Madness Information Service Online Newsletter Issue Number: 856 – Sunday 4th October to Saturday 10th October 2015
Evening all,
Eagle-eyed readers out there may have noticed that something had gone slightly awry with our issue numbering, and that there were actually TWO issue 853s. This has now been spotted, and the numbering subsequently rectified. Please accept our apologies.
On to a more Madness related note, and this week we feature an in-depth review of the forthcoming Madstock! CD/DVD release, which comes courtesy of wordsmith Paul Rodgers. Not only that, but we have two copies of the box set to give away, courtesy of BGM.
So, without further ado, let’s get on with the issue!
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 1st – Wembley Stadium – NFL Kansas City Chiefs hosting Detroit Lions. *** New – Rumour Only at this point – see “That Facebook” section ***
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
October 17th – Hemel Hempstead
Deaf School
November
27th – Preston 53 Degrees
28th – Newcastle Think Tank
29th – York Duchess
December
9th Liverpool – Kazimier
10th Liverpool – Kasimier ** SOLD OUT **
12th – London, Hoxton, Bar & Kitchen
Near Jazz Experience
OCTOBER
20 – The NJE + Support + DJ @The Indo 133 Whitechapel Rd, London E1 1DT – 8.30pm, free entry
More info at: https://www.facebook.com/NearJazzExperience
BUY IT
Madstock – CD / DVD Edition
Out on October the 9th. 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.
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
Jennie & The Slingers
New album from Jennie Bellstar, this time with rockabilly band “The Slingers”. Featuring on one track are non other than Chrissy Boy and Thommo.
LIVE AND INTENSIFIED
Last Night of The Grandslam
Madness brought their summer tour to a close with a typically buoyant performance on a stunning late summer’s evening at Durham Cricket Club.
The Chester-le-Street venue may typically be home to the gentle rhythm of leather on willow, but here it was transformed into a house of fun, with a sea of inflatable saxophones, black and white trilbies and novelty fez hats.
While there was a smattering of recent material, the set was predominantly a trip down memory lane, a celebration of some of the most loved songs in the Great British Songbook.
“If you’re here for the One Direction perfume launch, I’m sorry,” declared frontman Suggs, but the thunderous reception as he dived into the 1979 classic My Girl suggested this crowd knew exactly what they had come for.
Suggs remains one of the most engaging performers in music, playfully dovetailing with saxophonist Lee ‘Kix’ Thompson to keep the crowd in the palm of their hand.
“I’d like to introduce you to some younger members of the band now… but there aren’t any!” he cackles.
After an early procession of crowd pleasers, including Embarrassment from the 1980 album Absolutely, the set slowed down as the band played some tracks from their critically acclaimed albums released over the past decade.
They are well received, but Suggs booming “One Step Beyond!”, the three most evocative words in the Madness back catalogue, saw the crowd descend into a frenzy.
The cover of the Prince Buster track was the cue for an extraordinary procession of hits including House of Fun, Wings of a Dove and Baggy Trousers.
Our House, meanwhile, brings about a particularly emotional reaction. As funny, fresh and moving now as it was 33 years ago, it was an undoubted highlight of the evening. Kids hoisted on their parents’ shoulders bounced in unison to show just how universal the band’s appeal has become.
There was a time when Madness were criticised for flirting with the unsavoury elements of society who came to their gigs. The contrast between those days and now could not be starker.
As the set came to a frantic close with the cheeky 1979 hit Nightboat to Cairo, Suggs looked out upon his adoring fans and said, “Well, that’s quite enough of that nonsense,” before twirling a towel over his head and inviting the public on stage with him for the final dance.
With performances like this, expect the glorious nonsense to carry on for a few years yet.
MADSTOCK! CD/DVD REISSUE
Madstock! CD/DVD reissue Salvo Sound and Vision
This reissue of the original Madstock! CD is long overdue. The addition of the DVD will be a decent bonus for many, as the concert has only previously been available on DVD as part of the ‘Guided Tour Of Madness’ box set, which is far from being one of Madness’ big selling compilations. The original Madstock! album was issued in 1992 on Go! Discs. It peaked at number 22 and stayed on the top 75 UK album chart for 9 weeks. Go! Discs was taken over by Polygram in 1996 and the label ceased to exist soon after. It is safe to conclude that it is over 15 years since the album was available as new as opposed to second hand. It’s also safe to assume that there is a new generation of Madness fans who were not born when the concert was recorded in August 1992… I will also add that the original album was not awarded a silver disc. It is safe to assume that its total UK sales were under 60,000. One of the other Madstock! concerts has appeared on DVD and sold 25,000 plus copies, which suggests there is sufficient demand to justify a live DVD of this, the original Madstock!
Forgive me taking a brief step back in time… As you’ll find in the excellent sleeve notes that accompany this release, Madness had not performed live in public in Britain for 6 years when they reconvened for two concerts at Finsbury Park in August 1992. Prior to the reissue campaign that Virgin had set in motion earlier that year with the number one album Divine Madness and the top 10 reissued single It Must Be Love, Madness’ fortunes had been a series of ever decreasing- circles. The quality was still there, but the ticket and record sales certainly were not. I had spent 1991 and early 1992 following Lee and Chris’ band The Nutty Boys up and down the country and was getting a sense that there was still an affection and a growing demand for Madness. In some towns this was encouraged by unscrupulous concert promoters trying to suggest they had booked Madness (or at least more than two members of Madness) to perform at venues on posters. Lee and Chris always played this down. Madness songs were few and far between at their gigs and they could hardly be accused of cashing in on this demand by playing Fireball XL-5, Take It Or Leave It and Razor Blade Alley amongst 20 or so original Nutty Boys compositions. So yeah, where was I? Ah yeah, 1992. August 8 1992 to be precise. I don’t think anything will ever replicate the feeling I got when after all the waiting the Magnificent Seven stood on stage lapping up the applause, love, whistles, chants and cheers that their mere emergence on stage had generated. And yet, here I am twenty three years later and it happened again when I reached that point on the DVD. These days I have more hairs on my neck than on my head and they stood on end proud enough that I might had been able to use them for a dodgy comb-over were I that way inclined.
They say nostalgia ain’t what it used to be and it’s the same with Madness. Let me explain. For those who have only seen them live this millennium there is the sheer thrill on this CD and DVD set of hearing Madness and Madness alone on stage. Sure there’s a few samples on Wings Of A Dove (the version on the DVD is still one of my favourite memories of seeing Madness all these years on) and Clive Langer mysteriously added some female backing vocals on The Harder They Come (keep up youngsters, yes Madness played The Harder They Come on stage, it was even released as a live single) but essentially this album and DVD is about the seven members of Madness playing live on stage in front of 36,000 of their fans (by far their biggest ever headline shows) each night.
What’s more it was a glorious greatest hits set. Properly the greatest hits. All of their top ten singles bar The Return Of The Los Palmas 7 were played and Cardiac Arrest was the only other single missing from the classic run from The Prince through to The Sun And The Rain. In truth the band did nothing the band recorded after Mike had originally left and album tracks were drawn from One Step Beyond… and Absolutely only, but the shows and these recordings are about what was included, not what was missed out. This is truer now of this release than it was in 1992. Back then you would have needed to buy the blue CD single of The Harder They Come to get the audio of Land Of Hope And Glory, Tomorrow’s (Just Another Day) and Take It Or Leave It. Now they are bonus tracks on the CD along with audio of Razor Blade Alley, which was previously only available if you bought the video or the aforementioned release with the DVD. And let’s face it who still has a VHS player? Ok then, who still has a VHS player that doesn’t threaten to chew up their favourite videos?
This release it long overdue and I love it.
That said there are a couple of niggles: the sleeve notes are well written and informative and they remind us of the story of how Chas got the band back together to perform live on a pilot of a TV show that Go! Discs were making in their new guise as Go! Tv. It’s a shame that performance is not available here as an extra. That said I have no idea if it still exists, let alone whether it could have been licensed; The Top Of The Pops performance of The Harder They Come from outside the Kremlin in Moscow would also have made a nice extra; Some parts of the DVD have poor picture quality. As far as I can work out this is a fault that one of the cameras generated. Like anything originally recorded on video it doesn’t seem like there’s anything that can be done about it. It mainly affects the pre-concert short documentary piece and doesn’t ruin the concert. I only mention it here so that people don’t think they have a faulty copy. I wish we lived in a world where this was the sort of thing that people should care deeply about, but we don’t. Perspective is everything here.
Some facts people may like to know: The DVD is region 0, PAL is 4:3 format. The running time is 105 minutes for the DVD and 77 minutes for the CD. The catalogue number is SALVOSVX027. Right that’s 1150 words. Invoice attached to separate email.
Paul Rodgers
MIS COMPETITION – WIN A COPY OF MADSTOCK!
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.
To be in with a chance of bagging one of these beauties you just need to complete the following:
My favourite Madness song live is…
Send your answer to jonsmad@hotmail.com
Please try and send more than a one or two response. A few of the best replies will appear in a future edition of the MIS. Two lucky winners will get the CD/DVD pack in the post soon.
Unfortunately this prize draw is only open to UK-based readers. Sorry!
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 596 – Sunday 3rd October – Saturday 9th October 2010
We kicked this week’s issue of the MIS with an apology, as two copies of the previous issue ended up landing in subscriber mailboxes. How? Well, we sent the first email out and after an hour or so nothing had appeared. Concerned that our readers would be without their weekly update of Madness news we re-sent it. Shortly after two issues arrived.
On to the articles, and we kicked things off with a heads-up from Paul Rodgers, who reported that Tesco were currently selling their “Ultimate Madness” CD for a mere £3 via their web site. Curiously, it was more expensive to purchase the download than the physical version.
Paul also reported that Steve Bunyan was talking about Madness in this week’s Music Week;
[Steve]Bunyan believes a significant part of the reissues business involves coming up with attractive packaging and materials to remind buyers about the quality of the music.
“As a catalogue marketing company we have to be inventive,” states Bunyan. “For instance, we have to figure out how to re-promote Madness. We’ve got three Madness best-ofs in the market and if we do a proper job on those campaigns, they’ll sell tens of thousands of copies this autumn. Thankfully we’re being helped by the fact that the band is going out on its biggest tour in 20 years.”
Elsewhere, and we continued our teaser coverage of the forthcoming House of Fun: The Story of Madness book, by John Reed. Mojo magazine gave the book a very favourable 4 out of 5, and finished the review by saying;
“Now, finally, the band […] have got the book they deserve[…]”
Moving on, and it was over to the Madness Central Blog, as they gave us a lowdown of the forthcoming dates for Terry Edwards and Mark Bedford. With two dates in October and one in November, you had no excuse for not catching them.
We brought this issue to a close with the news that on Friday 2nd October the 2 Tone museum, café and venue “2-Tone Central” finally opened its doors to the public, with Neville Staple of The Specials, Ranking Roger and Pauline Black as special guests.
The next 2-Tone Central gig was due to take place on Saturday 30th of October.
And finally, news in from the French MIS team was that a new DVD box set featuring Madness was now available to buy. Entitled “Chorus 1979 /1981”, this 3 DVD compilation featured masses of clips from the famous French music show. With footage of many classic bands, the inclusion of Madness may have been the icing on the cake.
10 years ago…
Issue 336 – Sunday 2nd October to Saturday 8th October 2005
It never ceased to amaze us just how badly Madness songs have been crucified over the years when sung by various third parties.
The latest addition to this ever growing list of Madness musical massacres came to us thanks to those masters of the balls `Gala Bingo`, who were currently using a re-worded (and REALLY badly sung) version of `House of Fun` as part of their advertising campaign. It was worth a watch to see and hear just how bad it was!
Although it wasn’t directly Madness, we kicked off this week’s collection of articles, by passing things over to Ed Stebbing-Allen for his review of a recent Bad Manners gig, in the coastal town of Newquay.
Unfortunately, things didn’t quite go according to plan. Despite the venue being pretty much full, and the band having travelled all the way to Cornwall, the gig was cancelled, to the most venomous chants of “You fat b*stard” you’ve ever heard.
Why? Well, an hour and a half after the band were due to go on stage, the promotor for the event got up on stage and explained that the band were refusing to play, as they’d been promised £3000, but the event had only raised £2000.
Ed finished by commenting;
“So all in all, it was a bit of a bummer, as I imagine they’ll have p*ssed off a lot of their fan base down here, which might affect them getting booked again”.
Next-up was Paul Muscat, with the next part of his famous MadChart countdown. This week we went from 100 down to 31, in a mass of chart stats, facts, figures and trivia, in a lengthy article that clearly must have taken Paul many, many hours to put together.
All being well, next week’s issue of the MIS would bring the latest Madchart to a close. With the closure we’d have a new number one and at the same time poor old Paul Muscat would finally be able to take a well deserved rest.
Moving on, and it was the turn of MIS subscriber Emma, to get us excited, when she explained that she’d managed to find the artwork to the forthcoming single ‘Girl, Why Don’t You’ over on the 101cd.com web site.
The tracklisting for this release would be as follows:
1 – Girl Why Don’t You
2 – I Chase The Devil AKA Ironshirt (BBC Radio 2 Session)
3 – Girl Why Don’t You? (Dub)
We’d mentioned it briefly in a few recent editions of the MIS, but it was now all-systems-go for the Paris Madmeet on 17th October, which coincided with the Madness concert on the same day.
French Madness fan Mr. B had put his knowledge of the area to very good use, by securing not only a venue close by, but very reasonable drinks prices, and the possibility of food if the interest was there.
All you had to do was let him know if you were coming.
We finished off this issue with the latest news from Warrior Clothing, news from Paul Muscat of a US Brit-influenced band that had recently performed in his coffee house, and reminder that Jon Young would soon be re-joining the ranks of the MIS.
15 years ago…
Issue number 74 – Sunday 1st October to Saturday 7th October 2000
A number of you pointed out the old Suggsmeister was up to his old tricks of doing anything for a bit of cash (and lets face it, who could blame him?) as he, or rather his voice, had been appearing in the current run of Fairy Liquid adverts.
We suggested that the commercial was well worth looking out for as the voice of Suggs advertising washing-up liquid would almost certainly bring a smile to even the most hardened of Madness fans.
Meanwhile the TMML’s Boonster reported that Suggs had been spotted presenting `The Real Car Show` with (and we quote) “some really dishy bird as co-host”.
On to this week’s articles, and we started off with Vince Foley, who was NOT impressed with the official Madness site one bit. In fact, he described it as “sh*te”.
Why all the anger? Well, he was annoyed that the site had barely been updated for the past year, and that the last news item referred to the release of Drip Fed Fred for the 28th of February.
As Vince said at the time; “…If you’re gonna do a job, do it right, or else don’t do it at all”
Moving on, and thanks to the ever helpful Claire Keegan, we had details of all Complete Madness gigs for the next month. With a whopping 17 dates, the group would be in for one very busy October.
It’d been a fair old while since we’d last announced the appearance of a new Madness web site, so it was with great pleasure that Chris Byrne asked us if we’d be so kind as to plug his new creation.
Appropriately titled ‘Madnet’, Chris’ creation featured news, gig information, the highs and lows (by year) for the band, and much more. With regular updates promised, this was one web site that we were advised to keep an eye on.
Elsewhere, we took a look at issue 7 of Ian Taylor’s Mad Not Mad fanzine, which was so packed, Ian had to leave some of the material until the following one.
We finished off this issue by reporting that Dr Martens had cut back high street production of their boots from their Northampton factory.
Looking on the bright side though, the boots would continue to be produced, but in smaller quantities and more of a designer type line.
Rob Hazelby
THAT FACEBOOK
Sean Kelly – storage hunters reality tv star. (Dave channel)
“So Saturday night after my gig in Newcastle Lori and I head back to our small hotel and in the Lobby bar is the band Madness. They had just finished a gig also. The pic is of me and their guitarist Chris Foreman who’s a Storage Hunters fan. Great guys!
Now I am going to go see them at Wembley stadium Nov 1 they are playing at the NFL event.”
TIME…
Yes, it’s that time where we once again draw the issue to a close, but before we do there are a few last minute bits to pass your way.
First-up, and we’d like to give a shout out to one of our subscribers, Dave Gorman. Dave’s TV series is currently airing on Dave TV, and this week he slipped Suggs into the show. He was even on topic, as bee keeper who doesn’t keep bees.
Find out more by watching Modern Life Is Goodish, and then wonder if Woody counts as an Ex Beehive man too!
http://uktvplay.uktv.co.uk/channel/dave/
Next, and we know that many of our readers are big fans of Squeeze. The band’s latest album, “Cradle to the Grave”, was released on Friday and is definitely worth adding to your collection.
And finally…
We urge you to tune in to Mr Scurfs Koast Train, this Wednesday from 8pm when our favourite radio host will be chatting to the one and only Mr. Clive Langer.
Topics will include his Clang band heading to the House of Fun and forthcoming Deaf School gigs.
If that wasn’t enough he’ll also be talking about the future of his producing any tracks for the next Madness LP
We’ll be featuring a breakdown of the chat in next week’s MIS in case you miss it.
Until then, have a great week!
The Author
