Madness Information Service Online Newsletter Issue Number: 858 – Sunday 18th October to Saturday 24th October 2015
Have you got your teaspoon, and are you into it?
Well, if you’d prefer slightly longer questions regarding Madstock put to Suggs then you’ll be pleased to learn that it’s exactly what the teams at the record company have done for a spotlight video for Amazon.
How did it feel the moment the seven of you were standing together front of stage at the start of your set, with the crowd roaring their welcome back? Who was the hardest to persuade to return in 1992? Were there ever any other venues / locations considered for the comeback gig? Your favourite live track from this soundtrack album? Have you attended any other artists big first comeback gig?
Watch the video to hear Suggs’ answers.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/b?node=8450706031
Now, 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. *** Rumour Only – Pre Show before American Football Match A Short Feature concert couple of tracks***
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
31st – Black Horse Barnet 8pm
With support from Reece & DJ Rebsie. In aid of Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice
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
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
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
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.
MIS FEATURE – VOICE OF THE BEE SIDE
“From my memory there were so many songs that should have seen the light of day but were rejected by the record company at that time – At least now true Beehive fans can see what we were trying to create behind the scenes.” Brett Martini – Voice Of The Beehive.
…
After Woody Woodgate left Madness in the late 80’s he bounced back into the charts on two top 20 albums in 1988 and 1991 with Voice Of The Beehive. A band formed and fronted by two sisters from America.
Tracey and Melissa. Delightful punk edged rock with a hint of 50’s throwback that landed somewhere between the B52’s and bands like Transvision vamp labeled alternative pop rock.
1988’s Debut album, “Let it Bee” begat “Don’t Call Me Baby” & “I Say Nothing” as minor hits, amongst other single releases. While 1991 brought a top 40 hatrick run of “Monsters and Angels”, “I Think I Love You” & “Perfect Place”
A great paired legacy of tunes comprise those two albums, then sadly sucCess and the band parted there for multiple creative and domestic reasons. Members (including Woody) left, the sister’s returned eventually with final album “Sex and Misery” on a new label, but this afterthought did not commercially catch much interest and was never followed up, though inevitable “Best of” compilations exist, compiled from the first two albums’ tracklistings.
There is one further album however, and it’s that one we throw our attentions upon as it’s sometimes overlooked.
Voice of the Bee Hive – Bee Sides
- Stupid Boy
- Cupid
- Doriah
- Shine Away
- Playing House
- Modern Heart
- Only If You Want To
- Heavenly
- Baby Don’t Stay
- Waitress
- Pocket Sized
- Perfect Place
Not mentioned in some discographies you’ll find for the band, but it’s a hidden gem of an album. Kicking and swaying like the two classic era rocking beehive albums, this third disc is well worth adding alongside them.
What it isn’t, is a compilation of the bands B-sides, as the title pun might first suggest. No such compilation of all the bands B-sides exsists. This album’s subtitle of “Limited edition demos” sheds more light on the subject contained here in on this CD. It’s about half lost songs, and half the best demos of released tracks be they previously singles, album or flip sides of singles.
Broken down, only 2 tracks here were actual B-sides in these mixes; Shine Away & Pocket Sized. The first of those was only available on a picture disc, too! Never on CD. Two further tracks are demo versions of a songs later available as B-sides in a different version. So barely a third of this album qualifies actual B-side status.
The other 8 are demo versions never released before. Best of all 5 songs here have never been heard before in studio versions at all. Two tracks “Heavenly” & “Playing House” were songs released on the third album sex and misery, but appear here as earlier demos. So, whether they feature Woody remains a possibility. The early nature of the rest make it a near definite he featured on most of those 10.
The only two tracks familiar to owners of the first two albums are “Cupid” & “Perfect Place”. The former the demo of “I’m Shooting Cupid” reveals a whole section of the song cutaway before the released tune was finished. While a raw demo of hit single Perfect Place is a treat (the single and album track of that song both differ from this version showing it had many stages to perfection.)
“Waitress” then is that a demo of an early B-side, leaving “Stupid Boy” “Doriah” “Modern Heart”, “Baby Don’t Stay” as a delicious EP length treat of entirely new to me Beehive songs. Last is “Only if you want to”, a track I’ve previously heard from live album material and always wanted the studio version of. Here it gladly sits.
There are some real great tunes on this album, and overall it holds together to the point where you don’t really feel you’re getting a bunch of band dreggs, or even quality B-sides too quirky to fit together when presented on a 12 track CD. There is no instrumental here for example. There are no elongated remixes or danced up rave versions. Just more great songs from a great sounding band, and most coming when they were “on it” creatively. “Doriah” is perhaps the worst tracks where cracks show, as the chorus is a bit droning, and I wonder if the band realised this girls name sounds like “Diarrhea” when elongated over a songs chorus! Unfortunate and maybe some reason to not release!
But in the most part this album sits so perfectly, and placed amongst “Let It Bee” and “Honey Lingers” that I feel like it should be given lost album status rather than B-side or demo throwaway tag or just for collectors’ markings.
Beehive were a band that complained of record company interference being the problem of their output not always defining them as a band. The quality and edge of the songs here shows that their discard pile matches their albums actually released, at least to this length of 12 tracks. They were capable of more than 3 albums in 7 years and this is pretty much that 4th missing one.
There is a hint of Nirvana rhythms on “Playing House”, and some punk punch to other tracks always carried along with melody too, but the band’s image and chosen tunes were sometimes pushed too much towards the sweet “butter wouldn’t melt” cuteness of the line up pictorially, and aimed at more MOR music buyers as a result. Too late for 80’s band pop, and too early for Britpop (and probably too American in part!) the Beehive fell out of times and across the ocean.
A further album is unlikely, so snap up this rarity if you want more Beehive and haven’t heard this, as this limited edition pressed CD in a card-sleeve collage, was made as 1,000 copies only.
Guitarist Brett Martini had 500 copies left after the band sold half of these on their tour. You see this CD was self produced and only previously sold via the band website and 12 years ago when the last tour of any kind took place. Brett put 10 copies to Amazon this month to see if there was any interest and they sold out quickly. He has just put 125 more copies over to Amazon. So they will be available shortly at this link. If you wish to complete your solo Madness members record collection you’ll need this one.
Amazon Link
The Bee Side, is one further side of A-sides from The Voice of The Bee Hive.
Get yourself some last taste of Honey before the Jar is empty.
Jonathan Young
PAUL RODGERS’ MADNESS FACTS, STATS & FIGURES
All the Latest Madstock Chart News!
Madstock! just misses out on the official albums chart top 100 (the one including streaming), but charts at 55 on physical sales (CDs), 76 on sales (CDs and downloads) and 14 on the indie chart. Not bad for a reissue of a 23 year old live album.
Its original chart run in the days of the top 75 only is here:
Its original chart run in the days of the top 75 only, the album charted at a peak position of 22 spending 9 weeks in the charts in November 92 till January 93. Two of those weeks in The top 40.
Paul Rodgers
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.
And can now announce the first Winner is Graham Yates.
….
“MY FAVOURITE MADNESS SONG LIVE IS….
….any that I’ve never/seldom heard live before.
Having been to more than 50 gigs down the years, I’ve heard all the standard hits and more prominent album tracks countless times.
Whilst I love nearly each and every one of them, it’s when you hear that album track or B-side, not played in years, or a new never before played track, that is special for me.
Last years’ Friday night at Butlins was a fan’s delight for exactly that reason, all those, not played for years tracks in one 30ish minute slot as part of The Invaders set were a Madness fans wet dream come true (with apologies for the mental image!!).
The longest standing track on my live wish list? (Waiting For) The Ghost Train (only ever played twice live)!!
Play that on Friday at this years Butlins and I’ll be a more than happy man!! Or failing that One Fine Day
Graham Yates”
…….
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 are looking at you Alissa Hunt) 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!
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 598 – Sunday 17th October – Saturday 23rd October 2010
This week we kicked things off with Jonathan’s review of the recent Near Jazz Experience gig which took place at the Indo Club in Whitechapel. The NJE was the latest collaboration between the ever inventive, multi talented, musician Terry Edwards and our renowned bass man Bedders.
After a lengthy review Jonathan finished off by reporting that the band would be back on stage at the same venue on the 9th of November. One not to miss!
It was firmly back to all things Madness next as we followed up on the recent request from Madness’ management, where they were asking for short reviews for each of the cities the band would be visiting as part of their forthcoming Christmas tour.
The response had been excellent, but there were still a few cities requiring guides. These being;
– Brighton
– Plymouth
– Reading
– Cardiff
– Bournemouth
– Sheffield
On to Ian Dury news next, and we reported that a new stage show charting the life and times of one Mr. Dury would be performed at the South Hill Park on Wednesday 20th October. Tickets were priced at a very reasonable £14.
Elsewhere, and we took a look at Big 10, who had four gigs lined up for the remainder of October – two on the same day! You could keep up-to-date on all things Big 10 by going to www.big10ska.com.
We brought this issue to a close with a snippet from Paul Rodgers, who reporteds that Mad Not Mad had entered the UK top 200 albums chart at 156 on Sunday. Unfortunately this wouldn’t qualify for the indie chart as Virgin wasm’t an indie label.
10 years ago…
Issue number 338 – Sunday 16th October to Saturday 22nd October 2005
These days customer reviews for albums and tracks being sold on the iTunes store are part and parcel of the service. Ten years ago, however, and this feature had only just appeared.
Noticing that a few Madness albums were currently for sale on iTunes, MIS subscriber Colin Robertson took matters into his own hands and added a couple of reviews himself.
If you had a spare 5 minutes we suggested you knock up a few and submitted those to the iTunes store. It certainly couldn’t harm sales.
If the serialisation of the recent Madchart wasn’t to your liking, you may have been pleased to learn that Madness Trading Ring subscriber Mark Lawrence, had put together a PDF version for you to download and plough through.
Lawrence described this new version as ” A handy all-in-one PDF to print and read on the loo”, and who were we to disagree?
Another small snippet now, from Stuart Howie and Andy Keighly who told us that this Saturday just gone Madness were playing at Old Trafford, Rugby League Final. Apparently the boys played `Our House`, `It Must be Love`, plus two others. Both commented that the sound quality was very poor indeed.
On to this week’s collection of articles, we kicked off with a full transcription of a radio 2 interview where comedian and travel writer Roland Rivron, spoke to Suggs. Suggs spoke about the early years of the band, and also what the boys were up to at the moment.
Next, we featured a huge interview with the band, which appeared in Q magazine, and that had been OCRd by subscriber Lawrence Werrett.
Unlike the usual run-of-the-mill articles where we simply re-read a potted history of the band, readers had been asked to write-in with their questions. This generated some really interesting discussion, and it was here that you actually discovered new things relating to Camden’s finest.
Moving on, and it was time to warm up the credit cards or raid the piggy banks, as Madness fan Linda Barnwell announced that the was about to put a number of autographed Madness albums up for auction on Ebay.
All albums were missing Mike’s signature, as we were told that he was “too miserable to come down from his hotel room”. Linda’s words not ours.
Now, just when you thought you were free from the Madchart for another year, MTR subscriber, Andrew Langmead, came along to give us stats about the stats! So, with Paul Muscat’s blessing, we were treated to various interesting facts, figures and stats.
15 years ago…
Issue number 75 – Sunday 15th October to Saturday 21st October 2000
This issue began with some apologies in getting this week’s MIS out on to the internet. Like a large number of people in the online Madness community, the MIS editorial team had spent the Sunday afternoon travelling home after catching Crunch at their latest gig.
One thing missing from this issue was a review of the latest issue of the Madness Unsugged fanzine. Concerned that we’d get our copy crumpled, we asked zine editor Vince Carden to hold on to it for us. Unfortunately, we forgot to pick it back up off him after the Crunch gig had finished. So, until our copy arrived in the post, we’d have to wait to see what the latest issue had in store.
Did you fancy letting Madness tribute band One Step Behind, know what you thought of them? Well, you now had your chance, as their official site now played host to a guestbook. The band we’re keen to get your feedback, so it was up to you to let them know.
Moving on, and, Friday’s edition of The Daily Star featured an article about Boxman, the website that failed to float earlier in the year, and more recently, went into liquidation. One of the main backers of the Boxman start-up was none other than the loveable Suggs, who, the newspaper reported, lost around £600,000 when the company was forced to close. Would this mean that we’d be seeing a few more ads featuring Suggs over the coming months, in an effort to rake back some of the pennies?
On a slightly jollier note, the Total Madness Mailing List’s very own `7` reported that yesterday saw the first show of the new series of that classic Channel Five TV show – Night Fever. Fans of the show would almost certainly want to catch the Halloween-influenced episode of the programme appearing later in the month, entitled `Fright Fever`. One not to be missed!
How would you like to share a pint or two with none other than the legendary Suggs? Well, now could be your chance as Suggs would be pulling pints for a fund raising event for the NSPCC on October 26th in a pub called The French in Soho, London.
If anyone managed to get along we asked if they’d be kind enough toknock up a review of the night.
Onto this week’s collection of articles, and Vince Carden gave us a slew of newsbytes he’d lovingly compiled for us for inclusion.
Meanwhile, Nutty Bex reported on the Carphone Warehouse’s new selection of Madness ringtones that were now available to purchase.
We finished off with a lengthy and detailed review of the Crunch weekend, finishing by saying that we hoped it wouldn’t be too long until we saw them again.
Rob Hazelby
TIME…
That’s just about it for this week, but before we finish we just want to remind you to enter our Madstock CD/DVD prize winning competition.
It only takes a few minutes to submit an entry, and if you’re lucky you could have the new double-pack album winging its way to you in the post!
Good luck!
Until next week, take care,
Jon Young, Rob Hazelby, Simon Roberts, Paul Williams
(With thanks to Paul Rodgers and Holly Barringer at BMG)
The Author
