day include an annual festival of gathered professors of the Punch and Judy touring show. And as I exit the tube station with my bounty I’m a short stagger to a local pub named The Punch and Judy. Here I drink with Gary Saunders nearly 400 years later than Pepys frequented ale houses, because when you are carrying a 4ft card display stand you really need a guide to stop you thwacking into a nearby lamppost through lack of foresight! This is doubly true after a mad meet and beers.
This drinking den isn’t the only Covent Garden establishment with heavy Punch and Judy ties. Benjamin Pollock started a toy shop here, and in an era long before iPhones, the joy of the printing press was used to create two penny theatre’s paper models constructed of card where the processing power lay in the child’s imagination of play rather than a computer station. Joyfully like a segment of Suggs’ disappearing London show, this establishment still exists, now more nostalgia and art it sells Mr Punch dolls, and an array of tourist aimed collectables including still those card pop up theatres that once were the child’s item of choice. Referred to as dioramas, they have one depicting Wilton’s music hall which is nice to see. Their Victorian era Punch and Judy diorama is a delight which comes with cut out characters giving you all you need to put on your own desktop puppet show. This item must be the inspiration, perhaps mixed with a little sergeant pepper Blake homage, for Madness to include such a thing within their released record store day special effort this year.
The proof of this lies not only and simply in the fact that Pollocks store is listed upon the Madness item as a quality credit, and that they sell’s the diorama individually separated from the record now on the shops shelves alongside all the others, but also artist Peter Quinell explains as much himself,by allowing us now into his creative process.
Creating within paint shop, of course such collage created art is the composite of many many images brought together and arranged. Old Victorian book covers are used. Such as the policeman coming from ….. he shows us.
In an earlier stage of conceptualisation presented for the client before final approval, we see a similar standing diorama, but one using the very Punch and Judy that Pollock’s own original diorama depicted. Also of note in this earlier rejected version lies the fact that Elvis Presley left the building! If you look closely at the prisoner within the released version it’s Jail House rock outfit. The coloured face you see is that of the husband of the owner of Pollock’s Toy Store! In place of a copyrighted black and white Elvis still that couldn’t be used. A similar fate befell Prince buster and some Skatalites who are now replaced by Victoriana characters infitting with a lot of folgate era Madness riffing’s. Finally the Punch and Judy which were given lovestruck bottles to drink from in this concept version were replaced and switched positions to match those versions appearing upon the beer bottles label, no doubt at a request of the record company or brewery working closely with the band to create the final item. Punch and Judy characters of The Devil and The Clown remain with the diorama matching those from Pollock’s own version. While a Policeman and Crocodile appear in reference from other sources.
Finally how does a collaboration, of Samuel Pepys, Benjamin Pollock’s Toy store, Peter Quinell, and Madness’ team, record company and brewery end up involved with Transport for London and sitting in their basement? They have been displaying this giant 4ft version of the art outside their exit for 5 months of this year, It’s all a part of an interstation competition. Different tube stations competing for best looking display in their annual “In Bloom” contest. This saw the local tie in, displaying the large version to both advertise Pollock’s local asset to passing commuters and with it surrounded by crates of flowers forming the hopes of the workers running the station that they might get an edge on the competition with local hero puppet characters and goodwill of the world’s best band perhaps they good be singing “That’s the way to do it” and lifting the award this year. They didn’t. They lost out to a birdbath in a depot elsewhere. Must have been an impressive bird bath.
Carrying the now dismantled pieces of the diorama in a couple of big bin bags, we give our thanks as we depart Pollock’s toy store for the owners arrangements, and to artist Peter Quinell too for his help. Sitting on the tube train, big cheers to transport for London as well, as it’s customers point and laugh at us trying to get the large item in and out of tube train doors. Walking around carrying it and peering through the front like a billboard carrying loony after a few beers. Shouting occasionally “Thursday”, “Wednesday” in reference to Tomorrow’s Just Another Day video’s opening gag. If you are brave enough to carry this art home from The house of fun weekender you can email us and big on the item now. Jonsmad@hotmail.com All bidders will be kept aware of the current total on the facebook event page. The winner will be announced during the sunday show and must collect after paying direct to a just giving page for Teenage Cancer trust. So you must be either at that weekender to take part or have someone there willing to collect it on your behalf, no later than Monday early. Or just come and have your picture taken with it, at The Big One 4/ or Sunday morning at The House of Fun as we are bringing it on tour. No doubt when we load it into the centre of our car as the holiday begins we will scratch our heads and think. Samuel Pepys has a lot to answer for.
Jonathan Young
Win Punch And Judy Pop Up Theatre’s And More @ The House Of Fun Weekender
The Madness Punch and Judy Show – https://youtu.be/rfTeNvhhZNQ (video includes the dioramas front board on display)
Since being on Madness beer bottles, Mr Punch has been a naughty boy and stolen some cool Madness items, now chased down by a Crocodile, a Policeman and worst of all his wife! We recover those goodies and give them to you, the lucky prize winners attending our event at The Madness House of Fun Weekender.
The Prizes
- A Lovestruck Record Store Day 2015 7 inch (With Punch & Judy insert pop up theatre, designed by Pollocks toy store Covent Garden and artist Peter Quinell) one of 1,000 records made available on Record Store day this year.
- Some Lovestruck bottled Madness beer.
- A large Lovestruck T -Shirt.
- An original CD promo of Lovestruck from the 90’s and a unique flyer image promoting the original single.
- More Madness beer items. A Gladness beer pump clip and a Madness Brewery Beer Towel
- A Punch and Judy Madness Lovestruck pop up card 3D theatre. Peter Quinells concept art version. This slightly differs from the final completed art work in a few interesting ways. This is a unique mock up one of only 10.
- A Punch and Judy pop up card 3D theatre. From Pollock’s toy store in Covent Garden, a completely different original Punch and Judy pop up card theatre display that they stock, one that inspried the idea for Madness to do such a thing in a record design this year.
There will also be further impromptu prizes from The Ghost, The Devil and old Jack Ketch!
If you’re attending our show prize registration starts by joining this public event page on facebook; https://www.facebook.com/events/916551955098706/
300 unique special Lovestruck Punch and Judy beer mats will be given out during the show.
You have to be present at the show to win as no prizes will be kept for any names read out but then absent. Those prizes will be redrawn instantly. A bank card with the same name as you are registered under may be required to be shown as proof of identity to our jolly Policeman.
Jonathan Young
MIS COMPETITION – WIN A COPY OF MADSTOCK!
First CD/DVD Pack Won, But a Second is Still up For Grabs!
Thanks to Holly Barringer and the rest of the team at BMG we have two copies of the forthcoming Madstock CD/DVD pack to give away.
There’s still a chance of bagging one more of these beauties as we’ve yet to choose the second winning entry. If you’ve already sent in your entry those are still in the competition pot, so please don’t send in another. If you have yet to send in an entry, you just need to complete the following;
My favourite Madness song live is…
Because…
Send your answer to jonsmad@hotmail.com
Please try and send more than a one or two line response. A few of the best replies will appear in a future edition of the MIS.
Don’t keep sending in multiples. We can only use your first full answer in one email.
One more lucky winner will get the CD/DVD pack in the post soon.
Unfortunately this prize draw is only open to UK-based readers. Sorry!
MADSCOPE FROM WEMBLEY
You’ve got less than 24 hours to watch this!
I dunno if anyone else messaged you about this or if you knew or were watching.
Chrissy Boy has just done a LIVE Periscope broadcast from Wembley Stadium! He was backstage and walking around the dressing room and next to the pitch!
Apparently he is going to be broadcasting the 3 song gig later […]. So if you wanna watch it then you need to get a Periscope account. It’s free. And it’s linked to Twitter.
That was the first MadnessScope I’ve seen and I’ve been on Periscope for a couple of months now. It’s live and interactive so people can send messages and they appear on the screen for the broadcaster to read out and respond to. You can watch from anywhere in the world as long as you have an Internet connection. If you wanna watch the replay here’s the link:
It was about 10 minutes long tops.
Seeya
Dan Fossard
SPECIALIZED 2016
Specialized 2016 Presents… Dance Crazy
Posting an exciting picture a homage to the cover / poster for Dance Craze, which Paul notes will be 35 years old in 2016, is worth marking.
The image displays a boot clad black and white leg, with images and icon relevant to Specialized’s 4 years of charity albums, which includes covers of The Specials, The Beat, Madness and The Clash.
This isn’t the theme..but it’ll be a bloody great side project…
Exciting stuff cometh – and all for charity. Join The Ride.
Art by Specialized’s Dave Moran
More on this project when it is announced…..
Paul Willo
RETRO MADNESS GET A LITTLE SHIRTY
Following a huge sort through of their Madness T Shirt collection, Chris & Emma of retro-madness.co.uk have found 30 different spare shirts which they have now added to the Shirts page of their Retro-Madness internet shop.
There are now 120 different official Madness shirts listed dating from 1980 – 2015, most are brand new / have never been worn and most are available in more than one size:
http://retro-madness.co.uk/shirts.php
Over the next 3 weeks we will be steadily updating the other pages on retro-madness adding more spare treasures we have found. Keep an eye on our facebook page where we will be announcing all further updates:
https://www.facebook.com/retro.madness?fref=ts
Chris & Em x
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 599 – Sunday 31st October – Saturday 6th November 2010
With a packed issue we decided to get things underway as soon as we could, and passed proceedings over to Union Square’s Holly Barringer, who reported that on the 15th November they would be releasing a collection of videos on iTunes. Entitled “Madness – The Video Collection”, this would include everything up to Wonderful, except videos pertaining to The Madness and the Mad Not Mad album.
We were also assured that older videos have been re-mastered, so that they were the best possible quality.
Some sad news next, and it was with a heavy heart that we reported that Scottish actor Gerard Kelly had died on Thursday at the age of 51.
As famous for serious gritty dramas as he was during the annual pantomime season, Kelly will be best remembered by Madness fans as the bloke from the Madness movie, TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT, who sang in an early formation of Madness in the back garden of Si Birdsall’s flat in London.
We followed this with some Ian Dury news, as we re-printed a Guardian review of the currently running Dury musical Reasons to be Cheerful. Reporter Lyn Gardner awarded the production a 3 out of 5, commenting that “… there’s a great cast and plenty to savour in a show that with more work on the script could raise the spirits higher than a course of Prozac.”.
Further sad news followed this week as The Mirror reported that reggae singer Gregory Isaacs – famed for his hit Night Nurse – died aged 59.
The Jamaican-born star had fought lung cancer for a year but had performed until just a few weeks ago. He finally lost his battle at his London home, surrounded by his family.
Book news now, and out in WHSmith’s and Waterstones from tomorrow, and available to order from Amazon now, was “The House of Fun: The Story of Madness”, from John Reed.
Jonathan Young gave us a lengthy review of the book, and brought it to a close by commenting;
“”It’s not perfect” were the authors last humble words to me in an email this week.
But that’s the point to a degree. Perfectionism having kept a big Madness history off the shelves before now. This book is extensively brilliant and more than the sum of what lead up to it. Timing wise, unlike the bullshit ending of the otherwise excellent “young guns” TV documentary, this book doesn’t have to skip so much, and finishes with some triumph of the current situation.
I think it’s, One Fine Book.”
We brought this issue to a close with a number of links detailing Madness’ recent winning of the 2010 Q Idol Award, and a final nudge for you to go out and by John Reed’s new Madness book, which had been given a 4 out of 5 in the latest issue of Record Collector magazine.
10 years ago…
Issue 339 – Sunday 30th October to Saturday 5th November 2005
We started off this week’s issue of the MIS with the news that legendary Bristol Madness tribute band 1 Step Below, had been picked by a top Las Vega music promoter to play there this coming new year’s eve!
We were told that the band would be taking to the stage of the Gold Coast Casino Hotel where they would be blasting out all the famous Madness classics to a huge Vegas audience.
Apparently, this was the first time a Bristol based group had ever played in Las Vegas, and was a massive coup for the band.
They would be joining a raft of US tribute acts and were the only British band on the bill. The music promoter who co-starred with Sting in “Quadrophenia” tracked the boys down on the internet after hearing all about their fantastic live show and the reputation of lead singer Suggsy, who’s as entertaining as the real Madness singer Suggs.
The band were now busy preparing their set for what promises to be the biggest gig of their careers.
Next-up was the news that the next must see Madness spin-off, The Camden Cowboys (starring Lee, Woody, Bedders, Kev Burdett and Nick Judd) would be taking to the stage at the Pentland Theatre, Finchley, North London. The group would be performing a selection of songs that had inspired Thommo’s 26 years in music.
As a bonus, all proceeds would be going to the Oxfam Sudan Appeal.
Moving on, and we had something a little more high-brow to report, as news had reached us of an archive of tour photos from the 80s about to go on show.
Featuring black and white shots taken by photographer Toni Tye 25 years ago, they were intended to be stills for a proposed book on 2 Tone. It would have focused on the unique scene, the kids, the skins, the fashions & the bands backstage.
The Body Snatchers, The Selecter, Madness & Bad Manners, were shot variously on location at: Hemel Hempstead, Lewisham Odeon, Electric Ballroom, Wembley, Coventry, Aylesbury, Sunderland and Shepperton between February 28th-May 3rd 1980.
The Exhibition included photos of Madness & crew backstage & many fan photos taken at gigs being filmed for “Dance Craze” movie.
The exhibition would run from the 1st to the 30th of November at The Arthouse Gallery, Brighton/Hove.
We went over to the French MIS next, as Jean-Pierre Boutellier had a mass of news snippets to pass on to ourselves and the readers.
Ranging from album and single sales to French TV appearances, it was all here.
We’d been plugging MOT for a number of years – urging you to get along and see the boys in action. Well, pleased that he’d finally made it to one of their gigs, Duff Kelly put together a massive review of the band’s recent Dublin Castle gig.
Duff finished his review by saying;
“My advice, get along and see MOT if you get the chance. It’s worth it!”
It was over to Jon Young next, who reported that Madness were booked to play at Nottingham’s Rock City on Monday 5th December. Tickets were priced at a very reasonable £25.00.
We brought this issue to a close with The Independent’s brief lookback at the legendary Stiff Records.
15 years ago…
Issue 77 – Sunday 29th October to Saturday 4th November 2000
This issue got underway with news just in from the ever-active Wozza announcing that the Ian Dury and The Blockheads website at www.blockheads.co.uk would be back up soon with a completely new design, and “some other nice stuff”. Wozza also reported that since February the Blockheads website has notched up over 10,000 visits – impressive stuff!
Subscribers to the excellent `Ska Mad` fanzine wouldn’t have too much longer to wait until the next issue finally saw the light of day. Juliet Bulmer, Ska Mad editor, told us that if all went according to plan, you should have the a new edition coming through your mailbox before Christmas.
Some Suggs news now, and Andy Clayden reported that the great man himself was to be a guest on Mark Lamar’s Radio show entitled “A Beginners Guide to Reggae”. Andy wasn’t able to pin-point the exact date, but we were told that the show went out on Radio 2 at 9pm Wednesday evenings.
On to this week’s articles, and we stated-off with a lowdown of the all forthcoming gigs booked for Madness tribute outfit One Step Behind. With bookings made right up to October 2001, it looked like the band were in for one busy year ahead.
Following this was an article, entitled “My Best Gig”, which appeared in a recent edition of the Bristol Evening Post. In it, the author reminisced on his night seeing Madness at Leicester De Montford Hall, way back in 1982. Such was the problem with skinheads at the time, that the band refused to continue playing until they had left the building.
Next we passed things over to Madness Unsugged editor, Vince Carden, who explained why the previous issue was a Dury special, and who then followed it up with an excellent question and answer session with the one and only Lee Thompson, who also reminisced about his times spent with Mr. Dury.
With Suggs making an appearance at The French House, Soho, earlier in the week, this next article came courtesy of one Chris Carter-Pegg, who had managed (along with a couple of other Mads) to get along to see Suggs pulling pints in aid of the NSPCC.
Here’s Chris;
“Not being a particularly large pub meant that there was just a pleasant number of people in attendance. Suggs’ mum was first to arrive and seemed to know quite a few of the assembled company. She was grumbling (in the nicest way) about Graham’s time keeping, that he should have been here by now, that she’d cancelled lunch with him yesterday to see him today etc. etc. The landlord asked her whether he’s actually ever on time for anything!”
Thankfully he did make an appearance, and spent his time pouring pints, taking part in interviews, and even managed to sign a few bits and pieces for Chris.
Moving on, and we had news that would no doubt be of interest to those collectors who had to have every Madness related release in their mitts. MIS subscriber emailed in to let us know that a new Madness greatest hits album, entitled “Madness – The Ultimate Collection”, was due to be released by Uni/Hip-Hop Records on the 14th of November.
We finished off this week’s MIS with news in from Scatty, who revealed that he was planning to organise the next Madness Injection weekend at Blackpool on the May Day Bank Holiday weekend 2001.
Rob Hazelby
TWEETS OF A DOVE / THAT FACEBOOK
It looks like an additional announcement for bands at the forthcoming House of Fun weekend will see a welcome return of Gorgeous George.
The band will be playing on Saturday, according to their facebook event page.
Great stuff.
GORGEOUS GEORGE @1gorgeousgeorge
“Not too long til we are back at @madhouseoffun & we get to see our favourite @CBoyForeman”
graham mcpherson @suggsgmcpherson
“So exited, the decorations are up. Only three Leeds managers to Christmas!!”
House Of Fun Weekend @madhouseoffun
“Sunday afternoon at the Weekender on #CentreStage before @CCfunkandsoul takes over… Mad firsts & rare treats
Clang! 14.15
Crunch! 15.30
Woody Woodgate 17.00”
TIME…
Behind the scenes further Madness album work has been taking place, and now the band are about to dive into rehearsals, ready for The Mumbo Jumbo Friday set.
Meanwhile, Crunch! have already had a full rehearsal. And yes, Chrissy Boy was in the fold!
Elsewhere, and Woody Woodgate is readying himself for his first live solo gig at The House of Fun Weekender. The Magic Brothers played The Dublin Castle 18 months ago, but the Weekender marks the first outing under his own name.
With Dan shears fronting the singing duties following the release of Woody’s album “In Your Mind” earlier this year we anticipate songs from the album to get the full live treatment.
Finally, we can exclusively reveal that you should be looking to Woody’s website this time next week. Why? Because “something” is coming…
We will tell you more next week. So, until then, take care,
Jon Young, Rob Hazelby, Simon Roberts, Paul Williams
(With thanks to Paul Smart, Lee Swandale, Woody,
Dan Fossard and Holly Barringer at BMG)
The Author
