The Monthly Mailing List

Madpost – April 1998

 

Contents

 

[1] – April Here we Come!	A lookback over the last 4 weeks on the mailing list and a quick summary of this issue’s Madpost contents.
[2] – Chris Foreman’s 1982 Diary	Suggsylia continues to painstakingly type-up large chunks of text from articles of yesteryear.
[3] – Madness Stateside Gigs	Noland Bell here with the first proper announcement of the US tour. This was originally posted to the list at the start of March. Since then the news of the tour has been everywhere.
[4] – Get Your Mad Dogs and Madstock 4 info Here	A selection of websites which have up to date US and UK tour details. Get the details and buy your tickets!
[5] – New Madness Video	Yes, I kid you not! Ok, so it’s not an official Madness release, but Paul Mcintosh had so many Madness bits kicking around on various tapes that he decided to put them all together to create one whopper of a video – have the monies ready!
[6] – The Absolute Madlinks	Could this be the ultimate in Nutty netlinks?? See what a number of webmasters have got up their sleeves and see if you you’d like to join up.
[7] – Ed Explains the New Pembury Hotel	The lowdown on the Madstock IV hotel accommodation with Ed Stebbing-Allen
[8] -Mailing List Maddie Mug shots	Simon Roberts is here with the rogues gallery. See how you can take part!
[9] – I’d Like to Thank the BBC for this Lovely Suit	Closing words

 

 

[1]

April Here we Come!

 

Another month, and a new issue of the monthly Madness Mailing List “Madpost” arrives in your mailbox.

I’m sure you can’t have failed to notice that it’s been completely Nutty on the list over the past four weeks. Madstock and Mad Dogs

tour information was being thrown around the list by everyone, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who by the end of it all didn’t know

which dates were definite and which were rumours. Thanks to the official and unofficial sites you should now be able to get the

complete line up of all the Stateside gigs that have been planned.

 

One exciting piece of news is that Bedders WILL be touring with the rest of the band when they travel to the West coast later this month.

As Simon Roberts has pointed out, this could be the last chance you’ll get to see the magnificent seven playing together – don’t miss it!!!

 

Moving onto Madstock IV, and I have been informed that top Madstock 3 support band – Squeeze will not be on stage this year as they’re having a year out. Still on the subject of support bands, I have also been notified that such bands as Dodgy, The Specials and the almighty Ian Dury are very strong possibilities for support – we shall have to see!

 

STOP PRESS…

Just before this issue was due to be released Bedders got in touch and handed me a last minute bulletin from the lads regarding Madstock IV.

It looks like everyone who has purchased tickets will be getting a refund through the post (if they purchased via mail order/phone) or will have to hand their tickets back in if they bought them over the counter. Why?! I hear you ask. I’ll let Suggs explain.

“Yes, it’s true. We’ve decided to cancel Madstock IV. We were a bit unsure if we were going to do it or not. Cathal convinced us all that it would be fun to do a Stateside tour with all seven of us one last time and we all agreed. However, with Madstock IV we were all a bit unsure whether to do it or not as we were having a hard time getting any support acts to join us for the day’s events.” Suggs pauses before continuing.

 

“Blur had been contacted again (we tried to get them for MS3 you know!) but those kids price themselves way out of what we can afford to pay them. Not being put-off we decided to get in touch with Spice Management and See if we could get the fab five to play as support. Lee thought this was an excellent idea, he had been toying around with doing an extended version of `Land of Hope and Glory` with some extra artists and this looked like the opportunity he had been after.” With a quick grin the Madness frontman goes into more detail.

 

“We decided that The Spice Girls were the female 90’s equivalent of Madness, and would make a superb support act. The girls decided to

support us!”, grins Suggs from ear to ear. Things were looking very rosy indeed – a top US tour in April and May and a gig in Finsbury Park with The Spice Girls at the start of June was the turning point Madness needed”

“However”, continues Suggs. “This was not to be. The promoters, on hearing that the fab five had agreed to support us decided that they’d make more of a crowd puller than we would so they swapped us round! We were to be the support band for them!!!!”

At this point Suggs shakes his head in disgust. “As soon as we heard the news we all refused to play. The promoters were furious, but nowhere near as much as we were!”

Suggs sighs

At that point we decide to leave the Madness frontman to his own devices.

Yes, it’s true. Madstock IV is no more. With a swift swap from headliners to support band, Madness have thrown in the towel. Who can blame them?!

Would you want to be replaced by five giggling girls? Madness wouldn’t that’s for sure.

 

Robert

 

[2]

Chris Foreman’s 1982 Diary (MIS comic No. 6)

 

 

Thanks go (as usual) to Suggsylia for spending more of her spare time painstakingly typing-up some classic nutty-blasts from the past…

Here she is again with `Chris Foremans 1982 Diary`…

 

APRIL

We finish off the Fan Club cassette on April Fool’s Day at Pathway Studios Highbury (where we made our first single). Then House of Fun is remixed.

Next day (the 7th) we go to sunny Yarmouth for the fun fair part of the video. Then back to Camden for the other bits. On the 10th Lee and myself go to Jubilee Gardens to “Help a London Child” for Capital Radio.

On Saturday (13th) a whole nation is glued to the TV to watch Suggs on “Pop Quiz”. He does well, his team win and we are very proud of him.

16th – photo session for “House of Fun” picture disc. Then we head for Spain and more TV shows, 19th till 21st. On the 22nd “Cheggers Plays Pop”. We play “House of Fun”! Then we rehearse till the end of the month.

 

[3]

Madness – Stateside Gigs

 

The following article was posted to the list towards the start of last month. Since then a lot has happened with regards to Madness coming over to the US for a tour. Still, it’s still worth a read. Many thanks to Noland Bell for typing this up…

The ska e-zine “Rimshot” (http://www.skaville.com/rimshot) have just reported that Madness will soon be on some type of tour here in the U.S.

“Madness Tour Confirmed — We’ve received numerous confirmations on tour dates for the big Madness reunion tour, due to hit California in April. A local modern-rock station just advertised a show with Hepcat and Blink 182 at the UC San Diego Rimac Arena on April 28th, and the Dance Hall Crashers web page states that they will be playing with the original lineup of Madness later this year. No dates mentioned so far for that particular lineup.”

Figured this might be useful to anyone who might be tempted to make this.

Enjoy for those of us who can’t.

Noland Bell

 

[4]

Get Your Mad Dogs and Madstock 4 Info Here!!

 

One or two of you have put in some effort and have been colleting all the information you can on the forthcoming `Mad Dogs and Englishmen` tour (United States only) and also for `Madstock IV`.

 

As the information seems to be getting updated almost daily with bulletins and rumours flying left right and centre I felt I couldn’t really copy the text from the web pages as by the time the Madpost gets released the information would be out of date.

 

Anyway, you can keep up to date with your Madness tour information, I suggest you take a look at the following sites;

The Official Madness Website: http://www.madness.co.uk Lists the US tour dates but that’s about it.

Complete & Utter Madness: http://madness7.home.mindspring.com/frames.htm For information on the US tour and Madstock IV

Madstock Online 98: http://www.madstock.demon.co.uk/ For information on the US tour and Madstock IV

The Madstock 4 Page – (Part of the Mailing List Pages) http://www.jabba.demon.co.uk/madness/madstock4.html

Exclusively Madstock IV information – accommodation, ticket prices, who’s coming and more!

 

If it’s Stateside information you’re after then I suggest you go and visit `Complete and Utter Madness` (by Darren Bowen) and `Madstock Online 98` (by Adrian Burns). The official Madness site is great if all that you’re after is a list of gig dates and locations, but if you’re after some more in-depth information then pop along to Darren or Adrian’s site ASAP.

 

With the Mailing List site devoting a section of its webspace to Madstock 4 and the above sites containing some excellent information about the US tours you’ve really got no excuse for not getting along to at least one Madness gig either Stateside or in the UK!!!

Robert

 

[5]

New Madness Video

 

Greetings Madfolk !

Apologies for being a complete lurker for months now, but hopefully this message will go some way to making up for it !

After months of effort, I have put together a Madness video, lasting nearly 3 hours, containing everything I have taped from TV about Madness and Suggs in recent years. There should be something there to interest everyone!

Before anything else, maybe I should tell you what you can find on this fantastic production !…

Part One – MADNESS

– The Prince, One Better Day, Night Boat To Cairo (All live on TOTP)

– Our House, House Of Fun (Appearing on The Young Ones)

– Tomorrows Just Another Day (On German TV)

– Lee & Chrissy-Boy choose their 10 favourite videos (10 Of The Best)

– VH1 to 1 Interview with Suggs, Chas and Woody

– VH1 coverage of Madstock 3 (Interviews with all acts)

– Full coverage of Madstock 3 (Only Madness !)

– Live at Old Trafford (Euro 96 concert)

Part Two – SUGGS

– Videos for I’m Only Sleeping, Camden Town, The Tune, Cecilia, (No More) Alcohol

– I’m Only Sleeping, Camden Town (Live on TOTP)

– Interviewed on Massive, The O Zone, This Morning, Later With Jools Holland and The Andrew Neil Show

– Making National Lottery Draw

– Reviewing videos on Live & Kicking

– Video for The Tune reviewed on Live & Kicking

 

Plus….hidden bonus extra !

 

I am able to make copies of the video for all of you with PAL videos ie Britain, Europe, Australia…).

For those of you with NTSC videos (USA….), Elizabeth has kindly offered to make NTSC conversions.

 

So, if you think you’d like a copy of this fantastic video (!), then send an email to me (Paul) at paul.mcintosh@unn.ac.uk if you have a PAL video. And if you have an NTSC video, please send an email to Elizabeth at madE@crpd.com

 

I hope this is all clear enough ! When you write, we will send you details of price, method of payment, where to send it etc.

Drop either of us a line if you’re interested… I shall look forward to hearing from you !

 

Paul

 

[6]

The Absolute Mad Links

 

Over the past few weeks and months I have been in contact with one or two other Madness website maintainers and the one thing we all agreed on was that there was some superb stuff out there and that everyone seemed to have something on their site that no-one else offered.

But, there seemed to be one negative side to all this, everyone was sat tapping away at their own keyboards doing their own thing. Sure, this was fine, but what could we produce if we put our heads together and teamed up to produce something?

A few excellent ideas were discussed but these were classed as a bit too in-depth at this early stage. What was needed was something to get the ball rolling. In the end a few of us decided that a joint links page was the way to go.

I’ll let Darren explain how this should hopefully work. If you’re a webmaster and you have some constructive comments on this matter please get in touch with us at the address below…

 

How This Works:

1. All known Madness sites currently listed are to be included on the links page. In the future your site must only use “The Absolute Mad Links” as your links page.

2. Entries will be listed by “last updated” order being displayed at the top. The `Official` Madness site will ALWAYS be at the very top no matter what.

3. As the webmaster you are responsible for updating your entry on the links page. To do this you can contact the Madness linkmasters at mml_archive@mindspring.com or/and robert@jabba.demon.co.uk

4. You may use a small text description min 15 max 25 words to describe your site, e-mail contact & URL, last updated date. (we could also offer a logo option as well)

5. Once you are on the links page you will be notified of any updates, future plans etc and will be asked for your input. As this page will effectively belong to all webmasters who link to it we would appreciate your ideas and comments.

 

It’s early days at the moment so the page is only just beginning to take some sort of shape, but it is hoped that over the coming months the links page will be the definitive starting point for all net surfing Maddies.

At present the only members of the Madlinks ring are:

– Darren Bowen (mml_archive@mindspring.com)

– Adrian Burns (aburns@madstock.demon.co.uk)

– Robert Hazelby (robert@jabba.demon.co.uk)

 

If you’re interested in joining up, please get in touch with one of us ASAP.

 

All the best,

Darren Bowen and Robert Hazelby

 

[7]

Ed Explains The New Pembury Hotel Plans

 

Ed Stebbing Allen has kindly offered to arrange the discount hotel accommodation for all the Maddies who need somewhere to stay over

the Madstock 4 weekend. As Ed has all the details I’ll let him tell you what he’s found out.

 

Ok, here’s the info you’ve all been waiting for. I have finally spoken to the people at the Pembury, and this is what they told me.

All single rooms will be 39 pounds per person.

All double/twin rooms will be 59 pounds per room.

Only single rooms on the 5th June, plenty of singles & twins/doubles after that.

 

People can have their different days, ie arriving earlier, staying longer, but they HAVE to be booked through me.

The list of people I know who are coming is this (it’s time to stop arseing around, and trying to be clever with attatchments, I’ll just type it in.)

Me + a friend

Yvette + Jo + another friend

Joe Skips + other/better(?) half

Elizabeth Walker

Pete Gardner + brother (David?)

Luke Roberts (was that one or two Luke, I can’t remember)

Some guy who’s name I can’t remember (if you know who you are, please let me know)

So, that’s at least 12, I just need 3 more If there is anybody else who wants to stay cheaper at the hotel, PLEASE let me know.

For now, can all the people who are on this list let me know EXACTLY what dates they want to be booked, so I can start to think in more detail about things.

Finally, I’m going to have to ask people for at least a deposit before I can book the rooms. It’s not that I don’t trust any of you, but if I book a room for someone in good faith, and then, for whatever reason, then don’t make it, as the booking is in my name, I have to cough up the readdies. I’ll let people know individually more about this when they give me details about what dates they want.

 

Well, I hope that was worth the wait . That’s all that I know now, so, please get back to me, and I’ll finish sorting things out.

eD

 

[8]

Mailing List Maddie Mug shots

 

Always wanted to know what the person you were sending messages to on the list actually looked like? Having problems finding someone at the forthcoming gig because you don’t know what they look like?

Well, fear not! Simon Roberts is here with the Mailing List Mug Shot archive. There is quite a selection of faces at the moment with more to come. Thanks to Silvia for bringing her video camera to the list meet-up we may even have some Madsters on the site in Real Video!!!!

For up to the minute mug shots, please visit Simon Roberts’ site at:

www.wavenet.co.uk/users/simon/mad

Whilst you’re there, get the relevant details, scan in your picture and send it off to him!!

 

 

[9]

I’d Like to Thank the BBC for This Lovely Suit

 

And so, to the end of another Mailing List Madpost.

Next month promises to be a bumper packed issue filled with (fingers crossed) some superb concert reviews from the lucky Stateside Madsters who managed to get along to one (or more) of the gigs. I’m expecting some in-depth reviews to come my way for the next MP

In the May edition of the Madpost we’ll also be starting a stunning D.I.Y course where we give you, the Madster on the street, suggestions of what to do with those now useless Madstock IV tickets. D.I.Y April fools cards perhaps?!

And, you may not believe it but we may even have details of where and how you can purchase your Madness internet t-shirt. As this issue went out I received a complete t-shirt. I can tell you now that it was worth the long wait. Adrian Burns has really come up trumps with the design work, and Mark Bedford’s catchy logo on the front really round’s it all off. I’m sending the t-shirt off to Mark for printing just as soon as I send this Madpost. The quicker it gets to him, the quicker you lot can start wearing It.

Just as I was about to send the Madpost out to you lot I get a quick Snippet from Chris Carter-Pegg who has this bit of MSIV info:

The Mean Fiddler are trying to get Frank Skinnner and David Baddiel to compere Madstock 4, in persuance of their `non cheesy` football themefor the day. Fingers crossed that we won’t have a day of “Three Lions” being sung every 5 minutes!

Until next month. Stay nutty!!!

Robert Hazelby (Madness Mailing List Maintainer)